Roberto Esposito is one of the most prolific and important exponents of contemporary Italian political theory.

This book by Roberto Esposito - a leading Italian political philosopher - is a highly original exploration of the relationship between human bodies and societies. The original function of law, even before it was codified, was to preserve peaceful cohabitation between people who were exposed to the risk of destructive conflict. Just as the human body's immune system protects the organism from deadly incursions by viruses and other threats, law also ensures the survival of the community in a life-threatening (...) situation. It protects and prolongs life. But the function of law as a form of immunization points to a more disturbing consideration. Like the individual body, the collective body can be immunized from the perceived danger only by allowing a little of what threatens it to enter its protective boundaries. This means that in order to escape the clutches of death, life is forced to incorporate within itself the lethal principle. Starting from this reflection on the nature of immunization, Esposito offers a wide-ranging analysis of contemporary biopolitics. Never more than at present has the demand for immunization come to characterize all aspects of our existence. The more we feel at risk of being infiltrated and infected by foreign elements, the more the life of the individual and society closes off within its protective boundaries, forcing us to choose between a self-destructive outcome and a more radical alternative based on a new conception of community. (shrink)

Roberto Esposito is one of leading figures in a new generation of Italian philosophers. This book criticizes the notion of the person and develops an original account of the concept of the impersonal - what he calls the third person.

Introduction : nothing in common -- Fear -- Guilt -- Law -- Ecstasy -- Experience -- Appendix : nihilism and community.

It is this paper’s aim to shed some light on the debate about the cultural debt of Niels Bohr towards his mentor and teacher of philosophy, Harald Høffding. The debate began at the end of seventies between two Danish scholars, Jan Faye and David Favrholdt, and in a broader sense it stands for way to show how philosophical influences may shape the scientist’s outlook on the world and consequently the approach to his field of studies. In my view, Edgar Rubin, (...) the famous psychologist and Bohr’s friend, is the key person to reconsider the Bohr-Høffding’s relationship. I shall adopt Gerald Holton’s thematic analysis for enucleating the possible thematic concept that supports the claim of a common line of thought emerging from Høffding, Rubin and Bohr’s conceptions with respect to their own field of study. Such a line of thought, i.e. the concept of unity, moulded Bohr’s view on the world and exerted its heuristic power in the formulation of the first atomic theory. (shrink)

"A pleasure to read. Gracefully written by a scholar well grounded in the relevant philosophical, historical, and technical background. . . . a helpfully clarifying review and analysis of some issues of importance to recent philosophy of science and a source of some illuminating insights."--Burke Townsend, Philosophy of Science.

ABSTRACT:The literatures of business ethics and international business have generally had little influence on each other. Nevertheless, the decline in the power of nation states, the emergence of non-governmental organizations, the proliferation of self-regulatory bodies, and the changing responsibilities, roles, and structure of multinational corporations make constructive engagement between these two disciplines imperative. This changing institutional landscape creates many areas of common concern. In this article, we describe the changing institutional context of global business and suggest ways in which both (...) business ethics and international business may inform each other more fruitfully. (shrink)

Contents: List of Contributors VII; Roberto Poli: Foreword IX-X; Roberto Poli: The Brentano puzzle: an introduction 1; Dallas Willard: Who needs Brentano? The wasteland of philosophy without its past 15; Claire Ortiz Hill: Introduction to Paul Linke's 'Gottlob Frege as philosopher' 45; Paul F. Linke: Gottlob Frege as philosopher 49; John Blackmore: Franz Brentano and the University of Vienna Philosophical Society 1888-1938 73; Alf Zimmer: On agents and objects: some remarks on Brentanian perception 93; Liliana Albertazzi: Perceptual saliences (...) and nuclei of meaning 113; Jan Srzednicki: Brentano and the thinkable 139; Claire Ortiz Hill: From empirical psychology to phenomenology. Edmund Husserl on the 'Brentano puzzle' 151; Serena Cattaruzza: Brentano and Boltzmann: the Schubladenexperiment 169; Karl Schuhmann: Johannes Daubert's theory of judgement 179; Evelyn Dölling: On Alexius Meinong's theory of signs 199; Robin Rollinger: Linguistic expressions and acts of meaning: comments on Marty's philosophy of language 215-225. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 37-39.

Whistleblowing is the public disclosure of information with the purpose of revealing wrongdoings and abuses of power that harm the public interest. This book presents a comprehensive theory of whistleblowing: it defines the concept, reconstructs its origins, discusses it within the current ethical debate, and elaborates a justification of unauthorized disclosures. Its normative proposal is based on three criteria of permissibility: the communicative constraints, the intent, and the public interest conditions. The book distinguishes between two forms of whistleblowing, civic and (...) political, showing how they apply in the contexts of corruption and government secrecy. The book articulates a conception of public interest as a claim concerning the presumptive interest of the public. It argues that public interest is defined in opposition to corporate powers and its core content identified by the rights that are all-purposive for the distribution of social benefits. A crucial part of the proposal is dedicated to the impact of security policies and government secrecy on civil liberties. It argues that unrestrained secrecy limits the epistemic entitlement of citizens to know under which conditions their rights are limited by security policies and corporate interests. When citizens are denied the right to assess when these policies are prejudicial to their freedoms, whistleblowing represents a legitimate form of political agency that safeguards the fundamental rights of citizens against the threat of unrestrained secrecy by government power. Finally, the book contributes to shifting the attention of democratic theory from the procedures of consent formation to the mechanisms that guarantee the expression of dissent. It argues that whistleblowing is a distinctive form of civil dissent that contributes to the demands of institutional transparency in constitutional democracies and explores the idea that the way institutions are responsive to dissent determines the robustness of democracy, and ultimately, its legitimacy. What place dissenters have within a society, whether they enjoy personal safety, legal protection, and safe channels for their disclosure, are hallmarks of a good democracy, and of its sense of justice. (shrink)

In this methodological reflection, I describe the multidisciplinary hermeneutic process of philosophizing about teacher dissatisfaction. I discuss how philosophy serves as a starting point for interpretive work based on interviews with former teachers and readings of qualitative and quantitative research on teacher attrition and dissatisfaction. The result has been a project that enabled me to offer new descriptions of phenomena and to develop concepts that can be used to interpret the moral dimensions of teacher dissatisfaction. The fact that I return (...) to language and concepts as my research outcomes is why, despite my multidisciplinary approach, I continue to describe my work as philosophical. I suggest that philosophical enquiry pursued through empirical research has the potential to inform larger empirical studies, serve as a “sensitizing instrument” for empirical analysis, and to open discursive spaces where common understandings limit interpretive possibilities. (shrink)

Moral madness is a symptom of the moral violence experienced by teachers who are expected to exercise responsibility for their students and their work, but whose moral voice is misrecognized as self-interest and whose moral agency is suppressed. I conduct a feminist ethical analysis of the figure of Cassandra to examine the ways in which teachers may be driven to moral madness.

The concept of formal ontology was first developed by Husserl. It concerns problems relating to the notions of object, substance, property, part, whole, predication, nominalization, etc. The idea of formal ontology is present in many of Husserl?s works, with minor changes. This paper provides a reconstruction of such an idea. Husserl?s proposal is faced with contemporary logical orthodoxy and it is presented also an interpretative hypothesis, namely that the original difference between the general perspective of usual model theory and formal (...) ontology is grounded in the fact that this latter starts from an intended interpretation and not from the set of all the possible interpretations. (shrink)

After Husserl and Heidegger, phenomenology has attempted to push the reduction beyond the reference of objects to the performances effected by consciousness, or of beings to Being. First, a new level of the reduction comes forth in M. Henry's radical reduction of appearing to the appearing of appearing, and leads to the disclosure of a dimension in which no horizons are to be fulfilled because the superabundance of life holds sway. Secondly, according to H. Rombach, the phenomena decribed in the (...) first two levels are nothing but epiphenomena, and must be explained in terms of structures that emerge in a creative development. Reality brings forth something from itself, and we must take advantage of this contribution in order to obtain more than what is anticipated in our projects. Thirdly, J.-L. Marion advances a theory on saturated phenomena in order to account for phenomena that surpass the bounds outlined for them in the mere significational intentions because they show a surplus of intuition. The three trends lead respectively to an originary phenomenality, an outbreak of phenomena, and saturated phenomena. The article contends that they tend to come together because they link the third level of phenomenology to a reflection that turns on the duality between what appears and its appearing, and, in doing so, disclose a surplus with regard to three different aspects of the duality, i.e., appearing as such, the overall condition of what appears, or the appearing of some preeminent phenomena. Finally, some anticipations of these trends in Husserl's transcendental phenomenology are shown.Luego de Husserl y Heidegger, la fenomenología ha intentado llevar la reducción más allá de la referencia de los objetos a las operaciones efectuadas por la conciencia o de los entes al ser. En primer lugar, un nuevo nivel de reducción se manifiesta en la reducción radical propuesta por M. Henry para retroceder del aparecer al aparecer del aparecer, y conduce al descubrimiento de una dimensión en que no hay horizontes que puedan ser plenificados porque impera la sobreabundancia del la vida. En segundo lugar, según H. Rombach, los fenómenos descritos en los dos primeros niveles no son otra cosa que epifenómenos y tienen que ser explicados en términos de estructuras que emergen en un desarrollo creador. La realidad produce algo a partir de sí misma, y esta contribución debe ser aprovechada a fin de alcanzar más de lo anticipado en nuestros proyectos. En tercer lugar, J.-L. Marion presenta una teoría sobre los fenómenos saturados a fin de dar cuenta de aquellos casos que exceden los límites que les han sido delineados en las intenciones significativas vacías porque muestran una demasía de intuición. Las tres tendencias conducen respectivamente a una fenomenalidad originaria, a un estallido del fenómeno y a una saturación del fenómeno. El artículo sostiene que tienden a converger porque vinculan el tercer nivel de la fenomenología con una reflexión en torno de la dualidad entre lo que aparece y su aparecer, y que, al hacerlo, ponen de manifiesto una excedencia respecto de tres aspectos distintos de la dualidad, esto es, el aparecer en cuanto tal, la condición general de lo que aparece o la aparición de algunos fenómenos preeminentes. Finalmente, se indican algunas anticipaciones de estas tendencias en la fenomenología trascendental de Husserl. (shrink)

This study documents how people who inject drugs in rural Puerto Rico perceive payments for participating in HIV epidemiological studies. In-depth interviews were conducted among a subset of active PWID older than 18 years of age who had been previously enrolled in a much larger study. Findings suggest that financial compensation was the main motivation for initially enrolling in the parent study. Then, as trust in the researchers developed, participants came to perceive compensation as part of a reciprocal exchange in (...) which they assisted researchers by providing a trustful account of their experiences and researchers reciprocated with financial support. (shrink)

Semen est sanguis Christianorum!—‘the blood of Christians is seed’—writes Tertullian at the end of his Apologeticum. This summing-up has justly become a cornerstone of Christian the...

The pattern of universality and redemption capsizes in the realm of politics. This chapter discusses the relationship of hermeneutics and politics in light of several moments in Western culture and philosophy. It bases this inquiry on Hans‐Georg Gadamer's ideas of hermeneutics, and begins with a discussion of his ontological commitments in order to assess their bearing on the question of politics. Gadamer sees agreement as the ontological outcome of conversations because it is antecedent to the conversation as well as its (...) only goal. Tradition is the source of questions, the tribunal that stipulates the criteria that will validate claims. If we accept that power and the concepts it uses possess both the weight of a dominant reasoning and its criteria to validate claims, then the characterization of politics carries with it the question of tradition and all its potentialities and concomitant problems. (shrink)

In his first interview to appear in English, Esposito answers a number of questions as they relate to his elaboration of an affirmative biopolitics. He suggests where his own understanding of biopolitics converges and diverges with other contemporary Italian thinkers working on biopolitics, namely Giorgio Agamben and Antonio Negri, and then offers a concise summary of his own work on immunity, especially as it emerges in his Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy. He concludes the interview with a series of reflections on (...) the meaning of death and birth for Nazism in light of its perverted concept of biopolitics. (shrink)

O artigo tenta diferenciar, caracterizar e ordenar diversas figuras da identidade na fenomenologia pós-husserliana. Em primeiro lugar, assinalam-se questões formuladas pela análise da ipseidade em Heidegger. Em segundo lugar, chama-se a atenção para duas tendências divergentes. Por um lado, Lévinas sustenta que uma fissão da identidade é o resultado da responsabilidade pelos outros, e Waldenfels desenvolve uma lógica da responsividade que questiona o autodesenvolvimento e a autopreservação. Por outro lado, Ricoeur sustenta que o ordenamento da vida num relato equivale a (...) uma identidade narrativa, e M. Henry oferece uma elaborada análise da vida interior como um processo de auto-afecção. Por último, tendo como base as distinções delineadas por X. Zubiri, afirma-se que existem fenômenos que oferecem um sustento a um sentido experiencial da identidade, e que isso pode se vincular à noção husserliana do eu como pólo, isto é, ao ponto de partida dos desenvolvimentos fenomenológicos.El artículo intenta diferenciar, caracterizar y ordenar diversas figuras de la identidad en la fenomenología post-husserliana. En primer lugar, se señalan cuestiones planteadas por el análisis de la ipseidad en Heidegger. En segundo lugar, se presta atención a dos tendencias divergentes. Por un lado, Levinas sostiene que una fisión de la identidad es el resultado de la responsabilidad por lo otros, y Waldenfels desarrolla una lógica de la responsividad que cuestiona el autodesarrollo y la autopreservación. Por otro lado, Ricoeur sostiene que el ordenamiento de la vida en un relato equivale a una identidad narrativa, y M. Henry ofrece un elaborado análisis de la vida interior como un proceso de autoafección. Por último, sobre la base de distinciones delineadas por X. Zubiri, se sostiene que hay fenómenos que ofrecen un sustento a un sentido experiencial de la identidad, y que esto puede vinculares a la noción husserliana de yo como polo, esto es, al punto de partida de los desarrollos fenomenológicos.This article attempts to differentiate, characterize and order various figures of identity in post-Husserlian phenomenology. First, issues raised by Heidegger's analysis of selfhood are pointed out. Secondly, attention is given to two divergent trends. On the one hand, Levinas contends that a fission of identity is the outcome of responsibility for others, and Waldenfels advances a logic of responsiveness that questions self-development and self-preservation. On the other hand, Ricoeur argues that the ordering of life in a story amounts to a narrative identity, and M. Henry affords an elaborate analysis of inward life as a process of self-affection. Finally, on the basis of distinctions outlined by X. Zubiri, it is contended that there are phenomena that uphold an experiential sense of identity. This can be linked to the Husserlian notion of an ego as a pole of acts, i.e., the starting point of phenomenological developments. (shrink)

Husserl proceeds to show how a world-representation emerges from our world-experience, and how an idea of the world plays a role in the expansion of world-representations. He also draws our attention to the appropriation of other world-representations in a process of adjustment and compensation leading to intersubjective world-representations, and offers an analysis of the status of world-representations within transcendental phenomenology. In this article I will underline the relevance of Husserl’s concept of horizonedness to the characterization of the three levels of (...) world-experience, worldrepresentation, and the world as an idea. In getting clear on this relevance several points must be emphasized. (shrink)

Volume 1 of Politics, a work in constructive social theory. Newly available, the complete work of Politicsa program for a comprehensive progressive alternative to the dominant ideologies of social democracy and neo-liberalismfrom one of the worlds leading social and political thinkers. False necessity is the central theme in the three-volume series Politics. It presents both a way of explaining society and a program for changing it. The explanation develops a radical alternative to Marxism, showing how we can account for established (...) social arrangements without denying their contingency or our freedom. The program offers a progressive alternative to the now-dominant ideological conceptions of neoliberalism and social democracy: a set of institutional innovations that would democratize markets, deepen democracy and empower individuals. For this new edition, Unger has written a comprehensive introduction that explores the limits of our understanding of society and our practice of politics, and reconsiders proposals contained in the book as special cases of a larger family of untried political possibilities. (shrink)

This is the text of a conversation that follows up on Roberto Farneti’s article “A Minor Philosophy: The State of the Art of Philosophical Scholarship in Italy” published in Philosophia 38 (1) 2009: 1–28. After a brief introductory note that details the reception of the article in Italy, Ferrara and Farneti engage in a conversation on the notion of “minor philosophy” and on the meaning and future of philosophizing “from the periphery” in a globalized world. The text is followed (...) by a short Appendix, a reply to Annalisa Coliva’s commentary on Farneti’s article. (shrink)

In a work of unusual ambition and rigorous comparison, Roberto Romani considers the concept of 'national character' in the intellectual histories of Britain and France. Perceptions of collective mentalities influenced a variety of political and economic debates, ranging from anti-absolutist polemic in eighteenth-century France to appraisals of socialism in Edwardian Britain. Romani argues that the eighteenth-century notion of 'national character', with its stress on climate and government, evolved into a concern with the virtues of 'public spirit' irrespective of national (...) traits, in parallel with the establishment of representative institutions on the Continent. His discussion of contemporary thinkers includes Montesquieu, Voltaire, Hume, Millar, Burke, Constant, de Staël and Tocqueville. After the mid-nineteenth century, the advent of social scientific approaches, including those of Spencer, Hobson and Durkheim, shifted the focus from the qualities required by political liberty to those needed to operate complex social systems, and to bear its psychological pressures. (shrink)

Behavioral economics has potential to offer novel solutions to some of today's most pressing public health problems: How do we persuade people to eat healthy and lose weight? How can health professionals communicate health risks in a way that is heeded? How can food labeling be modified to inform healthy food choices? Behavioral Economics and Public Health is the first book to apply the groundbreaking insights of behavioral economics to the persisting problems of health behaviors and behavior change. In addition (...) to providing a primer on the behavioral economics principles that are most relevant to public health, this book offers details on how these principles can be employed to mitigating the world's greatest health threats, including obesity, smoking, risky sexual behavior, and excessive drinking. With contributions from an international team of scholars from psychology, economics, marketing, public health, and medicine, this book is a trailblazing new approach to the most difficult and important problems of our time. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a brief presentation of Husserl’s lectures dedicated to the philosophy of Fichte, specifically the discussion of the relationship between ethics and religion that the fichtian texts develop in its intermediate phase. The course taught by Husserl, divided into three lessons and presented in the chair of Freiburg between the years 1917 and 1918, seems to clearly show the intimate connection between Husserl proposals on an absolute foundation of ethics and the theory advocated by Fichte about (...) the different stages or degrees of moral development of mankind. More than that, both idealistic philosophical positions conceive a close relation between the conception of an ethical ideal and the defense of a view about human nature that understands it as a pure acting of consciousness. In this regard, the paper aims to indicate, albeit incipiently, how epistemology, ethics, and religion appear intertwined in a systematic manner in the two theories. (shrink)

One of the most intriguing bio-objects in the emerging field of regenerative medicine is umbilical cord blood. Employed in existing haematological therapies, but also loaded with potentialities for future uses, cord blood has been lately the focus of a regulatory debate which confronts public and private forms of biobanking. This article explores the political and anthropological side of this debate, describing the ways in which different health practices related to the umbilical cord (and to its symbolic sibling, the placenta) have (...) been involved in processes of societal production and reproduction. Through the use of ethnological and historical data, and their comparison with current practices, I contend that the technical manipulation of cords and placentas goes much longer into the past than what a first glance suggests, and that these two objects can be understood as biological spaces in which forms of social belonging and versions of the societal bond are at play. The current conflict between public and private cord blood banks is therefore interpreted as part of a longer history of bodily practices, and as reflecting recent mutations in the biopolitical constitution of advanced liberal societies. (shrink)

SummaryThis article deals with laissez faire arguments as distinguishable in Europe between the final decades of the nineteenth century and 1914. The focus is on Herbert Spencer and the British ‘Individualists’, the Italian Vilfredo Pareto, and the Frenchman Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. Analysis concentrates on the relationship between laissez faire formulations and democracy, the latter amounting to the impact of the extension of the franchise on representative government. All the mentioned authors blamed the mechanisms of democratic government for the contemporary growth in (...) state functions. While Spencer focused on the threat of a new class legislation after the demise of aristocratic power, Pareto and Leroy-Beaulieu viewed the pressure of lobbies and parties as the chief cause of the extension of state interventions. This article also aims to detect similarities and differences with more recent formulations. It is argued that Friedrich Hayek's achievement was to reconcile, against earlier perspectives, laissez faire with democracy. The reconciliation rested on a conceptualisation of democracy as a valuable method or procedure, onto which no values should be grafted. (shrink)