Tommaso Campanella’s dignitas hominis acquires its own autonomous and innovative historiographical value in recognizing the connection between mens and religion as a distinctive element of human be...

This study explores social enterprises’ strategies for addressing mission drift. Relying on an inductive comparative case study of two Italian social enterprises, we show how stakeholder engagement combined with social accounting can successfully support a social venture to re-balance its positioning between wealth generation and social value creation. Indeed, stakeholder engagement helps the internal actors of a social enterprise to rationalize and embody pro-social values previously abandoned, while social accounting reinforces this embodiment process by showing the reintroduced social commitment of (...) the social enterprise to external audiences. Conversely, strategies focused only on social accounting and without significant engagement of external stakeholders prove to be unsuccessful in counterbalancing mission drift because they fail to activate the necessary process of internal re-introduction and operationalization of pro-social values and objectives. (shrink)

A contemporary of Giordano Bruno and Galileo, Tommaso Campanella was a controversial philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet who was persecuted during the Inquisition and spent much of his adult life imprisoned because of his heterodox views. He is best known today for two works: _The City of the Sun_, a dialogue inspired by Plato’s _Republic_, in which he prophesies a vision of a unified, peaceful world governed by a theocratic monarchy; and his well-meaning _Defense of Galileo_, which may have (...) done Galileo more harm than good because of Campanella’s previous conviction for heresy. But Campanella’s philosophical poems are where his most forceful and undiluted ideas reside. His poetry is where his faith in observable and experimental sciences, his astrological and occult wisdom, his ideas about deism, his anti-Aristotelianism, and his calls for religious and secular reform most put him at odds with both civil and church authorities. For this volume, Sherry Roush has selected Campanella’s best and most idiosyncratic poems, which are masterpieces of sixteenth-century Italian lyrics, displaying a questing mind of great, if unorthodox, brilliance, and showing Campanella’s passionate belief in the intrinsic harmony between the sacred and secular. (shrink)

This article introduces the key issues and themes that the articles in the Special Issue aim to apply and develop in greater detail. First, we argue that the field of collective remembering can be conceived as a site of active contestation, rather than simply a means of communicating a historic past or our deontic position in relation to these pasts. Approaching collective remembering as a Lieu de Dispute allows us, in turn, to foreground three consequential dimensions of remembrance, which the (...) articles in the issue examine in different ways: that collective remembering is an interpersonal, political and affective practice. This introduction discusses these three dimensions to collective remembering in greater detail, before outlining the remaining contents of the Special Issue. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this study, we investigate how different internal and external stakeholders influence the innovation strategy of a social enterprise to adopt product, process, and partnership innovations that impact either social or commercial performance. Relying on survey data from a sample of work integration social enterprises, we find that in situations of turbulence, administrative leaders do not significantly influence the innovation strategy of a social enterprise. Instead, board members and external stakeholders seem to play a role. Our study contributes to strategic (...) and business ethics research on social enterprises and, more broadly, to the literature that explores how business organizations combine social value creation and wealth generation. (shrink)

A quasivariety of algebras has the joint embedding property (JEP) if and only if it is generated by a single algebra A. It is structurally complete if and only if the free ℵ0‐generated algebra in can serve as A. A consequence of this demand, called ‘passive structural completeness’ (PSC), is that the nontrivial members of all satisfy the same existential positive sentences. We prove that if is PSC then it still has the JEP, and if it has the JEP and (...) its nontrivial members lack trivial subalgebras, then its relatively simple members all belong to the universal class generated by one of them. Under these conditions, if is relatively semisimple then it is generated by one ‐simple algebra. We also prove that a quasivariety of finite type, with a finite nontrivial member, is PSC if and only if its nontrivial members have a common retract. The theory is then applied to the variety of De Morgan monoids, where we isolate the sub(quasi)varieties that are PSC and those that have the JEP, while throwing fresh light on those that are structurally complete. The results illuminate the extension lattices of intuitionistic and relevance logics. (shrink)

Several studies have lately revealed that social media conceal at least three dangerous pitfalls. Firstly, social media can negatively impact sociopolitical processes in advanced liberal democracies by becoming vehicles for the spread of false information that augments political polarization (Lee et al. 2017; Ostillio 2018). Secondly, as a result of the first point, social mediacan rapidly become a source of incorrect beliefs for those subjects with low digital literacy (Guess et al. 2019). Thirdly, because of the first and second points, (...) intentionally deceitful manipulations of social media content are potent generators of information cascades that increase group polarizations across groups of vulnerable social media users (Jang and Kim2018, Wang et al. 2018, Colliander 2019). These findings support the claim that the circulation of biased content on social media potentially threatens sociopolitical stability in liberal Western democracies (Duffy 2018; Sunstein 2018). Although this claim is far from being speculative, as shown by the FacebookFile investigations (Wall Street Journal 2019) and the center for humane technology’s recen tresearch, it introduces a thorny dilemma regarding the founding principles of liberal Western democracies. Namely, should Western legislators limit free speech by introducing severe penalties for those who spread fake news and the likes on social media? Or should they let the free market autonomously produce efficient technology allowing people to identify biased social media content?In other words, is a libertarian solution to the plight of online fake news and the like preferable to adequate legislation that punishes those who spread such content? Though appealing, it is unrealistic to believe that the free market can resolve this problem. On the other hand, it is realistic to suppose that Western governments should engage in a merciless battle against biased social media content. For instance, following the publication of the Report of the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation in 2018, the European Union introduced new directives to limit the spread of fake news online in 2021, when the Covid19 pandemic started fading. Although initiatives as such might look like limitations of free speech, there is solid philosophical ground to defend such initiatives. To prove this contention, we resort to Hobbes’s (1651, Part II, §18 and §29) argument that humans can avoid falling back into the Hobbesian state of war only if they stipulate a covenant. Specifically, we appeal to Hobbes’s (1651) argument in favor of bestowing the sovereign the right to ban those seditious doctrines that might undermine peace and sociopolitical stability in the Hobbesian Commonwealth. In this regard, we show that the Hobbesian covenant resolves conflict among humans in the same way a correlated equilibrium limits noncooperation in game theory. Namely, like game theory players, citizens enjoy greater welfare whenever they observe rules that mitigate conflict (Slomp 2010). Accordingly, we argue that citizens would be better off only if Western governments introduced severe penalties for those who intentionally spread fake news. Notably, we argue that effective regulation would create disincentives for spreading biased content and incentives for spreading truthful content. Furthermore, we argue that effective regulation against online fake news would assuage the polarizing effects of online availability cascades on social networks. Importantly, we provide empirical evidence supporting these claims by showing that the lack of effective regulation led the American government to miserably fail to contain the devasting effects of the online infodemic (i.e., the epidemic of false online information)that took place during the first two waves of the Covid19 pandemic (Evanega et al. 2020, Milosh et al. 2020). (shrink)

Cognitive niche construction theory provides a new comprehensive account for the development of human cultural and social organization with respect to the management of their environment. Cognitive niche construction can be seen as a way of lessening complexity and unpredictability of a given environment. In this paper, we are going to analyze economic systems as highly technological cognitive niches, and individuate a link between cognitive niche construction, unpredictability and a particular kind of economic crises.

RésuméIl y a, dans le Nafs d'Avicenne, deux enquêtes cheminant dès le début en parallèle : celle sur l’âme comme entité relationnelle, toujours considérée dans sa connexion avec le corps, et celle sur l’âme humaine en elle-même. Les deux enquêtes visent à établir l'existence et l'essence de l’âme, respectivement en relation au corps dont elle est l’âme et en soi-même. Le but de cette contribution est de reconstruire les étapes de ces enquêtes, afin de mettre en relief leur relation mutuelle, (...) et d'identifier ce qui fait office d'indicateur permettant de localiser la transition de la première enquête, plus générale, à la seconde, plus spécifique. Selon la reconstitution ici présentée, ce rôle peut être attribué à l'expérience de l’homme volant. Afin de corroborer cette interprétation, on prendra en considération trois autres ouvrages d'Avicenne, ceux-ci contenant les trois autres formulations attestées de l’homme volant, ainsi qu'un mouvement argumentatif similaire à celui que l'on peut reconstituer dans le Nafs. (shrink)

Cognitive niche theories consist in a theoretical framework that is proving extremely profitable in bridging evolutionary biology, philosophy, cognitive science, and anthropology by offering an inter-disciplinary ground, laden with novel approaches and debates. At the same time, cognitive niche theories are multiple, and differently related to niche theories in theoretical and evolutionary biology. The aim of this paper is to clarify the theoretical and epistemological relationships between cognitive and ecological niche theories. Also, by adopting a constructionist approach we will try (...) to explain the shift from ecological to cognitive niches and their actual and theoretical overlaps. In order to do so, we will take two concepts expressing loose forms of causation in the interaction between organisms and their environment: the biological notion of “enablement” and the psycho-cognitive one of “affordance”. (shrink)

Throughout the nineteenth century, significant transformations took place in the understanding of Western homosexuality, shifting from the domain of criminal law to that of medical science. This article explores the role of European legal thought in laying the groundwork for such changes, particularly starting from the mid-eighteenth century. Examining the contributions of the Roman jurist Filippo Maria Renazzi (1745–1808), this research emphasizes his role among the thinkers who lived through the transition from the European ius commune tradition to the era (...) of criminal codes. Renazzi, a conservative university professor in papal Rome, not unfamiliar with Enlightenment discussions, penned a successful criminal treatise in Latin between 1773 and 1786. His expertise was also in demand during the subsequent development of the criminal code for the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. By focusing on the figure of Renazzi, still not extensively studied, this article attempts to shed light on the transition towards the general decriminalization of non-reproductive carnal offenses, including sodomy. In the new penal code project, only acts committed against the will of others and public order remained generically condemned. This underscored the indifference of criminal law towards penalizing behavior that medicine would subsequently come to recognize as an inherent identity. (shrink)

Neuromoral theorists are those who claim that a scientific understanding of moral judgment through the methods of psychology, neuroscience and related disciplines can have normative implications and can be used to improve the human ability to make moral judgments. We consider three neuromoral theories: one suggested by Gazzaniga, one put forward by Gigerenzer, and one developed by Greene. By contrasting these theories we reveal some of the fundamental issues that neuromoral theories in general have to address. One important issue concerns (...) whether the normative claims that neuromoral theorists would like to make are to be understood in moral terms or in non-moral terms. We argue that, on either a moral or a non-moral interpretation of these claims, neuromoral theories face serious problems. Therefore, neither the moral nor the non-moral reading of the normative claims makes them philosophically viable. (shrink)

This paper sheds new light on the subtle relation between probability and logic by (i) providing a logical development of Bruno de Finetti's conception of events and (ii) suggesting that the subjective nature of de Finetti's interpretation of probability emerges in a clearer form against such a logical background. By making explicit the epistemic structure which underlies what we call Choice-based probability we show that whilst all rational degrees of belief must be probabilities, the converse doesn't hold: some probability values (...) don't represent decision-relevant quantifications of uncertainty. (shrink)

Reviving the somewhat forgotten notion of ‘secondary orality’, this paper conceptualizes online conspiracism as a creative, if monstrous, response to the attention economy of social media. Combining classic literature on oral cultures and current research on online subcultures, this paper takes conspiratorial folklore seriously and develops a program of research into its features and into its surprising adaptation to the attention regime of digital media.

In this note, I argue that McCain and Moretti’s account of non-inferential justification is subject to the subjective point of view objection, and that for this reason, it does not provide an internalistically acceptable alternative to the account of this justification supplied by Huemer’s Phenomenal Conservatism (PC). Moreover, I contend that PC’s account is not afflicted by the same problem and that it does not generate the over-intellectualization and regress problem. Finally, contra McCain and Moretti, I argue that the non-inferential (...) justification described by PC does not engender a form of vicious epistemic circularity, and so that it does not raise the reflective awareness problem. (shrink)

Cyber-bullying, and other issues related to violence being committed online in prosocial environments, are beginning to constitute an emergency worldwide. Institutions are particularly sensitive to the problem especially as far as teenagers are concerned inasmuch as, in cases of inter-teen episodes, the deterrent power of ordinary justice is not as effective as it is between adults. In order to develop the most suitable policies, institution should not be satisfied with statistics and sociological perspectives on the phenomenon, but rather seek a (...) deep ethical understanding—also referring to the biological and evolutionary past of human beings. The aim of this paper is to show a way to fill this theoretical gap, offering some answers that can illuminate future policy-oriented research and reflection. In order to do so, we will start by connecting our argument to evolutionary studies carried out in the past two decades, focusing on gossip as a tool for social assortment, thus endowed with a dual function: protect the group from free riders, intruders and bullies but also bully the deviant members. In the “Mediating gossip through social networks” section, we will see which aspects of gossip, vital for bullying, are co-opted by social network scenarios. A fundamental trait of human social life, that is the subdivision in smaller coalitions, or sub-groups, will be shown as missing in social networks dynamics—therefore constituting themselves as structurally violent. The “Why and how do social networks empower bullying?” section will deal with techno-ethical and epistemological concerns regarding how gossip, mediated by SN, manages to empower cyber-bullying. The “Self-gossip and self-mobbing in the light of the disruption of sub-moralities” section will characterize cyber-bullying as often sparked by self-gossip in a scenario where familiar sub-groups, which also mediate defense and mutual understanding, are disrupted. The “Discussion and conclusion” section will consist of a philosophical summary, divided in two parts: a pars destruens analyzing whether SN, in their actual configurations, are fit for being used by humans-like-us, and a pars construens examining the broad potential consequences of highly enforced regulation aimed at contrasting cyber-bullying. (shrink)

Betting methods, of which de Finetti's Dutch Book is by far the most well-known, are uncertainty modelling devices which accomplish a twofold aim. Whilst providing an interpretation of the relevant measure of uncertainty, they also provide a formal definition of coherence. The main purpose of this paper is to put forward a betting method for belief functions on MV-algebras of many-valued events which allows us to isolate the corresponding coherence criterion, which we term coherence in the aggregate. Our framework generalises (...) the classical Dutch Book method. (shrink)

Positive modal algebras are the$$\left\langle { \wedge, \vee,\diamondsuit,\square,0,1} \right\rangle $$-subreducts of modal algebras. We prove that the variety of positive S4-algebras is not locally finite. On the other hand, the free one-generated positive S4-algebra is shown to be finite. Moreover, we describe the bottom part of the lattice of varieties of positive S4-algebras. Building on this, we characterize structurally complete varieties of positive K4-algebras.

This article builds on a recent paper coauthored by the present author, H. Hosni and F. Montagna. It is meant to contribute to the logical foundations of probability theory on many-valued events and, specifically, to a deeper understanding of the notion of strict coherence. In particular, we will make use of geometrical, measure-theoretical and logical methods to provide three characterizations of strict coherence on formulas of infinite-valued Łukasiewicz logic.

Este trabajo incluye algunas reflexiones sobre los desafíos a los derechos que derivan del populismo, de la tecnología y de la geopolítica.

Graphical AbstractEnormous efforts and resources are being invested in the search for biomarkers for early cancer detection. However, the biology and genetics of cancer, an extremely heterogeneous disease from the molecular viewpoint, thwart the clinical application of laboratory discoveries, and the sought-for pan-cancer biomarkers for population screening remain out of reach. Notwithstanding advances made using artificial intelligence to overcome current limitations in cancer biomarker research, in article number 1900122, Tommaso A. Dragani et al. speculate that there is still a (...) long way to go before this important public health goal is achieved. (shrink)

Evidentialism says that a subject S’s justification is entirely determined by S’s evidence. The plausibility of evidentialism depends on what kind of entities constitute a subject S’s evidence and what one takes the support relation to consist in. Conee and Feldman’s mainstream evidentialism incorporates a psychologist answer to and an explanationist answer to. ME naturally accommodates perceptual justification. However, it does not accommodate intuitive cases of inferential justification. In the second part of the paper, I consider and reject a reply (...) based on a refined explanationist theory of the support relation proposed by K McCain. (shrink)

Albert Camus has been at the centre of a long and bitter controversy for his positions on the Algerian war. Accused of being a colonialist, marked by Eurocentrism and/or a de facto supporter of imperialism, he in fact joined the struggle for decolonization from his earliest steps in politics, untethering it, however, from any nationalist perspective. This essay delineates the formation of Camusian position on the Algerian crisis, its turning points and the path followed in this regard from the late (...) 1930s to the late 1950s, seeking to reveal his perspective of a decolonial federalism that would simultaneously transform Europe and Africa in order to establish a political community in which there would be neither dominant nor dominated. (shrink)

Este artículo reseña: Emilia BEA, Los deberes en la edad de los derechos.

This article analyses the complex relationship between the logical and the analogical dimension in the Republic of Plato, focusing synchronically on three analogies: polis-soul, polis-body and soul-body. The aim is to demonstrate first how the analogies help Plato to give strength to his political description, and second how the power relationships provide intelligible models for the description of the human being. The analogical value of the power relationships and the political value of the analogies emerge as inseparably linked. The article (...) proves at the same time how the analogy between the ideal polis and a timeless image of the soul is only possible due to the medical analogy between the polis and the body, which separate clearly the Greek culture from the «barbaric» populations. (shrink)

Two conjectures are proposed on Sophocles’ Thyestes (fr. 260a Radt) which restore Sophoclean language and metre.

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of visual aesthetic perception on event-related potentials . Eight subjects assigned an aesthetic judgment and a 10-step beauty estimation to the target stimuli, consisting of famous artistic pictures and geometric shapes. In a further task, the subjects performed a motor response to the previously judged pictures and geometric shapes. ERPs were recorded through 54 scalp electrodes during both tasks. The P3b amplitude was increased during the categorization of the geometric shapes (...) compared to the artistic figures and during the vision of the beautiful targets preceding the motor response. The categorization of the aesthetic qualities of geometrical shapes seems to induce a higher level of attention, while a higher arousal variation was elicited by the recognition of beauty, in any form that was presented. (shrink)

The history of science is increasingly directing its attention to the diachronic examination of women's involvement within spaces dedicated to scientific inquiry. While this field of study boasts rich and meticulous historiography, delving into the sixteenth century leaves the impression of encountering either a noticeable absence of women in the realm of natural history or an underexplored period in this regard. Undoubtedly, within the Italian context of the time, the cultural milieu shaped by the Counter-Reformation further heightened the social challenges (...) faced by women.Notwithstanding these challenges, a noteworthy female figure emerges in the latter half of the sixteenth century – Francesca Fontana, the second wife of the natural history scholar Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605). From an overall view of the sources, Fontana seems to assume a pivotal role in the realization of collections and works attributed to the eminent naturalist. This study aims to delineate the role played by Fontana within Aldrovandi's ‘officina naturale.’ By examining the available documents in a chronological order, my aim is to provide insights into the evolution of her education and her practical and technical skills, harnessed in the pursuit of her husband's enterprises and scholarly contributions. (shrink)

This research study focuses on the problem of populistic propaganda online. In particular, this research study provides three case studies gathered in a Facebook Group of the Italian populistic movement Movimento 5 Stelle. On the one hand, the three case studies provide three powerful counterexamples to the thesis that online media are purposeful aggregator of people. In fact, this research study finds that online media are the perfect environment for populism to thrive. For online media seem to foster the aggregation (...) of people into groups whose main common denominator is the total refusal of anything that opposes the groups’ views. On this basis, this paper provides evidence that online media may impoverish democratic confrontation. On the other hand, this paper finds that the one of the causes of the rapid rise of populistic movements in Western countries might also be related to the problem of cognitive biases. Indeed, the case studies presented in the paper posit the existence of something that is addressed as the trigger effect, i.e. agents’ tendency to react impulsively to any kind of content that fits agent’s views about current events. Specifically, this research study finds that the activation of the trigger effect might be a direct consequence of the activation of the narrow framing bias and of the anchoring heuristic in presence of fake news. (shrink)