Music is a deeply entrenched human phenomenon. In this article, I argue that its evolutionary origins are intrinsically intertwined with the incremental anatomical, cognitive, social, and technological evolution of the hominin lineage. I propose an account of the evolution of Plio-Pleistocene hominins, focusing on traits that would be later implicated in music making. Such traits can be conceived as comprising the musicality mosaic or the multifaceted foundations of musicality. I then articulate and defend an account of protomusical behaviour, drawing theoretical (...) licence from the social brain framework of Robin Dunbar and colleagues, as well as the evolutionary framework for human culture and cooperation developed by Kim Sterelny. The role of gene-culture co-evolution and niche construction is brought to the fore in articulating the evolutionary account. Finally, I defend the view that music subsequently developed via processes of social learning and cumulative culture. (shrink)

Penrose’s Spin Geometry Theorem is extended further, from SU(2) and E(3) (Euclidean) to E(1, 3) (Poincaré) invariant elementary quantum mechanical systems. The Lorentzian spatial distance between any two non-parallel timelike straight lines of Minkowski space, considered to be the centre-of-mass world lines of E(1, 3)-invariant elementary classical mechanical systems with positive rest mass, is expressed in terms of E(1, 3)-invariant basic observables, viz. the 4-momentum and the angular momentum of the systems. An analogous expression for E(1, 3)-invariant elementary quantum mechanical (...) systems in terms of the basic quantum observables in an abstract, algebraic formulation of quantum mechanics is given, and it is shown that, in the classical limit, it reproduces the Lorentzian spatial distance between the timelike straight lines of Minkowski space with asymptotically vanishing uncertainty. Thus, the metric structure of Minkowski space can be recovered from quantum mechanics in the classical limit using only the observables of abstract quantum mechanical systems. (shrink)

Everett (2005) has argued that fictional realism runs into insuperable difficulties when faced with fictional stories in which there are indeterminate identities. By appeal to a principle linking the individuation of characters within stories and without, Everett argues that such stories entail that there are indeterminate identities outside of fiction on the fictional realist picture. And although indeterminate identities are perfectly acceptable within fiction, they are intolerable in the (nonfictional) world itself. In this paper, I develop the “extended-game” model of (...) fiction according to which fictional characters are props—and, hence, potential objects of reference—in authorized games of make-believe for fictional works in which they appear but do not originate but are neither props nor potential objects of reference in authorized games for works in which they do originate. And I argue that this entails that Everett’s linking principle, on which his argument depends, simply fails to apply. (shrink)

In earlier work, the author has studied the economic role of planning horizons in making a case for complementarity as the predominant feature of social interdependence. This paper compares the different choice strategies implied by substitution, opposition and conflicts of interest in an economics of fear with those arising from horizon effects, economic complementarity and concerts of interest in an economics based on love. The contrasting implications of a psychological literature on negative vs. positive emotions and their health effects, along (...) with the findings in neurophysiological research about how humans are hard-wired for empathy and compassion leads to some fundamental changes in how we might address and revise social problems through economic analysis. The aim of this paper is to extend a horizonal case for complementarity in the author's previous work into its psychological links to research findings on healthy cognitive function and its emotional basis. An economics of substitution yields quite different conclusions about optimal institutional forms and how we address and frame social relations than are implied by an explicitly horizonal economics of complementary social relations. Recent psychological and neurophysiological studies support a horizonal case for complementarity in social relations, showing that our orthodox substitution assumptions and models of competitive equilibrium should be rejected for a renewed economic analysis based on horizonal models of complementarity and cooperation as a means to achieve greater social well-being in a healthier and more integrative form of social organization. The issues to be explored are not entertained within the currently existing frame of orthodox economics, so we must step beyond our standard habitual assumptions. (shrink)

While early optimists have seen online discussions as potential spaces for deliberation, the reality of many online spaces is characterized by incivility and irrationality. Increasingly, AI tools are considered as a solution to foster deliberative discourse. Against the backdrop of previous research, we show that AI tools for online discussions heavily focus on the deliberative norms of rationality and civility. In the operationalization of those norms for AI tools, the complex deliberative dimensions are simplified, and the focus lies on the (...) detection of argumentative structures in argument mining or verbal markers of supposedly uncivil comments. If the fairness of such tools is considered, the focus lies on data bias and an input–output frame of the problem. We argue that looking beyond bias and analyzing such applications through a sociotechnical frame reveals how they interact with social hierarchies and inequalities, reproducing patterns of exclusion. The current focus on verbal markers of incivility and argument mining risks excluding minority voices and privileges those who have more access to education. Finally, we present a normative argument why examining AI tools for online discourses through a sociotechnical frame is ethically preferable, as ignoring the predicable negative effects we describe would present a form of objectionable indifference. (shrink)

Debates concerning mask wearing continue in Japan. Here we critically examine the reasons for relaxing these regulations from a public health ethics perspective. We focus on three issues: government responsibility, political motivation, and cultural orientation, also discussing how these issues might have broader application in other parts of the world.

South African research ethics committees (RECs) faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research ethics committees needed to find a balance between careful consideration of scientific validity and ethical merit of protocols, and review with the urgency normally associated with public health emergency research. We aimed to explore the views of South African RECs on their pandemic preparedness and response during COVID-19. We conducted in-depth interviews with 21 participants from RECs that were actively involved in the review of COVID-19 related (...) research, at seven academic institutions across South Africa. Interviews were conducted remotely using an in-depth interview guide that included questions regarding REC preparedness and response to COVID-19. Interviews were conducted until data saturation, and audio-recordings were transcribed verbatim and coded. An inductive approach to thematic analysis was used to organise data into themes and sub-themes. This study focused on three main themes: coping during COVID-19, building REC capacity during pandemic times and a consistently cautious approach to mutual recognition of REC reviews. Despite an initial sense of unpreparedness, RECs were able to adapt and maintain careful ethical oversight of both COVID and non-COVID research, and the rigour of REC reviews. Several important lessons for preparedness and response to future pandemics were identified, including heightened awareness of publication, funding and political pressures, the importance of regular training for RECs and researchers, and strategies to enhance moral resilience of REC members. Incremental steps are needed to build trust and authentic partnerships among RECs in inter-pandemic times, to facilitate collaboration during future public health emergencies. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic posed many ethical and practical challenges for academic research. Some of these have been documented, particularly in relation to health research, but less attention has been paid to the dilemmas encountered by educational and social science research. Given that pandemics are predicted to be more frequent, it is vital to understand how to continue crucial research in schools and other learning communities. This article therefore focuses specifically on research ethics in educational and social science during the pandemic (...) of 2020–2022. The research involved interviews and workshops with University College London (UCL) academics, professional staff and graduate students and encompassed those involved in reviewing ethics applications, researchers dealing with ethics in projects that continued despite disruptions caused by COVID-19, and successful research projects specifically designed to study the effects of COVID-19 in various contexts. The article discusses some of the crucial knowledge and practical experiences that were accumulated. The operational and epistemological lessons learned from this particular institution may have wider relevance to research ethics processes in higher education environments where academics and students are grappling with post-COVID-19 ethical dilemmas and inform broader debates about how research institutions can build institutional knowledge to improve practices of ethics review at the times of health emergencies in future. Our evidence points to the significance of inter- and multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches that flatten institutional hierarchies and to the crucial role played by professional staff. In addition, we argue that ethics review processes must be underpinned by critical debates about wider issues of unequal power relationships between research partners, the nature of knowledge production, ownership and utilisation. To enhance equity and epistemic justice in research practices, ethics education should be an ongoing integral part of research ethics within research institutions. (shrink)

Departing from the premise that the poststructuralist paradigm still reigns supreme in feminist and gender theory, that is, despite the niche efforts made in the past two decades to challenge it linked to the so called “speculative” turn or the materialisms (and realisms) emerging from the feminist field itself (such as the Utrecht School, inspired by Rosi Braidotti), we set the call for papers for the issue before you in terms that would invite authors ready to challenge the dominant epistemic (...) framework. We invited papers that engage with materialism(s), realism(s), sciences and projects engaged in rethinking the post-human beyond the poststructuralist (and, we dare say, postmodern/ist) norm. -/- . (shrink)

Questo contributo prende in considerazione uno dei fenomeni più trasversali a numerose lingue, antiche e moderne: la designazione delle diverse parti di un vaso con lo stesso lessico impiegato per le parti del corpo umano. Il lavoro si concentra su quattro tra le lingue moderne più utilizzate nella bibliografia archeologica (italiano, inglese, francese e tedesco) e sulle due lingue classiche per eccellenza (greco e latino), offrendo una panoramica del lessico utilizzato e delle metafore o figure retoriche che nel mondo antico (...) e moderno includono la figura del vaso e le sue parti. In un secondo momento vengono presentati dei casi studio relativi, a loro volta, all’antichità e alla contemporaneità: da un lato, l’associazione dei vasi al corpo umano nella Grecia arcaica e il caso dei canopi etruschi; dall’altro, gli esempi straordinari di produzione di vasi antropomorfi o di assimilazione completa nel trattamento superficiale tra ceramica e corpo umano di alcune popolazioni centro-africane (Yungur, Mafa e Bulahay). A conclusione di questo articolo vengono proposte alcune ipotesi interpretative del fenomeno, i cui elementi fondativi possono essere ritrovati sia in alcuni racconti cosmogonici tipici del mondo antico, sia negli studi di linguistica cognitiva degli ultimi decenni. (shrink)

L’Olimpica 13 di Pindaro, dedicata a Senofonte di Corinto, presenta due caratteristiche macroscopiche: lunghi elenchi di vittorie ottenute dalla famiglia di Senofonte e un accumulo di miti strettamente legati alla città di Corinto (Sisifo, Medea, Glauco e Bellerofonte). Questa connessione con Corinto è stata fortemente rimarcata, con particolare attenzione alla famiglia degli Oligetidi e ai miti di Medea e Sisifo presenti nei perduti Korinthiaká di Eumelo. Nondimeno, l’ode sembra mostrare i tipici meccanismi atti a interessare pubblici secondari. Ritengo che le (...) narrazioni di Pindaro siano consapevolmente generiche, allo scopo di permettere riesecuzioni in festival e simposi. Dall’altro lato, anche la precisione dei cataloghi di vittorie può avere la funzione, in scenari di riesecuzione, di dare ai futuri ascoltatori la sensazione di trovarsi nel luogo della prima esecuzione (l’espediente della cosiddetta “pseudo-intimacy”). (shrink)

Il contributo discute la lezione προμηθέως del v. 86 del Prometeo Incatenato. Se ne discute la genuinità in rapporto alla fortunata congettura προμηθίας proposta da Peter Elmsley.

Nelle Bucoliche i giovani, figure assai presenti già in Teocrito, compaiono sempre accanto a personaggi più anziani. Questi ultimi, i senes, sono rappresentanti autorevoli della comunità pastorale, spesso in quanto depositari di una tradizione poetica prestigiosa; i pueri, anch’essi per lo più già poeti, aspirano al pieno riconoscimento poetico da parte della comunità, che viene loro conferito per bocca o tramite dei seniores. Tale consacrazione è talvolta segnalata dalla consegna della zampogna e, quindi, del patrimonio poetico del suo vecchio possessore. (...) Si tratta di un momento di passaggio, in cui il giovane entra a pieno diritto nella comunità adulta dei pastori-cantori e diviene erede della sua tradizione: la continuità generazionale garantisce la continuità della tradizione poetica, che così può sopravvivere. Mentre nell’Eneide le morti premature di tanti pueri che aspirano al riconoscimento come viri mettono in discussione questo processo, nelle Bucoliche la speranza della continuità appare come l’unica via attraverso la quale la comunità può cercare, per quanto fragile, un suo equilibrio. (shrink)

Nel Corpus Galenicum sono molte le citazioni del nome di Dioscoride e della sua opera, il De materia medica, talvolta con minime differenze nel contenuto o con commenti eruditi di Galeno. Oltre a queste riprese più esplicite, ci sono anche alcuni passaggi degli scritti galenici che potrebbero avere come fonte il De materia medica. Questo anche sulla base di alcuni n-grams che ricorrono in entrambi gli autori, l’uno source text e l’altro target text. Esaminando le citazioni più o meno esplicite (...) dell’opera dioscoridea in Galeno, questo contributo si propone di mostrare l’influenza de il buono accoglitor del quale negli scritti del medico di Pergamo e il suo rapporto con il modello dioscorideo. (shrink)

Il contributo propone una ricognizione della critica sul Panegirico di Plinio a Trajano di Vittorio Alfieri dai primi decenni del Novecento fino gli anni Duemila. L’opera è stata considerata a lungo alla stregua di un esercizio letterario, e solo a partire dagli anni ‘80 del Novecento, grazie agli studi di Giuseppe Rando, ne è stato riconosciuto il valore politico e storico all’interno dell’opera alfieriana. Attraverso il presente studio si cercherà pertanto di offrire una panoramica della critica dell’opera, analizzando l’evoluzione degli (...) studi sul Panegirico e mettendo, infine, in luce nuove prospettive e linee di ricerca ancora non del tutto indagate. (shrink)

Ignazio Cazzaniga (1911-1974), per molti anni Professore di Letteratura Latina all’Università degli Studi di Milano, durante la Seconda guerra mondiale, dopo l’armistizio dell’8 settembre 1943, fu fatto prigioniero dai Tedeschi a Rodi, e trasferito in Germania, al campo di prigionia di Sandbostel, insieme con migliaia di ufficiali e soldati italiani. L’articolo traduce e commenta un carme latino da lui composto in quel luogo, come piccolo esempio della ricca vita culturale e intellettuale che fu mantenuta con intensa volontà dai prigionieri italiani, (...) nonostante la fame, le malattie, le umiliazioni che subirono in quella terribile situazione. (shrink)

The investigation aims at analysing the two general notions of mankind and people in two lexicographic reference works on trade and commerce published in London in the 1750s: Rolt’s A New Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (1756) and Postlethwayt’s The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (1757). An overview of the same notions in universal dictionaries of arts and sciences (cfr. References, Primary Sources), issued before and after ND and UD, will also be of help to define a more general (...) background. Starting from the key words mankind and people, their frequency and relevance in the two dictionaries, the investigation is widened to include related terms (e.g. multiword expressions and language patterns in which mankind and people occur) and semantic categories (e.g. specific contexts of use: social condition, social values, demography, identity and citizenship, etc.). The many entries, cross-references, and the various lexical clusters reveal a complex lexicographic and lexicological network. This network, beyond providing information and contents on specific topics, ultimately emphasises the hierarchical organising principle at the basis of Late Modern British society: in particular, people unfolds into a myriad of ‘entities’. Dictionaries of trade and commerce are plentiful sources of knowledge, from general concepts and notions to more specific contents, but also powerful ideological tools. (shrink)

Il presente contributo mira a gettare luce sulla figura ebraica dello Schlemihl, per come questa è venuta ad assumere, nei discorsi di Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt e Lea Ritter Santini, la funzione extra-letteraria di dispositivo di riconoscimento e schema esistenziale. È nella triangolazione dei discorsi e delle vite di queste tre intellettuali appartenenti, ognuna a suo modo, alla cultura tedesca, che la figura dello Schlemihl ha esemplarmente dispiegato la sua forza genetica, come metafora di un destino in cui, fin dal (...) momento del suo apparire letterario nella società dei salotti berlinesi di primo Ottocento grazie ad Adelbert von Chamisso, hanno riconosciuto se stesse coloro che hanno dovuto ritagliare la propria vita sul fondamento dello sradicamento e di una esclusione primigenia. In quella che potrebbe essere compresa come una vera e propria genealogia, il riferirsi allo Schlemihl di Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt e Lea Ritter Santini restituisce il senso comune di uno sfaccettato subire e agire lo sradicamento, entro la cornice di un discorso prismatico – sotto forma di lettere, saggi e poesie – che nel nutrirsi di vita e pensiero ha saputo raccontare la marginalità nelle sue forme differenti e contigue. (shrink)

In greco antico, i composti che presentino come secondo costituente un sostantivo formato con il suffisso -σις sono molto rari e godono di scarse attestazioni: la maggior parte, infatti, è rappresentata in realtà da derivati da lessemi già composti, soprattutto verbi. Nonostante il significato prototipico dei nomi semplici in -σις sia eventivo, la semantica dei nomi composti in -σις non derivati è perlopiù risultativo-strumentale, per slittamento metonimico; questo fatto è confermato dal comportamento sintattico dei composti in -σις, più vicino a (...) quello dei nomi puri, e quindi generalmente privo di una struttura argomentale. Il secondo costituente di alcuni composti in -σις non è attestato in isolamento, ma l’intero composto è comunque considerabile endocentrico dal punto di vista categoriale. Il suffisso -σις, scarsamente produttivo in composizione, viene sostituito in quest'ambito da suffissi che rientrano nella declinazione tematica, in particolare da -σία, supplendovi invece nella creazione di nomi semplici, in un rapporto analogo a quello che si può evidenziare rispettivamente, nel campo dei nomi d'agente, fra i suffissi -τήρ/-τωρ e -της. (shrink)

Questo contributo tratta della perifrasi ‘εἶναι + participio’ in greco omerico all’interfaccia fra morfosintassi e semantica. I dati sono analizzati con riferimento al quadro teorico elaborato da Nardi e Romagno (2022), che considerano la perifrasi con εἶναι in greco antico come una categoria prototipica: secondo questa prospettiva, la categoria sovraordinata ‘εἶναι + participio’ include due manifestazioni formalmente diverse ma funzionalmente equivalenti, un costrutto con una copula espressa, cioè una perifrasi vera e propria, e un costrutto senza copula espressa, cioè un (...) participio predicativo (fondamentalmente, un participio che funziona come una forma finita). Questa indagine mira a valutare se si possano individuare fattori che determinano o soggiacciono all’uso di queste costruzioni participiali in greco omerico. L’analisi dei dati raccolti nei poemi omerici mostra che le costruzioni participiali codificano la funzione specifica di significare lo stato, inerente o acquisito, del soggetto del predicato, costituendo pertanto un’alternativa (più o meno libera) al perfetto originario (cfr. Romagno 2005). (shrink)

Prized Attic honey is an often-neglected topic in studies of Athenian productions, despite the considerable spread of production, as attested by archaeological finds of terracotta beehives throughout the territory. Literary sources also frequently mention honey produced in Attica, especially the most famous and prized variety from Mount Hymettus. In this paper, after a mention of the peculiarity of the traditions about honey in the classical world, the importance and fame of the Attic product is emphasised. The sources that praise the (...) product are here classified in three groups, namely the authors who focus on its sweetness and fragrance, the ones who describe Attic honey generically in relation to its prestige and the sources which compares it to honey from other regions. Afterwards, my further goal is to assess the possible connection between honey and the funerary sphere in Attica. This relation is explored also through the reanalysis of some interpretations proposed for a fictile group of geometric Attic models. (shrink)

L’articolo affronta il problema delle interazioni fra cittadini romani e indigeni nel territorio di Bergomum, municipium della regio xi - Transpadana, attraverso l’esame delle formule onomastiche riscontrabili in alcune iscrizioni. In particolare, l’analisi della documentazione epigrafica agirà su un doppio binario, prendendo in considerazione sia formule di onomastica idionimica – tipicamente indigene e presenti anche dopo la concessione della cittadinanza romana alla Transpadana alla metà del I secolo a.C. – sia formule fedeli al modello romano dei tria nomina, che testimoniano (...) un’ascendenza celtica e una certa persistenza di abitudini locali. Le prove fornite dall’onomastica, dunque, saranno utili ad indagare come gli abitanti “indigeni” di Bergomum abbiano affrontato la romanizzazione del loro territorio e attraverso quali meccanismi vennero integrati nella struttura sociale romana; ciò anche attraverso il confronto con realtà circonvicine, prima fra tutte la Colonia Civica Augusta Brixia. (shrink)

L’articolo affronta gli interessi storico-artistici del letterato e storico Francesco Saverio Quadrio (Ponte in Valtellina 1695-Milano 1756), noto soprattutto per i suoi studi sulla storia della poesia e della sua terra natale, la Valtellina. Nei suoi libri Quadrio ha raccolto e combinato diverse informazioni anche su artisti e opere d’arte. Non tutte le notizie raccolte sono affidabili, ma i suoi studi sono comunque stati una delle fonti per l’aggiornamento di volumi importanti per la loro grande diffusione internazionale, come gli studi (...) di Johann Caspar Füssli o il famoso Dictionary of Painters Pilkington. Si è perciò cercato di comprendere il metodo di lavoro di Quadrio, indagando l’origine delle sue ipotesi, ma anche gli effetti di queste nella storiografia successiva. (shrink)

Di Rosa Calzecchi Onesti (1916-2011) si conoscono e si apprezzano le traduzioni, tutt’ora considerate punti di riferimento, di Iliade (1950), Odissea (1963) ed Eneide (1967); assai poco note sono, per contro, le sue ricerche di carattere filologico condotte sul testo del poema virgiliano. In particolare, a Calzecchi si deve una tesi di laurea, discussa a Bologna nel 1940 sotto la guida di Gino Funaioli e dedicata alla spinosa questione della possibile presenza di residue varianti d’autore nel testo dell’Eneide. Parte dei (...) risultati confluì nell’edizione critica curata per l’Istituto Editoriale Italiano nel 1962, una manciata di anni prima della ben più nota traduzione per Einaudi. Nonostante la questione della variantistica d’autore nel testo di Virgilio sia stata da tempo superata dalla critica, un approfondimento può fornire, da un lato, un utile documento di storia degli studi: la questione della variantistica d’autore, nella tradizione dell’Eneide come in quella di altri autori classici, era, all’epoca in cui Calzecchi lavorò, tema assai dibattuto. Inoltre, almeno uno dei criteri individuati dalla giovane studiosa nella sua analisi può essere applicato con profitto anche a tradizioni in cui la presenza di varianti d’autore è verosimile o accertata. (shrink)

La complessità della tradizione letteraria sui primi secoli della vita di Roma è ormai nota, e proverbiale è quella sulla biografia romulea, imperniata su informazioni ambigue e contrastanti che, tra luci e ombre, rendono affascinante lo studio della sua figura, fin dall’antichità. Non da meno il caso della sua scomparsa, che presenta due varianti principali: in effetti, se in una il primo sovrano di Roma era assunto in cielo tra gli dei, nell’altra era brutalmente smembrato dalla furia dei patres. Nel (...) presente contributo, che si colloca solo in coda a una lunga storia di studi storiografici, attraverso una prospettiva prettamente politica, si è cercato di comprendere le motivazioni sottostanti alla presenza di queste due, non solo diverse, ma diametralmente opposte tradizioni sulla scomparsa di Romolo. Il taglio politico conferito intende giustificare tale doppia esistenza partendo dallo sfruttamento del mito di Romolo all’interno dell’evoluzione e degli sconvolgimenti politici del I secolo a.C., divenendo oggetto centrale nel dibattito politico repubblicano: nella lotta tra le fazioni o negli scontri tra gli imperatores che dominarono la scena. (shrink)

Il presente articolo si propone di seguire il percorso della tradizione dell’Epistola ai Pisoni di Orazio in Europa e in Italia tra Sette e Ottocento, con particolare attenzione al contesto storico-culturale di riferimento e agli specifici ambienti di ricezione. Il tema è certo ampio e necessiterebbe di una trattazione più distesa e articolata di quella che questa sede può offrire: la prospettiva sarà, dunque, limitata ad alcune specifiche considerazioni sull’argomento. Il lavoro si sofferma primariamente sui diversi meccanismi di traduzione e (...) ripresa che interessano l’opera oraziana tutta. Tra questi si rintracciano molteplici filoni: a partire dalla ricerca biografica, passando attraverso la vivace sfera dell’imitazione e della parodia, per approdare alle rielaborazioni musicale e pittorica. L’analisi giunge così a concentrarsi in particolare sull’Ars poetica, della quale si seguono le fila della diffusione e si ripercorrono gli episodi della fortuna in Italia, dove la ricezione dell’opera si lega alla questione linguistica ai tempi estremamente attuale. Sensibili all’influsso oraziano si rivelano tanto grandi nomi del panorama culturale italiano, quanto intere correnti letterarie, come l’Arcadia, oltre a docenti – sempre più interessati a una corretta lettura dell’opera da parte dei propri studenti – nonché semplici amatori. Funge, infine, da addentellato di uno studio che sarebbe, altrimenti, meramente descrittivo, un’ipotesi in merito a un possibile legame tra gli ambienti di diffusione dell’Ars poetica tipici di ciascuno dei due secoli. Dall’analisi condotta sui dati disponibili si evidenzia, infatti, una continuità di interessi tra arcadici e docenti riconducibile a una “discendenza educativa” di questi ultimi dai primi. (shrink)

Il presente articolo si propone di spiegare il contesto storico-artistico e il significato politico di due esposizioni dell’immediato dopoguerra svolte a Palazzo Venezia, il quartier generale di Mussolini. Esse sono la Mostra dei capolavori della pittura europea (XV-XVII secoli), che ha luogo dall’agosto 1944 al febbraio 1945, e la Mostra d’arte italiana a Palazzo Venezia, inaugurata a maggio e conclusa nell’ottobre 1945. La prima è organizzata e promossa dal Governo Militare Alleato, la seconda dall’Associazione Nazionale per il Restauro dei Monumenti (...) Danneggiati dalla Guerra, fondata e diretta dal filantropo Umberto Zanotti Bianco. Numerose vicende si intrecciano nell’organizzazione di queste esposizioni, tra cui il lavoro dei Monuments Men, le operazioni di salvataggio del patrimonio mobile da parte di alcuni ex funzionari del Ministero dell’Educazione Nazionale, la nascita del Governo Militare Alleato e delle nuove istituzioni italiane antifasciste, la necessità di restaurare il patrimonio artistico distrutto e la fondazione dell’associazione di Zanotti Bianco. Chiunque voglia affrontare lo studio della situazione storico-artistica del dopoguerra romano e nazionale deve necessariamente fare i conti con le due mostre di Palazzo Venezia. (shrink)

A family $$\mathcal {I}$$ I of subsets of a set X is an ideal on X if it is closed under taking subsets and finite unions of its elements. An ideal $$\mathcal {I}$$ I on X is below an ideal $$\mathcal {J}$$ J on Y in the Katětov order if there is a function $$f{: }Y\rightarrow X$$ f : Y → X such that $$f^{-1}[A]\in \mathcal {J}$$ f - 1 [ A ] ∈ J for every $$A\in \mathcal {I}$$ A (...) ∈ I. We show that the Hindman ideal, the Ramsey ideal and the summable ideal are pairwise incomparable in the Katětov order, where The Ramsey ideal consists of those sets of pairs of natural numbers which do not contain a set of all pairs of any infinite set (equivalently do not contain, in a sense, any infinite complete subgraph), The Hindman ideal consists of those sets of natural numbers which do not contain any infinite set together with all finite sums of its members (equivalently do not contain IP-sets that are considered in Ergodic Ramsey theory), The summable ideal consists of those sets of natural numbers such that the series of the reciprocals of its members is convergent. (shrink)

Background Confidentiality is one of the central preconditions for clinical ethics support (CES). CES cases which generate moral questions for CES staff concerning (breaching) confidentiality of what has been discussed during CES can cause moral challenges. Currently, there seems to be no clear policy or guidance regarding how CES staff can or should deal with these moral challenges related to (not) breaching confidentiality within CES. Moral case deliberation is a specific kind of CES. Method Based on experiences and research into (...) MCD facilitators’ needs for ethics support in this regard, we jointly developed an ethics support tool for MCD facilitators: the Confidentiality Compass. This paper describes the iterative developmental process, including our theoretical viewpoints and reflections on characteristics of CES tools in general. Results The content and goals of the ethics support tool, which contains four elements, is described. Part A is about providing information on the concept of confidentiality in MCD, part B is a moral compass with reflective questions, part C focuses on courses of action for careful handling of moral challenges related to confidentiality. Part D contains general lessons, best practices and tips for dealing with confidentiality in future cases. Conclusions This paper concludes with providing some lessons-learned related to developing ethics support tools and some reflections on issues of quality and normativity of ethics support tools. (shrink)

Background Assisted death, including euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is under debate worldwide, and these practices are adopted in many Western countries. Physicians’ attitudes toward assisted death vary across the globe, but little is known about physicians’ actual reactions when facing a request for assisted death. There is a clear gap in evidence on how physicians act and respond to patients’ requests for assisted death in countries where these actions are not legal. Methods A survey including statements concerning euthanasia and (...) PAS and an open question about their actions when facing a request for assisted death was sent to all Finnish physicians. Quantitative data are presented as numbers and percentages. Statistical significance was tested by using the Pearson chi-square test, when appropriate. The qualitative analysis was performed by using an inductive content analysis approach, where categories emerge from the data. Results Altogether, 6889 physicians or medical students answered the survey, yielding a response rate of 26%. One-third of participants agreed or partly agreed that they could assist a patient in a suicide. The majority (69%) of the participants fully or partly agreed that euthanasia should only be accepted due to difficult physical symptoms, while 12% fully or partly agreed that life turning into a burden should be an acceptable reason for euthanasia. Of the participants, 16% had faced a request for euthanasia or PAS, and 3033 answers from 2565 respondents were achieved to the open questions concerning their actions regarding the request and ethical aspects of assisted death. In the qualitative analysis, six main categories, including 22 subcategories, were formed regarding the phenomenon of how physicians act when facing this request. The six main categories were as follows: providing an alternative to the request, enabling care and support, ignoring the request, giving a reasoned refusal, complying with the request, and seeing the request as a possibility. Conclusions Finnish physicians’ actions regarding the requests for assisted death, and attitudes toward euthanasia and PAS vary substantially. Open discussion, education, and recommendations concerning a request for assisted death and ethics around it are also highly needed in countries where euthanasia and PAS are not legal. (shrink)

Looking back, the moral panic that precipitated the decimation of horror comics in the 1950s seems quaint, yet concerns about the psychological impact of violent media on consumers have never disappeared. In this article, I outline a particular type of psychological impact we ought to take seriously when evaluating the moral status of entertainment. I then consider (a) ways in which comics seem immune from claims that they create this kind of impact for their readers, as well as (b) ways (...) in which we might think that comics generate special instances of moral danger for readers. (shrink)

Cette étude vise à comprendre les spécificités sémantiques des lexèmes _manipuler_ et _modifier_ afin d’éclairer l’usage qui en est fait en bioéthique lorsque les actions désignées ont comme objet l’embryon, le cerveau, l’ADN, l’Homme, le vivant ou la procréation. En s’appuyant sur les définitions des dictionnaires et sur les réponses à un questionnaire soumis aux locuteurs, et en se servant de concepts de la sémantique combinatoire, de la sémantique argumentative, de la sémantique des cadres et de l’aspect sémantique, l’étude identifie (...) les éléments de signification propres à chacun des deux lexèmes. Ces éléments sont étroitement liés au potentiel de signification des lexèmes et aux traits aspectuels des procès qu’ils désignent. À l’issue de cette étude, un ensemble de traits sémantiques caractéristiques de chaque lexème est proposé, dans une perspective contrastive. (shrink)

Il faut saluer d’emblée l’ambition et la réussite du dernier livre d’Anna Jaubert, professeure émérite à l’université de Nice-Côte d’Azur et stylisticienne reconnue, qui parvient à proposer sous une forme relativement concise une élégante synthèse d’un itinéraire personnel de recherche et de pensée, prolongeant et approfondissant ainsi les perspectives théoriques énoncées dans _La Lecture pragmatique_ (Hachette, 1990). Un défi d’ailleurs rarement relevé, l’idée même de style demeurant un impensé dans la plupart des publications stylistiques. La démarche d’A. Jaubert est donc (...) résolument théorique, au prix d’un pas de côté tactique : la substitution de la catégorie dynamique de stylisation (dans une référence au « temps opératif » défini par les travaux de Gustave Guillaume) à celle, plus statique, de style. Dans cette optique, c’est « la diagonale du style » qui figure, selon un trajet « en zig-zag » (schématisé p. 25), les grandes étapes de l’actualisation du style, mobilisant « trait... (shrink)

Tandis que l’expression ‘waste time’ ne nécessite pas d’adjoint, ceci n’est pas le cas de ‘spend time’ (e.g. ‘he spent time _ on his homework _.’) Pourquoi?_ _L’étude propose une analyse des deux expressions et avance l’idée que l’utilisation du temps en tant que ressource nécessite la conceptualisation d’un événement concomitant (cf. Lawlor 1986). La référence à celui-ci s’impose en fonction de son rôle d’entité de référence (the ‘Ground’ ; Talmy 1985, 2000), rôle conceptuel qui déclenche la présence d’un adjoint (...) chez _spend_ mais pas chez _waste_, ce dernier faisant déjà référence indirecte à l’événement cible. Ensuite, on trouve dans les travaux sur la métaphore conceptuelle une quantité importante d’exemples linguistiques. Or, des analyses linguistiques profondes font souvent défaut (Evans 2013). Je propose donc une étude de corpus de _spend time_ et _waste time_ en ciblant des variables précises, tels que les types d’adjoints utilisés. Les adjoints de _spend time_, contrairement à ceux de _was..._. (shrink)

A classic and fraught question in the philosophy of film is this: when you watch a film, do you experience yourself in the world of the film, observing the scenes? In this paper, we argue that this subject of film experience is sometimes a mere impersonal viewpoint, sometimes a first-personal but unindexed subject, and sometimes a particular, indexed subject such as the viewer herself or a character in the film. We first argue for subject pluralism: there is no single answer (...) to the question of what kind of subjectivity, if any, is mandated across film sequences. Then, we defend unindexed subjectivity: at least sometimes, films mandate an experience that is first-personal but not tied to any particular person, not even to the viewer. Taken together, these two theses allow us to see film experience as more varied than previously appreciated and to bridge in a novel way the cognition of film with the exercise of other imaginative capacities, such as mindreading and episodic recollecting. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to argue that the recent philosophical defenses of revealed preference theory do not withstand scrutiny. Towards this aim, I will first outline revealed preference theory. I will then briefly present the two most common arguments that the received view offers against it. Afterwards, I will outline three argumentative strategies for rehabilitating revealed preference theory, and successively rebut each of them.

The W-defense is among the most prominent arguments for the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). Here I offer some considerations in support of the W-defense and respond to what I see as the most forceful objections to it to date. My response to these objections invokes the well-known flicker of freedom response to Frankfurt cases. I argue that the W-defense and the flicker response are mutually reinforcing and together yield a compelling defense of PAP.

The main goal of this essay is to propose and make plausible a framework for developing a philosophical account of musical notation. The proposed framework countenances four elements of notation: symbols (abstract objects that collectively constitute the backbone of a ‘system’ of notation), their characteristic ‘forms’ (for example, shapes, understood abstractly), the concrete instances, or ‘engravings’, of those forms, and the meanings of the symbols. It is argued that these elements are distinct. Along the way, several preliminary arguments are given (...) for how one ought to understand them—for example, it is suggested that engravings represent symbols rather than instantiate forms, although they are characteristically seen to represent a symbol by being seen to instantiate an associated form. Having proposed this framework, the essay explores the nature of musical instructions, as the meanings of symbols, and offers an argument in favor of the commonly held (but recently challenged) view that those meanings are imperative. Specifically, composites of musical notation (paradigmatically, musical scores) primarily express instructional meaning, and denote something like ‘sonic structures’ only secondarily, in virtue of their primary, imperative, meaning. (shrink)

Fictionalists about a kind of disputed entity aim to give a face-value interpretation of our discourse about those entities without affirming their existence. The fictionalist’s commitment to non-realism leaves open three options regarding their ontological position: they may deny the existence of the disputed entities (anti-realism), remain agnostic regarding their existence (agnosticism), or deny that there are ontological facts of the matter (ontological anti-realism). This paper outlines a method of adjudicating between these options and argues that fictionalists may be expected (...) to hold preferences between them. The typical arguments and motivations for fictionalism lead naturally to a practice-based metaontological framework under which our practices regarding a kind of disputed entity might inform our ontological beliefs about those entities. When that framework is applied to fictionalism, it is found that the usual motivations for fictionalism lead naturally, though not decisively, to ontological anti-realism. And, where there are reasons against ontological anti-realism, fictionalism leans more toward anti-realism than agnosticism. (shrink)

Current orthodoxy in modal logic and metaphysics has it that actuality is non-contingent in the following sense: for all p, if actually, p, then necessarily, actually, p. Call this thesis (Actuality) Necessitism and its negation (Actuality) Contingentism. Thus, according to Contingentism, there is at least one proposition p which is actually true but which could have been actually false. In another paper, one of us (Glazier 2023) has recently defended Contingentism. The present paper explores the logic of actuality under Contingentism. (...) After informally introducing Contingentism and outlining what we take to be the main motivations for accepting it, we consider how contingent actuality should be taken to be. We argue that the nature, or essence, of actuality imposes certain limits on the extent to which actuality could have been different, and these then inform our view of the logic of actuality. Turning to the formal study of the logic of contingent actuality, we specify a formal language and a possible world semantics for that language and distinguish a number of natural notions of validity and consequence to which it gives rise. We present axiomatizations of the different resulting logics and examine the variety of iterated modalities in our systems. We establish soundness and completeness results. (shrink)

The accuracy-first program attempts to ground epistemology in the norm that one’s beliefs should be as accurate as possible, where accuracy is measured using a scoring rule. We argue that considerations of scientific progress suggest that such a monism about epistemic value is untenable. In particular, we argue that counterexamples to the standard scoring rules are ubiquitous in the history of science, and hence that these scoring rules cannot be regarded as a precisification of our intuitive concept of epistemic value.

Feminists have disagreed about whether women can choose gendered subordination autonomously. Less attention has been paid, however, to the socio-ontological questions that underlie this debate. This article introduces novel cases of ‘thwarted autonomy,’ in which women pursue autonomy but in ways that reinforce gendered subordination, in order to challenge dominant proceduralist and substantivist views, as well as motivate an expressivist view of the social self as a promising foundation for an account of autonomy. On this view, which draws on the (...) Hegelian tradition, agents must embody their desires and values in the social world to achieve self-understanding. Social meanings and norms therefore mediate the form an agent’s expressive activity takes, and the sense of self she develops. An expressivist view, I argue, allows us to reinterpret women’s outward acquiescence to gendered subordination as an attempt to express autonomy in an oppressive social context. It also points towards a robustly social conception of autonomy to aid in the diagnosis and redress of patriarchal oppression. (shrink)

In the concluding section of the Book One of the Treatise, Hume confronts radical scepticism about the standards of correct reasoning. According to the naturalistic interpretations, Hume resolves this scepticism by appealing to some psychological facts. A common criticism of this interpretation is that the alleged naturalistic epistemic norm seems to be merely Hume’s report of his psychology, and it remains unclear why this seemingly mere psychological description can provide a principled reason to overcome his scepticism. In this paper, I (...) will argue that Hume’s discussions of the “indirect passions” and social identity provide a constitutivist ground for the naturalistic epistemic standards in the “Conclusion”: being the object of the indirect passions constitutes what kind of person one is, and being the kind of person (philosopher in Hume’s case) gives non-optional reason to pursue certain kinds of reasoning. (shrink)