In the wake of intensifying debates on decolonisation and restitution in Africa and its francophone diaspora, a Facebook posting of 6 February 2020 gave an other life to a photographic portrait of the French-Italian explorer Savorgnan de Brazza taken in 1882.1 The uploaded digital scan of a photograph from nearly 140 years ago flashed up in a moment of contemporary hypervisibility, offering a visual pretext to denounce de Brazza and the effect of his interventions in Africa virtually and openly (...) on a public post, pulling the image out of the academic and archival environments it had until then mostly inhabited. (shrink)

In this chapter, I critically assess the ability of autobiographical documentary to convey an authentic portrayal of the self and analyze the cinematic means through which autobiographical documentaries may be able to do so. I compare and outline the chief differences between autobiographical documentaries and literary memoirs and assess the ways in which cognitive analysis of film and post-structuralist accounts within film theory and documentary studies have dealt with the distinction between fiction and nonfiction. I lastly consider new avenues of (...) autobiographical expression such as the ones potentially offered by social media, blogs, video diaries, personal websites, and so on. (shrink)

How does the use of military drones affect the legal, political, and moral responsibility of different actors involved in their deployment and design? This volume offers a fresh contribution to the ethics of drone warfare by providing, for the first time, a systematic interdisciplinary discussion of different responsibility issues raised by military drones. The book discusses four main sets of questions: First, from a legal point of view, we analyse the ways in which the use of drones makes the attribution (...) of criminal responsibility to individuals for war crimes more complicated and what adjustments may be required in international criminal law and in military practices to avoid ’responsibility gaps’ in warfare. From a moral and political perspective, the volume looks at the conditions under which the use of military drones by states is impermissible, permissible, or even obligatory and what the responsibilities of a state in the use of drones towards both its citizens and potential targets are. From a socio-technical perspective, what kind of new human machine interaction might drones bring and which new kinds of shared agency and responsibility? Finally, we ask how the use of drones changes our conception of agency and responsibility. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in ethics and to those in law, politics and the military involved in the design, deployment and evaluation of military drones. (shrink)

Popper’s theory of World 3 is often regarded as incongruent with his defense of methodological individualism. This article criticizes this widespread view. Methodological individualism is said to be at odds with three crucial assumptions of the theory of World 3: the impossibility of reducing World 3 to subjective mental states because it exists objectively, the view that the mental functions cannot be explained by assuming that individuals are isolated atoms, and the idea that World 3 has causal power and influences (...) both individual minds and actions. This article demonstrates that the inconsistency thesis stems from a confusion between methodological individualism as understood by Popper and reductionism. The reasons for this confusion are analyzed and clarified. It is argued that two variants of methodological individualism can be distinguished, and that unlike psychologistic individualism, Popper’s nonatomistic individualism is fully consistent with his theory of World 3. (shrink)

In this paper I refute an apparently obvious objection to Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities according to which if in the counterfactual scenario the agent does not act, then the agent could have avoided acting in the actual scenario. And because what happens in the counterfactual scenario cannot count as the relevant agent's actions given the sort of external control that agent is under, then we can ground responsibility on that agent having been able to avoid acting. (...) I illustrate how this objection to Frankfurt's famous counterexample is motivated by Frankfurt's own 'guidance' view of agency. My argument consists in showing that even if we concede that the agent does not act in the counterfactual scenario, that does not show that the agent could have avoided acting in the actual scenario. This depends on the crucial distinction between 'not φ-ing' and 'avoiding φ-ing'. (shrink)

This essay suggests that the 21st century knowledge economy represents a moderate form of moral community. To show this I first clarify the ideas of moral community and a knowledge economy. The latter reflects the emergence of high volume, high speed, high precision (or +VSP) electronic communications and exchange networks, both of which embody the ethical value of reciprocity. One result has been the emergence of commercially oriented knowledge communities. In conclusion, the +VSP communications knowledge economy raises several problems, about (...) truth, social turbulence, and democratic community. (shrink)

In recent works, Časlav Brukner and Jacques Pienaar have raised interesting objections to the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics. We answer these objections in detail and show that, far from questioning the viability of the interpretation, they sharpen and clarify it.

According to Plantinga, both the theistic and the Christian belief can be affirmed basically, namely, without proofs. Such a position—he tells us—traces back to Aquinas and Calvin. Here I intend to revisit Plantinga’s view of the relation between his own position and Aquinas’s. I shall argue that the type of harmony the Reformed philosopher believes to have with Aquinas is only partially present, and that there is a different type of affinity between the two thinkers—though Plantinga is not aware of (...) it. My aim is to show that Aquinas’s thought is really fruitful and inspiring to contemporary philosophy of religion, and that an outstanding thinker of our time such as Plantinga takes it as a reference point although does not entirely capture all its intellectual and spiritual depth. (shrink)

Hard Like Water represents a uniquely Canadian, and international, perspective in a field largely dominated by US writers. The accessible book sets up a "core ethic" that helps the reader to link a few, familiar core values: care for life, welfare, honest communication, and civil rights, with business practices. These values are supplemented by five performance maxims: do no harm; solve the problem; enable informed choice; act, learn, improve; and seek the common good. The book is designed to show how (...) ethical and social values are operative in business, both in North America and internationally, and to help both students and business people to understand how ethics can help solve business problems. (shrink)

Objective: Mindfulness disposition is associated with various psychological factors and prevent emotional distress in chronic diseases. In the present study, we analyzed the key role of mindfulness dispositions in protecting the individual against psychological distress consequent to COVID-19 social distancing and quarantining. Methods: An online survey was launched on March 13, 2020, with 6,412 responses by April 6, 2020. Socio-demographic information, exposure to the pandemic, and quarantining were assessed together with psychological distress and mindfulness disposition. Multivariate linear regression analysis was (...) performed to study the influence of predictive factors on psychological distress and quality of life in Italian responders during the early days of lockdown. Pearson correlations were calculated to study the relations between mindfulness and psychiatric symptoms. Results: Multivariate linear regression run on socio-demographics, COVID-19-related variables, and mindfulness disposition as moderators of overall psychological distress showed that mindfulness was the best predictor of psychological distress (β = -0.504; p =.000). High negative correlations were found between mindfulness disposition and overall Global Severity Index (r = -.637; p =.000), while moderate to high associations were found between mindfulness and all SCL-90 sub-scales. Discussion: Findings showed that high dispositional mindfulness enhances well-being and helps in dealing with stressful situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Mindfulness-based mental training could represent an effective intervention to stem the post-traumatic psychopathological beginnings and preventing the onset of chronic mental disorders. (shrink)

Social factors have so far been neglected in embodied theories of perception despite the wealth of phenomenological insights and empirical evidence indicating their importance. I examine evidence from developmental psychology and neuroscience and attempt an initial classification according to whether social factors play a contextual, enabling, or constitutive role in the ability to perceive objects in a detached manner, i.e. beyond their immediate instrumental use. While evidence of cross-cultural variations in perceptual styles and the influence of social cues on visual (...) attention could not be said to play more than a contextual role, other factors such as the intricate developmental links between dyadic and triadic interactions in infancy, as well as episodes of peer-learning in children, play enabling roles. A common element in these factors is the presence and resolution of interpersonal conflict. Detached object perception could not develop without these social factors. I argue, in addition, that social skills such as managing partial social acts which are addressed to and completed by others, linguistic mediation, makebelieve play, and the ability to control perspectival switches are constitutive -- i.e. are of the essence -- of the ability to see objects as present with a detached attitude. I discuss the prospects of incorporating such social elements into dynamical interpretations of the sensorimotor approach through the enactive notion of participatory sense-making. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the evolution of Husserl's view on the normativity of logic and the corresponding changes in his phenomenological analysis of judgment. Initially, in the Prolegomena, Husserl claimed that the laws of pure logic are ideal and acquire normative status only as a result of application. Later, however, he revised this position and claimed that the same laws are at once ideal and normative. Sections 1 and 2 present textual evidence for attributing such a change of position (...) to Husserl, which is not generally acknowledged in the literature. Section 3 critically examines Husserl's early position, with specific attention to the model of instantiation. Sections 4–6 identify three key stages in the development of Husserl's theory of judgment that lead to the normative conception of pure logic: (1) the critique of the dissociation of ideal content and assertive force; (2) the rejection of the instantiation model of proposition and the development of a new account in terms of identification; (3) the genetic‐phenomenological interpretation of proposition and the elaboration of the three‐layer structure of pure logic. (shrink)

The present study focused on the dynamics and factors underpinning domestic abuse survivors’ decisions to end the abusive relationship. The experiences and opinions of 12 female DA survivors and 18 support workers were examined through in-depth, one-to-one, semi-structured interviews. Hybrid thematic analysis was conducted to retrieve semantic themes and explore relationships among the themes identified and the differences in survivors’ and professionals’ narratives of the separation process. The findings highlighted that separation decisions derived from the joint action of two sets (...) of factors, the “promoters” and the “accelerators.” Whilst the “promoters” are factors leading to the separation from the abuser over time, the “accelerators” bear a stronger and more direct connection with survivors’ decision to end the abusive relationship. Despite their differences, both these factors acted as propelling forces, leading survivors to actively pursue the separation from the perpetrator. To portray the dynamic links among these factors, we propose a conceptualisation drawn from Newton’s laws of motion. Our findings also highlighted important differences in the views of survivors and support workers, as the former conceived themselves as proactive in ending the abuse, whereas the latter described the leaving process as mainly led by authorities and services supporting survivors. This study has potential implications for research, policy and clinical practice, as it suggests that far from being a linear sequence of multiple stages, leaving an abusive relationship results from a complex interplay of factors that facilitate or drastically accelerate the separation process. We argue that future research should aim at improving our current understanding of the subjective and situational factors that can act as “accelerators” or “promoters” for women’s leaving decisions. Moreover, clinicians and policymakers should invest in creating interventions that aid victims to recognise and leverage promoters and accelerators, thus increasing their readiness to end the abuse. (shrink)

In this article I analyze the dispute that Hannah Arendt engages with her former mentor on the activity of thinking. In this way, although it is possible to recognize different periods in the intellectual relationship between both philosophers, I show that the problem of thinking is a thread that allows us to articulate and clarify some of its oscillations. In this sense, although the lecture that Arendt pronounced in 1969 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Heidegger´s birth, tends (...) to be understood as a laudatio or celebration, contains a critical indication in regard of the persistence of certain proximity of Heideggerian philosophy with the main tradition of philosophy. From this point the controversy around the task of thinking that remains veiled but is fundamental can be reconstructed. (shrink)

The Principles of Corporate Governance require that business conduct conform to the law. In recent years, news reports of business misconduct have cast doubt on a conclusion that conformity is the prevalent practice. This article explores the influence of law on business conduct by comparing the law’s requirements and purposes with actual business conduct in the market. Specifically, it explores whether certain legal regimes are more effective than others in inducing greater commitment to legal compliance by corporate actors. The conclusion (...) drawn is that the prevalent legal regime – a vague common law or legislative mandate – is typically associated with corporate conduct that evades or ignores the law’s mandate or its underlying purpose. (shrink)

This paper is meant as a contribution to the longstanding debate among Husserl scholars regarding the relationship between time-consciousness and the I. From a genetic-phenomenological perspective, the I lives in the tension between passivity and activity. Exploring how the I relates to time-consciousness thus involves thematizing the interplay of passivity and activity at the most fundamental level of constitution. Specifically, it is necessary to determine whether there is an active form of temporalization. Acknowledging the ambiguities in Husserl’s late manuscripts on (...) time, this paper takes an indirect approach to this question. Relying primarily on Husserl’s analysis of active synthesis in his transcendental logic, I argue that being intellectually active requires an active form of temporalization, which establishes the specific rhythm of egoic activity. (shrink)

Seekers know that they will search all their lives not only for what they have lost, but above all for what they do not yet know and that they are not even sure exists. Augusto Cavadi, to whom this book is dedicated on his 70th birthday, is an indomitable seeker. For this reason a group of friends and colleagues wrote these collected testimonies, reflections, ideas and suggestions inspired by his writings and his life as an anti-academic philosopher without a tie--Translated (...) from back cover. (shrink)