This chapter explores the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on digital democracy, focusing on four main areas: citizenship, participation, representation, and the public sphere. It traces the evolution from electronic to virtual and network democracy, underscoring how each stage has broadened democratic engagement through technology. Focusing on digital citizenship, the chapter examines how AI can improve online engagement while posing privacy risks and fostering identity stereotyping. Regarding political participation, it highlights AI's dual role in mobilising civic actions and spreading misinformation. (...) Regarding representation, AI's involvement in electoral processes can enhance voter registration, e-voting, and the efficiency of result tabulation but raises concerns regarding privacy and public trust. Also, AI's predictive capabilities shift the dynamics of political competition, posing ethical questions about manipulation and the legitimacy of democracy. Finally, the chapter examines how integrating AI and digital technologies can facilitate democratic political advocacy and personalised communication. However, this also comes with higher risks of misinformation and targeted propaganda. (shrink)

The article argues that AI can enhance the measurement and implementation of democratic processes within political parties, known as Intra-Party Democracy (IPD). It identifies the limitations of traditional methods for measuring IPD, which often rely on formal parameters, self-reported data, and tools like surveys. Such limitations lead to partial data collection, rare updates, and significant resource demands. To address these issues, the article suggests that specific data management and Machine Learning techniques, such as natural language processing and sentiment analysis, can (...) improve the measurement and practice of IPD. (shrink)

Young adults show an immediate emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) when emotional and non-emotional information are presented in mixed lists but not pure lists, but it is unclear whether older adults’ memories also benefit from the cognitive factors producing the list-composition effect. The present study examined whether the list-composition effect extended to older adults (55+), testing the following alternatives: (1) younger and older adults could show the list-composition effect, (2) due to age-related decreases in cognitive resources, older adults may show (...) weaker effects of list-composition, or (3) due to age-related positivity effects, older adults’ list-composition effect may vary by valence. Results supported the first alternative: the list-composition effect occurred for older as well as younger adults, when testing memory for pictures (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2). In a third experiment, we explored whether mixing information at only encoding or retrieval (and blocking in the other phase) would suffice for the list composition effect to occur. Results revealed that mixed encoding/blocked retrieval did not elicit the EEM in either age group. Overall, the results suggest age-related stability in the cognitive processes that give rise to the immediate EEM. (shrink)

This paper analyzes creative practice including virtual music composition by a human and sets of computer programs, improvisation of music and dance in human-robot ensembles, and drawings produced by a human and a robotic arm. In all of these examples, the paper argues that creativity arises from a process of human-robot collaboration. Human influences on the machines involved exist at many levels, from initial creation and programming, via processes of reprogramming and setup of underlying data and parameters, to engagement throughout (...) the process of creative production. The decision to value a machine as a creative other is supported most strongly when collaborating with the machine directly, while witnessing the creative team at work, as opposed simply to seeing the result, is more likely to bring an audience to a similar understanding. The creativity of the human-machine collaborations analyzed in this paper relies on close interaction, within which there is a continual recognition of the otherness of the machine and its nonhuman abilities. Such relations can be theorized by extending Emmanuel Levinas’ conception of the face-to-face encounter within which self and other are brought into proximity, but the alterity of the other is nonetheless retained. The paper’s analysis of creative interactions between humans and robots supports the idea that machines need not be regarded as challenging human artistic practice, but rather enable new ways for creativity to arise through human-machine collaborations within which human and nonhuman creative abilities are combined. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to propose the notion of “affective artifact”, building on an analogy with theories of cognitive artifacts and referring to the development of a situated affective science. Affective artifacts are tentatively defined as objects that have the capacity to alter the affective condition of an agent, and that in some cases play an important role in defining that agent’s self. The notion of affective artifacts will be presented by means of examples supported by empirical findings, (...) by discussing a tentative definition and classification, and by considering several related but differing notions. Within the framework of situated affectivity, the notion of affective artifacts will represent a further step in the enterprise of understanding how the environment helps us scaffold our affective processes. I will conclude that affective artifacts play a key role in the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of technology and in the debate about the self. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 71-73.

Gianantonio Tadini (1754–1830) is the little known protagonist in an important experiment carried out in Bergamo between 1794 and 1795. Based on the measurement of the deviation of a falling body, the experiment owes much to the one that was conducted by Giambattista Guglielmini (1760–1817) in Bologna in 1791, which aimed at demonstrating Earth’s rotation. Tadini’s experimental work represents the most successful attempt carried out before the 19th century, and it led to the first correct formulation of deviation’s measurement. In (...) spite of this, it is not well represented in the general literature on the history of experiments intended to show diurnal Earth’s motion.1 The discovery of Tadini’s diary of experiments as well as some notes and a part of his correspondence – preserved as manuscripts in the Angelo Mai municipal library in Bergamo – allows us now to reconstruct the history of Tadini’s experiment and of his reasoning about Guglielmini’s work. In this paper, I describe the genesis and the development of Tadini’s experiment, clarify the role played by the different personalities involved and set these trials against the background of the widest history of proofs on diurnal Earth’s rotation carried out in Europe in those years. (shrink)

Othello truly loves Desdemona and yet, this paper argues, he wants on some level to believe in her infidelity. But if he loves her so much, why would he want to believe in something that would destroy that love? The answer to this mystery, I contend, must be found in the connections between jealousy, love, and the great existential fragility to which love can expose us—connections that Shakespeare's play is capable of illuminating in uniquely powerful and profound ways.

The so-called gammadiae are symbols similar to letters whose specific meaning is unknown. It is currently believed that they could have originated among Hellenistic Jews, and been inherited by Christians, who adapted them to own needs. They seem to have indicated the holiness of the characters marked by them. Building on previous analysis and on the recent systematic cataloguing of the Early Christian catacombs of Rome, as well as a range of other artefacts, we examine two lesser known archaeological finds, (...) and finally consider some examples of gammadiae “of transition”, which appear during the Medieval period predominantly in manuscripts or in the mosaics of basilicas. These last symbols show differences from the Early Christian ones, even though they still appear systematically on the pallia of Christ, the martyrs, saints and other holy people. (shrink)

The paper first analyzes some relevant passages from Kant’s essay On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns and his understanding of the right of necessity in the Metaphysics of Morals and in the essay On the Old Saw: That May Be Right in Theory But It Won’t Work in Practice, in order to reflect on the more general question of whether it is possible from the Kantian point of view to allow legitimate exceptions to the moral principle. (...) It then focuses on some aspects of Hegel’s theory of action in the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right to emphasize his attention to the context and consequences of action and then show how Hegel addresses or would address the same problems related to responsibility in cases of exception from the commonly valid and accepted moral and legal norm. This will bring to light two different perspectives with respect to how to ground responsibility, which still provide important insights today. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMany recent studies either assert that the concept of virtue in eighteenth-century Italian intellectual culture is a polysemous term without really explaining its meaning, or concentrate on just one of its many facets. However, so far no study has explored the shades of meaning ascribed to ‘virtue’ to their full extent. This study is an attempt to reconstruct the eighteenth-century Italian intellectual perspective on virtue and to reveal its geographical complexities, its semantic evolutionary curve, and its interconnections in different fields. (...) The aim is not to create a simple ‘map’, but rather to focus on the limits of the intellectual debate in defining and communicating virtue, and to envisage the understanding of the political functions of virtue through more popular and widespread media such as poetic texts. Despite its ever-changing meaning, virtue remains not only a keyword of political discourse over the century, but also stands as one of the very pillars on which powerful imageries of political communication were constructed. Therefore, this article provides a first step towards an analysis of political communication in eighteenth-century Italy, which, in subsequent studies, will take into account poetic sources, which at that time were regarded as an effective instrument to overcome the aforementioned intellectual limits and better exploit the possibilities of a rhetoric of virtue. (shrink)

In 1919, Dorothy Wrinch suggested how to extend Russell’s multiple relation theory of judgment in order for the theory to be able to account also for molecular and quantified judgments. In this paper, some worries for her extension, which all stem from metaphysical considerations, will be presented and what Wrinch said and could have said about them will be discussed.

The paper describes a highly specific Italian action research experience, connected with the trade unions, going through different phases from the 1970s to the present day. The journey is not only a journey through time but also through different approaches. It ranges from the initial experience focusing on health and safety problems at the workplace involving the workers as co-designers of new working environments to today’s search conference experience. For each phase there is a full description and comment on the (...) methods utilised by the research group. The main methodological shift described in the paper is the one from discussion groups, based on Bion’s thinking, to the search conferences, based on Emery’s line of thinking. Both are oriented to the subjectivity of the people involved, although in the discussion group experience the research groups considered the subjectivity of the people involved as the subject of the observation. The researchers’ aim of was to acquire a reliable knowledge of what was at stake and to pass it on to the union that organised the research in order to promote actions. Hence, the action-research circuit is based upon different actors and the process is integrated only from the point of view of the union. In the search conference experience the researchers are involved in a co-design process and so the action-research circuit is really integrated from the researchers’ perspective; there are, of course, multiple perspectives in this case and this opens up epistemological problems that are not discussed in the paper. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 110 Heft: 3 Seiten: 719-748.

Dans l’épicurisme, la réflexion éthique trouve son fondement dans le discours sur la nature qui explique à l’individu les phénomènes qui l’entourent et qui, la plupart du temps, l’angoissent sans raison. Ce discours concerne-t-il aussi le monde végétal? Quel rôle jouent les plantes dans le Jardin d’Épicure? L’étude cherche à reconstituer la physiologie épicurienne des plantes à partir d’un témoignage contenu dans les Placita philosophorum 2. Des phénomènes comme la nutrition et la croissance, attribués à des plantes pourtant conçues comme (...) des êtres inanimés, sont à questionner. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest an understanding of the self within the conceptual framework of situated affectivity, proposing the notion of an affectively extended self and arguing that the construction, diachronic re-shaping and maintenance of the self is mediated first by affective interactions. We initially consider the different variations on the conception of the extended self that have been already proposed in the literature. We then propose our alternative, contextualising it within the current debate on situated affectivity. While the idea (...) that we exploit the external environment in order to manage our affective life is now rather widespread among philosophers, its potential consequences for and connections with the debate on the self remain underexplored. Drawing on James’ intuition of the “material self”, which clearly connects the self and the emotions in agency, and broadly envisioning an extension of the self beyond its organismic boundaries, we propose our pragmatist conception of the self: an affectively extended self that relies on affective artifacts and practices to construct its identity extended beyond skin and skull. (shrink)

L’articolo presenta e discute gli scarni dati biografici disponibili su Rorgone Fretello, autore di una fortunata topografia della Terra Santa della prima metà del XII secolo (Descriptio de locis sanctis), e offre un quadro relativo alle due redazioni note dell’opera, inquadrando i principali aspetti legati alla loro tradizione manoscritta, alla ricezione e alla storia editoriale. Mentre la prima redazione, dedicata al vescovo boemo Enrico Sdyck, conta sei codici, la seconda, che è destinata al conte spagnolo Rodrigo di Toledo e di (...) cui in questa sede viene discussa e confermata la paternità fretelliana, godette di maggiore successo: essa è trasmessa da quarantadue testimoni e costituisce la fonte di successive opere geografiche sulla Terra Santa. In appendice si fornisce un confronto tra i testi critici dei due prologhi, allo scopo di offrire un saggio delle modifiche messe in atto nel passaggio dalla prima alla seconda redazione della Descriptio. (shrink)

The benefits of full ectogenesis, that is, the gestation of human fetuses outside the maternal womb, for women ground many contemporary authors’ arguments on the ethical desirability of this practice. In this paper, I present and assess two sets of arguments advanced in favour of ectogenesis: arguments stressing ectogenesis’ equality-promoting potential and arguments stressing its freedom-promoting potential. I argue that although successfully grounding a positive case for ectogenesis, these arguments have limitations in terms of their reach and scope. Concerning their (...) limited reach, I contend that ectogenesis will likely benefit a small subset of women and, arguably, not the group who most need to achieve equality and freedom. Concerning their limited scope, I contend that these defences do not pay sufficient attention to the context in which ectogenesis would be developed and that, as a result, they risk leaving the status quo unchanged. After providing examples of these limitations, I move to my proposal concerning the role of ectogenesis in promoting women’s equality and freedom. This proposal builds on Silvia Federici’s, Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s and Selma James’ readings of the international feminist campaign ‘Wages for Housework’. It maintains that the political perspective and provocation that ectogenesis can advance should be considered and defended. (shrink)

Three main motivations can explain compliance with social norms: fear of peer punishment, the desire for others' esteem and the desire to meet others' expectations. Though all play a role, only the desire to meet others' expectations can sustain compliance when neither public nor private monitoring is possible. Theoretical models have shown that such desire can indeed sustain social norms, but empirical evidence is lacking. Moreover it is unclear whether this desire ranges over others' “empirical” or “normative” expectations. We propose (...) a new experimental design to isolate this motivation and to investigate what kind of expectations people are inclined to meet. Results indicate that, when nobody can assign either material or immaterial sanctions, the perceived legitimacy of others' normative expectations can motivate a significant number of people to comply with costly social norms. (shrink)

Research relating to the definition of man is an activity that has engaged Kant since the beginning of his philosophy and, in this regard, an important contribution can be drawn from the theory of the sublime. The sublime is one of the undisputed protagonists of the _Critique of the power of judgement_, but its role is not limited to the completion of aesthetic theory, as it also stands out for its ability to render an exhaustive portrait of man in Kant's (...) philosophy. (shrink)

"Un monde fait d'atomes et de vide, des phénomènes réductibles aux mouvements et aux formes des atomes : ce sont là deux aspects bien connus de la philosophie matérialiste et mécaniste d'Épicure. Une telle conception de l'univers peut-elle cependant rendre véritablement compte de l'être vivant et de sa physiologie? Comment un rassemblement de matière aléatoirement combinée produirait-il un organisme? Et si le vivant est une sorte de mécanisme, qu'est-ce qui différencie un mécanisme vital des autres? L'ouvrage examine de façon systématique (...) les réponses épicuriennes à ces questions en s'attachant notamment à les replacer dans un dialogue avec les philosophes antérieurs, principalement Démocrite et Aristote."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Ce livre met le doigt sur l'un des paradoxes les plus profonds parce que les plus anciens de la culture occidentale : dans un même mouvement, les femmes se trouvent exclues de la rationalité, et l'âme n'est pensée qu'à l'aide de métaphores féminines. Cette lecture des textes classiques est un voyage au coeur de la culture occidentale où s'enracine un questionnement de la différence des sexes.

In the book De laudibus divinae sapientiae, according to Gilles, two opposite motors are at work in the human soul, sense and reason: the first one leads the man to evil; the second one to good. However Gilles gets the Thomist argument back to warn the reader that man, to reach the knowledge of the eternal truth and his own salvation, needs a third motor, which compensates for the limits of human reason.Therefore the human reason arranges the soul lower powers, (...) while it itself is governed by the Holy Spirits gifts, that form its supernatural habitus. These gifts lead the soul, through an anagogic, gnosiological and moral process, to a gradual conversion to the divine supreme Wisdom.The book under consideration reveals so some important changes in Gilles’ doctrine. We’ll analyze the problem of the human possibility to know and love God, according to Gilles’ theses before and with the Scholastic debates. (shrink)

In this paper the author focuses on the reflections of Friedrich Schlegel on the concept of history. The works considered here range from 1798 to 1805 and include Schlegel’s essays, lessons, personal notes and fragments. In those years the reflections on the plurality of stories and genealogies against the singularity of History are central. “History” will emerge as a regulatory ideal of the narrative, but also of praxis. This paper will also show the limits of Koselleck’s analysis of Schlegel’s thought.