This study is based on the Acts of Peter, an apocryphal writing of the New Testament. The book, which is actually a work “pious”, popular and exemplary, recounts numerous episodes of magic. Of special interest to maintain the pulse Simon Peter vs Simon Magus, doing magic and miracles in Rome. The ideological background of the book is is an attack against the figure of the bad Roman emperors, whose model is Nerone, character ridiculed as murderer and persecutor of Christians.

Este estudio está basado en los Hechos de Pedro, un escrito apócrifo del Nuevo Testamento. El libro, que es en realidad una obra piadosa, popular y ejemplarizante, narra numerosos episodios de magia. Resulta de especial interés el pulso que mantienen Simón Pedro y Simón Mago, realizando prodigios y milagros sin fin en Roma. El trasfondo ideológico del escrito es un alegato contra la figura de los malos emperadores romanos, cuyo modelo es Nerón, personaje ridiculizado y tachado de asesino y perseguidor (...) de los cristianos. (shrink)

As the purpose of this book is to open dialogue, we draw no conclusions. Instead, reflecting on the theoretical and practical implications that arise from each chapter, we offer some reflection through an exploration of the ways in which Australia has broadened discussions on P4C. In addition, we situate our discussion in contemporary global issues relevant to education and schooling: gender stereotyping, bias and language; Aboriginal philosophy; environmental education; and sexuality, adolescence and discrimination. As a community of children, adolescents and (...) adults, philosophers and educators, as well as citizens, we have an opportunity to contribute educationally to an inquiring society. (shrink)

Contemporary socio-political issues often seen as socially controversial and highly politicised topics, such as anthropogenic climate change, public scepticism over preventive public health measures during pandemics such as COVID-19, and Indigenous sovereignty, lands rights, and ways of knowing, being and doing, highlight the need for education to address such issues more effectively. Controversial issues do not exist in isolation. They are connected to questions of order, interpretation, meaning-making, ethics, and why and how we live, i.e., to philosophical questions. We argue (...) that philosophical inquiry is essential for dealing with controversial topics in the classroom. However, we point to the need for teachers to understand the role of the community of inquiry in addressing such topics. This has implications for teacher preparation. We, therefore, examine John Dewey’s use of experiential education to argue for rethinking teacher preparation, especially when dealing with controversial topics which point to the need for greater emphasis on how best to engage with them philosophically. To this end, we will argue in favour of a reconstruction of educational philosophy, specifically the community of inquiry, by integrating a Deweyan inspired place-based education that emphasises environment, experience, and social reconstruction learning. (shrink)

Emerging from thought-provoking discussions and correspondence Simone Weil had with the Reverend Father Perrin, this classic collection of essays contains her most profound meditations on the relationship of human life to the realm of the transcendant.An enlightening introduction by Leslie Fiedler examines Weil's extraordinary roles as a philosophy teacher turned mystic. "One of the most neglected resources of our century ", Waiting for God will continue to influence spiritual and political thought for centuries to come.

Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the priest to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals.

_Oppression and Liberty_ is one of Simone Weil's most important books on political theory.Here she discusses political and social oppression, its permanent causes, the way it works and its contemporary forms. Simone Weil's writings on oppression and liberty continue to be as valid and thought-provoking today as they were in her lifetime.

In Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks , Simone Weil discusses precursors to Christian religious ideas which can be found in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy. She looks at evidence of "Christian" feelings in Greek literature, notably in Electra, Orestes, and Antigone , and in the Iliad , going on to examine God in Plato, and divine love in creation, as seen by the ancient Greeks.

This article addresses some Late Scholastic accounts (Suárez, Abra de Raçonis, Gamaches, Ysambert, Arriaga), of the “problem of transduction” in angels, as a possible source for the genesis of early modern occasionalism, particularly La Forge’s and Cordemoy’s. Indeed, if the “problem of transduction” is a structural issue of all the Aristotelian gnoseology, the impossibility of interaction between immaterial and material substance concerns, more generally, all spiritual substances, posing the issue about the principle of "transduction" already at the level of angels, (...) entirely immaterial creatures, unable to any relationship with the bodies. In order to answer to this peculiar version of the 'problem of transduction' Late Scholastic elaborate doctrines that are direct antecedents of occasionalist ones, and which likely directly influenced early modern occasionalism. To follow this investigative path, I will intersect three complementary argumentative lines. First, I will focus on Late Scholastic angelology, to point out how the need to solve the 'problem of transduction' in this peculiar context pushes the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Schools to a proto-occasionalist conception of angelic innatism. Secondly, I will identify in the debate on the angelic locutio of the key places for the elaboration of a model that sees God as the only efficient cause and the only guarantor of the mind's communications and contents. Thirdly, I will stress how the Late Scholastic angelological debates could be an important source for early modern dualism and the seventeenth-century occasionalism, notably for La Forge and Cordemoy. -/- . (shrink)

According to one of the most influential definitions, formulated by Michel Foucault in his Les anormaux, the monster is, since the Middle Ages, a violation of a “bio-juridical” order. In critically discussing the historical plausibility of this claim this article explores medical and philosophical conceptions of monsters between medieval and early modern period, addressing in particular the matter of the relationships between first and second causes in nature's errors. The main authors dealt with are Thomas Aquinas, Ambroise Paré, Francisco Toledo (...) and Fortunio Liceti. What emerges is that up to the 17 th century monsters were always conceived as products – and not as real contradictions – of a nature ordered by God's will, goodness and perfection, without a real “bio-juridical” order (as Foucault thinks). (shrink)

This article deals with the concept of “mechanism” from a historical point of view, focusing on its relationship with the evolution of hylomorphism in the 17th century. I try to address the following questions: is mechanism structurally bound to materialism or does it rather represent a form of complete determinism, reconcilable with an “updated” version of hylomorphism? In the first part of the essay, I make the point that the very notion of “mechanism” must be clarified by means of a (...) distinction between Boylean experimental mechanism and what Daniel Garber has called the “pre-history of the Mechanical Philosophy”. My aim is to highlight how the deterministic (and nominalistic) hylomorphism developed in the 17th Century came quite close to mechanism. In this framework, I present the ‘strange case’ of Marin Cureau de La Chambre (1594-1669), which represents a characteristic compromise – based on the possibility of a not bodily extension – between a deterministic mechanization of the lower functions of the vegetative and sensitive soul and Campanella’s panpsychism. (shrink)

A partire dalla seconda metà del Novecento la questione della mostruosità è stata oggetto – insieme a quella del prodigio, da cui si differenzia soltanto parzialmente – di un crescente interesse accademico. Gli studi riguardanti la funzione antropologica, cosmologica, estetica e naturalistica dei mostri, sono oramai tanto numerosi e tanto vari nell'approccio da renderne ardua anche solo una parziale enumerazione. Difficilmente potremmo esimerci dal menzionare un autore come Jurgis Baltrušaitis, che così acutamente ha posto il tema della funzione estetica del (...) mostruoso e del deforme, e allo stesso modo non potremmo dimenticare gli ormai classici studi storici e interpretativi di Claude-Claire Kappler, Jean Céard, Jacques Le Goff, Leslie Fiedler o David Williams, la cui scelta di prender parte alla nostra rassegna ci ha sinceramente onorati. Così facendo, tuttavia, trascureremmo lavori davvero pregevoli, come (solo per dirne alcuni) il poderoso tomo prodotto da Lorraine J. Daston e Katharine Park, il prezioso volumetto di José Gil, la ricca raccolta a cura di Charles T. Wolfe, la voluminosa storia della teratologia di Olivier Roux e le profonde riflessioni di Richard Kearney. Sarebbe possibile proseguire con un elenco di molte pagine, che includerebbe senz'altro i molti e altrettanto degni di nota lavori di alcuni degli autori di questa raccolta, che, con gli altri, ringraziamo: Albrecht Classen, Peter G. Platt, Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis, David Gilmore... (shrink)

Lo Stato commerciale chiuso di J. G. Fichte fornisce un punto di vista sul rapporto tra economia e politica, agire interessato e agire etico, che consente di porre alcune distinzioni critiche all’interno della discussione attuale sulla ‘globalizzazione’. A partire dall’analisi della struttura stessa del sapere, emerge una nozione di libertà che vieta di intendere il problema nei termini di opposizione tra garanzia e controllo, libertà e limitazione. È proprio una tale idea che struttura gli ordinamenti politico-economici e giuridici e indica (...) le possibilità di ottenere l’equità economico-sociale e la pace internazionaleJ. G. Fichte's Closed Commercial State treats of the relation between economy and politics, and between self-interest and ethics, and thus may offer an important contribution to the current debate on globalisation. From Fichte's analysis of the structure of knowledge emerges a concept of freedom that disallows simple oppositions between guarantees and controls, or freedom and restriction. This analysis orders Fichte's account of political, legal and economic activity and evinces the possibility of social and economic justice, as well as international peace. (shrink)

This paper addresses Suárez’s understanding of imagination and phantasy, dealing with it in the general Aristotelian debate on the internal senses. Paragraph 1 sketches Aristotle’s, Avicenna’s and Aquinas’s accounts of imagination, examining especially the boundary between human and animal cognition. Paragraph 2 addresses especially the Jesuits’ understanding of the topology of the internal senses, linking it with the Jesuit strategy for the demonstration of the soul’s immateriality and immortality. Paragraphs 3 and 4 deal with Suárez’s simplification of the internal senses, (...) aimed at establishing a direct opposition between intellection (in men) and a general lower cognitive activity founded in the use of sensory representations (shared by men and animals). Paragraphs 5 and 6 focus on the role of phantasy in Suárez’s account of the illumination of phantasms, on Suárez’s use of Scotus’ concepts of ‘sympathy’, and ‘concomitance’ and the relevance of such a model in the demonstration of the soul’s immortality. (shrink)

​Al principio della Meditatio Sexta, tappa conclusiva del capolavoro di Descartes, si schiude una frattura fondamentale. È quella tra intelletto e immaginazione, autentica premessa per la dimostrazione – a cui l’opera cartesiana punta sin dal titolo – della distinzione reale di mente e corpo. Come d’altra parte Descartes sottolinea già nella Synopsis (sconfessando alcune interpretazioni odierne), la reciproca alterità ontologica tra le due res non viene garantita a seguito dell’approdo al punto archimedeo del cogito della Meditatio Secunda, ma solamente a (...) seguito di un complesso iter di abductio e subductio dei contenuti della mens che culmina nel capitolo conclusivo. Qui la mens, avendo già stabilito l’esistenza, la perfezione e la veracità di Dio, fa finalmente i conti con sé stessa, mettendo mano all’analisi dei disparati elementi che hanno composto, sino a quel momento, una definizione quasi fenomenologica dell’ego cogitans come un quid «dubitans, intelligens, affirmans, negans, volens, nolens, imaginans quoque, et sentiens». (shrink)

While discourse and deliberation cannot replace voting, bargaining, or compromise, Chambers argues, it is important to maintain a background moral conversation in which to anchor other activities.

_Gravity and Grace_ shows Weil's religious thoughts and ideas, drawn from many sources - Christian, Jewish, Indian, Greek and Hindu - and focusing on suffering and redemption. It brings the reader face to face with the profoundest levels of existence as Weil explores the relationship of the human condition to the realm of the transcendent.

The pathologies of the democratic public sphere, first articulated by Plato in his attack on rhetoric, have pushed much of deliberative theory out of the mass public and into the study and design of small scale deliberative venues. The move away from the mass public can be seen in a growing split in deliberative theory between theories of democratic deliberation (on the ascendancy) which focus on discrete deliberative initiatives within democracies and theories of deliberative democracy (on the decline) that attempt (...) to tackle the large questions of how the public, or civil society in general, relates to the state. Using rhetoric as the lens through which to view mass democracy, this essay argues that the key to understanding the deliberative potential of the mass public is in the distinction between deliberative and plebiscitary rhetoric. (shrink)

This book complements and balances the attention given by postcolonial theory to the revitalisation and recognition of the agency of colonised peoples. Simone Bignall argues that a non-imperial concept of ethical and political agency and a materialist philosophy of transformation are embedded within a minor tradition of Western philosophy. 'Postcolonial Agency'provides a significantly new understanding of the processes of social transformation faced by many societies as they struggle with the aftermath of empire. It also offers a valuable new way (...) of conceptualising practices of postcolonial sociability. (shrink)

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)

A widespread historiographical portrayal represented Descartes' dualism as constituted in direct contrast with Aquinas' concept of soul-form. In the wake of the many studies that have opposed this prejudice in recent decades, this book reconstructs the fifteenth and seventeenth-century debate on psychology, focusing primarily on the Jesuit context and on the intersection between Aristotelianism, Platonism, and Augustinianism in early modern France. Beginning with a rigorous investigation of the theories of the separated soul, particular attention is then given to the indirect (...) derivation of the Cartesian cogito and innatism from angelological themes of the time. Indeed, in the years in which Descartes elaborates his metaphysics, the immediate proximity between souls and angels is somehow a matter of fact, in the light of which many of the argumentative choices of the Meditations, and even the relationship that closely joins the "thinking substance" with the body-machine, appear clear. -/- . (shrink)

Today’s exponential advancement of information and communication technologies is reconfiguring participatory urban development practices. The use of digital technology implies new forms of decentralised governance, collaborative knowledge production, and social activism. The digital transformation has the potential to overcome shortcomings in citizen participation, make participatory processes more deliberative, and enable collaborative approaches for making cities. While digital tools such as digital mapping, e‐participation platforms, location‐based games, and social media offer new opportunities for the various actors and may act as a (...) catalyst for renegotiating urban space and collective goods, digitalisation can also perpetuate or even attenuate existing inequalities and exclusion. This editorial introduces the thematic issue “Citizen Participation, Digital Agency, and Urban Development” which focuses on the trajectories and (dis)continuities of citizen participation through digitalisation and elaborates this with examples from Europe and Asia on how the digital transformation impacts, challenges, or reproduces hegemonic power relations in urban development. (shrink)

The techno-moral scenarios approach has been developed to explore the interplay between technology, society and morality. Focused on new and emerging sciences and technologies, techno-moral scenarios can be used to inform and enhance public deliberation on the desirability of socio-technical trajectories. The article presents an attempt to hybridise this scenario tool, complementing the focus on ethics with an explicit acknowledgement of the multiple meanings of responsibility and of the plurality of its regimes, i.e. the institutional arrangements presiding over the assumption (...) and assignment of responsibilities. We call this integrated technique ‘rTMS’ to stress the continuity with the original technique and, at the same time, to highlight the additional element we aim to develop: responsibility. The article describes this approach and illustrates a loosely standardised procedure that can be used to organise and conduct public engagement workshops based on rTMS. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the asymmetrical mediated communication of the broad democratic public sphere can profitably be understood through the lens of deliberative democracy only if we adopt a system approach to deliberation. A system approach, however, often introduces a division of labor between ordinary citizens and experts. Although this division of labor is unavoidable and I believe compatible with a deliberative principle of legitimacy, it flirts with elitist theories of democracy: epistemic elites come up with the agendas, (...) ideas, and policy positions and democratic publics ratify or repudiate the agendas but do not generate or really engage with them. This I argue would violate an essential defining feature of deliberative democracy, namely that epistemic quality and equal participation are tightly linked. I turn to Habermas and his idea of a feedback loop as a possible solution to this dilemma. (shrink)

The type identity theory, according to which types of mental state are identical to types of physical state, fell out of favour for some years but is now being considered with renewed interest. Many philosophers are critically re-examining the arguments which were marshalled against it, finding in the type identity theory both resources to strengthen a comprehensive, physicalistic metaphysics and a useful tool in understanding the relationship between developments in psychology and new results in neuroscience. This volume brings together leading (...) philosophers of mind, whose essays challenge in new ways the standard objections to type identity theory, such as the multiple realizability objection and the modal argument. Other essays show how cognitive science and neuroscience are lending new support to type identity theory and still others provide, extend and improve traditional arguments concerning the theory's explanatory power. (shrink)

Ensayo -- Palabras finales -- Selección de textos.

Education as identity formation in Western-style liberal-democracies relies, in part, on neutrality as a justification for the reproduction of collective individual identity, including societal, cultural, institutional and political identities, many aspects of which are problematic in terms of the reproduction of environmentally harmful attitudes, beliefs and actions. Taking a position on an issue necessitates letting go of certain forms of neutrality, as does effectively teaching environmental education. We contend that to claim a stance of neutrality is to claim a position (...) beyond criticism. In the classroom this can also be an epistemically damaging position to hold. To further explore the problem of neutrality in the classroom, and to offer a potential solution, we will look to the philosophical community of inquiry pedagogy, and advocate for the addition of place-based education; a form of experiential education that promotes learning in local communities in which the school is situated, each with its own history, culture, economy and environment. However, how we understand ‘place’ is fundamental to understanding the potential of place-based education in giving students a ‘sense of place’—how they perceive a place, which includes place attachment and place meaning. To this end, we look to Indigenous understandings of Place and social reconstruction learning to inform place-based pedagogies. Doing so, we hold, opens a pathway to ethical education. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue in favor of necessitarianism, the view that dispositions, when stimulated, necessitate their manifestations. After introducing and clarifying what necessitarianism does and does not amount to, I provide reasons to support the view that dispositions once stimulated necessitate their manifestations according to the stimulating conditions and the relevant properties at stake. In this framework, I will propose a principle of causal relevance and some conditions for the possibility of interference that allow us to avoid the use (...) of ceteris paribus clauses. I then defend necessitarianism from recent attacks raised by, among others, Mumford and Anjum, noting that the antecedent strengthening test is a test for causal relevance that raises no difficulties for necessitarianism. (shrink)

What does morality require of individuals in their dating and sex life? In this article I challenge recent outlines of antidiscrimination duties in the dating sphere and present a plausible alternative: the deliberative duty. This duty avoids the risks and limitations of earlier outlines: it is time-sensitive regarding the malleability of intimate preferences, it avoids being too demanding on the duty-bearer and minimizes the risk of generating mere dutiful attraction behavior towards right-holders. In addition, it is better suited for universal (...) action guidance in the dating sphere than earlier outlines of individual antidiscrimination duties. (shrink)

A partir de um personagem conceitual, a cartógrafa, as autoras descrevem e analisam os encontros promovidos por uma intervenção institucional realizada com a equipe de trabalhadores da Emergência de um hospital de grande porte de Porto Alegre. Utilizando o conceito de atenção ao presente, a interven..

Scholars, policymakers and organizations in the EU, especially at the level of the European Commission, have turned their attention to the ethics of (trustworthy and human-centric) Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, there has been little reflexivity on (1) the history of the ethics of AI as an institutionalized phenomenon and (2) the comparison to similar episodes of “ethification” in other fields, to highlight common (unresolved) challenges.Contrary to some mainstream narratives, which stress how the increasing attention to ethical aspects of AI is (...) due to the fast pace and increasing risks of technological developments, Science and Technology Studies(STS)-informed perspectives highlight that the rise of institutionalized assessment methods indicates a need for governments to gain more control of scientific research and to bring EU institutions closer to the public on controversies related to emerging technologies.This article analyzes how different approaches of the recent past (i.e. bioethics, technology assessment (TA) and ethical, legal and social (ELS) research, Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)) followed one another, often “in the name of ethics”, to address previous criticisms and/or to legitimate certain scientific and technological research programs. The focus is on how a brief history of the institutionalization of these approaches can provide insights into present challenges to the ethics of AI related to methodological issues, mobilization of expertise and public participation. (shrink)

Constitutional reform has been an important means to push populist authoritarian agendas in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Venezuela. The embrace of constitutional means and rhetoric in pursuit of these agendas has led to the growing recognition of ‘populist constitutionalism’ as a contemporary political phenomenon. In all four examples mentioned above, democracy, popular sovereignty and direct plebiscitary appeal to the people is the rhetorical and justificatory framework for constitutional reform. This, I worry, gives democracy a bad name and reinforces the widespread (...) suspicion that citizens should not be directly involved in constitutional reform as popular participation can lead to dangerous majoritarianism and is easily manipulated by elite actors seeking to weaken constitutional checks and balances. But the problem, I argue, is not inherent in citizen’s participation in constitutional reform. In contrast to populist constitutionalism, I develop an idea of deliberative constitutionalism in which citizens can participate in constitution-making and reform without hijacking constitutionalism for majoritarian, nationalist or anti-pluralist ends. Deliberative constitutionalism as I understand it has four features: a Habermasian co-originality thesis that articulates the interdependence of democracy and liberalism mediated by a conception of discourse; a proceduralized idea of popular sovereignty that reduces the tension between appeal to the people and respect for pluralism; the centrality of the public sphere over the voting booth as the cradle of democracy; institutional innovations intended to include citizens in constitutional reform (including through referendums) but avoid majoritarian and populist pathologies. (shrink)

Taking steps from Wilson’s distinction between strong and weak emergence, in this paper I cast doubts on the prospect of weak emergence. After discussing the relationship between properties set at different levels and supporting different counterfactuals and laws, I discuss one crucial condition for a property to be weakly emergent, one that is usually taken as the primary motivation for emergence, that of being “realization indifferent”. I set an argument aimed at showing that this realization indifference does not accord with (...) systematic relations holding between properties set at the mental level vis-a-vis their realizers. Since it is not possible to have mental properties which are not systematic, mental properties cannot be weakly emergent properties. (shrink)