An ethical epoché is required to leave the terrain of a self-evident morality and question its origin. In particular, four fundamental motifs of the ethical dimension are identified: pathos, to be thematised as an alternative to the persistent activist unilateralism; response, which always involves body and soul; diastasis with its stumbles and subtractions; and finally coaffection, in which the social dimension of experience is announced. Ethical behaviour feeds on the magma of pathos, which in turn would be blind and directionless (...) without any ethos. (shrink)

Bernhard Waldenfels is certainly one of the leading representatives of the contemporary philosophical tradition with a phenomenological orientation. His scientific education, his intellectual background and his very rich range of publications, many of which have been translated into the major languages, characterise him as a significant heir to the great German philosophical tradition, which he has enlivened in creative contact with contemporary thought, of which he is an acknowledged protagonist...

Living corporeity is the intermediate element between nature and culture, which must be thought of as a reciprocal interconnection, since as corporeal beings we always move on a threshold. In the reflection of the bodily self, a doubling between the living body as a functioning subject and as a material object is revealed; after all, even one's own body sometimes takes on the features of a foreign body, as is the case in the experience of illness. In the technical instrument, (...) the body is prolonged and this highlights the connection between the technique of the thing and the technique of the self; however, despite the gradual autonomisation of the technical element from the living corporeity, there remains what escapes calculation and looms large in the subtraction of the alien. (shrink)

Experience is investigated according to those breaking points where the unexpected surfaces and the surprise of the extraordinary and the alien breaks through. What happens is always in the postponement between pathos and response; this represents the fundamental agreement of a responsive phenomenology: it is never a quiet succession, but always something arriving too early or too late. Threshold experiences such as hesitation, delay, waiting, pausing, stumbling are investigated in this framework.

Through a comparison of the phenomenological motif of the alien and the psychoanalytic motif of the unconscious, a critique is advanced against Cartesian dualism, which recurs today in the natural sciences and in the split of the contemporary individual, divided between spirit and nature, the proper world and the alien world, the inner sphere and the outer sphere. It is a matter of thinking of an original subtraction, an absent presence that begins with ourselves, in a slippage that achieves no (...) synthesis. (shrink)

Experience is investigated according to those breaking points where the unexpected surfaces and the surprise of the extraordinary and the alien breaks through. What happens is always in the postponement between pathos and response; this represents the fundamental agreement of a responsive phenomenology: it is never a quiet succession, but always something arriving too early or too late. Threshold experiences such as hesitation, delay, waiting, pausing, stumbling are investigated in this framework.

Living corporeity is the intermediate element between nature and culture, which must be thought of as a reciprocal interconnection, since as corporeal beings we always move on a threshold. In the reflection of the bodily self, a doubling between the living body as a functioning subject and as a material object is revealed; after all, even one's own body sometimes takes on the features of a foreign body, as is the case in the experience of illness. In the technical instrument, (...) the body is prolonged and this highlights the connection between the technique of the thing and the technique of the self; however, despite the gradual autonomisation of the technical element from the living corporeity, there remains what escapes calculation and looms large in the subtraction of the alien. (shrink)

Through a comparison of the phenomenological motif of the alien and the psychoanalytic motif of the unconscious, a critique is advanced against Cartesian dualism, which recurs today in the natural sciences and in the split of the contemporary individual, divided between spirit and nature, the proper world and the alien world, the inner sphere and the outer sphere. It is a matter of thinking of an original subtraction, an absent presence that begins with ourselves, in a slippage that achieves no (...) synthesis. (shrink)

In the following paper, we will focus in particular on the research and reflections carried out by the French anthropologist Philippe Descola, who offers us a useful perspective to radically rethink the conceptualisation that, through a millenary movement, has led our Western culture, represented by what he calls the Moderns (borrowing an expression from Bruno Latour), to objectify the natural environment and to deploy it as a separate and unmanageable entity to be dominated.

The paper aims to analyse the role of Entfremdung in the process of self-awareness. In the Anmerkungen zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität of 1920, Husserl reflects on the Entfremdung of the concrete bodily self, using the alterity or the meeting with the extraneous as a model. The conscious relation of the natural self to its soma (das Physische) is constituted in the context of the experience of the extraneous (das Fremde). The reference to the other than oneself also seems to occur (...) in the transcendental self-reflection of the self, investigated in the late manuscripts on temporality (C- Manuscripts). Firstly, in such manuscripts, the living present (lebendige Gegenwart) is both identity and difference from self, and precisely as a continuous transition from identity to other-than-self, to difference from self, it constitutes the original ground of the transcendental ego. Secondly, it is possible to grasp a correlativity: that between the bodily self-reflection and the temporal self-reflection of the transcendental ego. Both are based on the opposition and mediation of subjective and objective. Following this path, it can be said that in the reflections on original temporality, the dynamics of bodily self-reflection are iterated: it is no coincidence that in the C Manuscripts Husserl designates the temporal Ego objectified in self-reflection as Non-Ego. Even in the case of the original temporal self-reflexivity, it is otherness that mediates the relation to the self, an otherness that is not identified with but connected to the transcendental body of others. (shrink)

The compatibility between the phenomenological method and the subject of the unconscious has long been called into question, not only by external critics but also by authors whose theoretical background had been shaped precisely by their confrontation with Husserl’s phenomenology. To date, the evolution of Husserlian philology, on the one hand, has notably softened such stance, testifying to how the father of phenomenology himself directly and repeatedly grappled with this problem. On the other hand, however, there seem to be intrinsic (...) aspects to the notion of phenomenology as such that would lead to underestimate its potential, outright excluding concepts or entire realms of experience, such as that gathered under the title of the unconscious. In this article, we intend to revisit certain moments in Husserl's work from which it becomes clear that not only is phenomenology capable of addressing the problem of the unconscious, but above all it proves to be particularly effective in accounting for it, providing important methodological indications for its analytical framing. In the concluding section, we will finally touch upon some possible avenues for a phenomenological investigation of the unconscious, differentiated by the assumption of distinct exemplary phenomena as guiding thread (Leitfaden) of the analysis. (shrink)

The question I intend to address here concerns the ontological status of the Doppelgänger (the Double). “Who” is the Double? How is it connected to our lives, and to other lives? I would like to describe, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the ambiguity of this figure, which has been interpreted in art and literature as a copy of the original or as a doubling of the self. Drawing on Waldenfels’s reflections on the experience of the alien, I will try to show (...) that the intrinsic ambiguity of the Doppelgänger is rooted in an ambiguity that is even more original than that of the Double: the ambiguity of our own life, which is always intertwined with that of others, with what is alien. What makes us to some extent radically alien even to ourselves and, precisely for this reason, “founded” on our very “groundlessness” is our relational, contextual or responsive freedom. (shrink)

To establish what time is, as in Plato’s iconic definition (“moving image of eternity”, Timaeus 37d), one often has to emphasize its relation to what time is not. Time seems to be defined dialectically, in terms of what is not eternal, not extra-temporal, etc. Husserl’s phenomenology as well shows how experience involves several borderline forms of time. But these sui generis forms of timelessness are for Husserl as many modes of time, they are variations of the same constituent temporality. Time (...) thus presents its dialectical counterparts within itself, rather than being metaphysically drawn ex nihilo from eternity. Allzeitlichkeit, for example, is the capacity of idealities to be in any time; Überzeitlichkeit is the property of the I to function as the focus of appearance in any possible living experience; Zugleichkeit is the proper mode of the a priori of correlation, i.e. the fact that the intertwined processes of Objektivierung and Subjektivierung occur at the same time; Urzeitigung and Selbstzeitigung describe the primordial dimension of the absolute flow of consciousness (Urprozess); finally, Simultaneität and Gleichzeitigkeit refer respectively to the system of sedimented sense (secondary passivity) and to the modality of its reactivation. All these boundary forms do not negate time, but entertain a constitutive relationship with its becoming. Overall, then, Husserl’s view is that of a pluralistic and polyhedric unity of time. (shrink)

Intergenerational justice represents a crucial theme in the on-going debate in ethics, politics and law. In what follows, I would like to show that a determined phenomenological perspective drawing from the motive of alterity can shed new light on such a topic. Importantly, my concern will be to display how this approach can provide a thorough justificatory underpinning for a responsibility towards future generations, while denouncing the main shortcomings that mainstream approaches reveal when dealing with this issue.

In this contribution I will attempt to sketch a phenomenology of dreaming in what appear to be its most important characterisations: for example, a specific (a)temporality, an essential ineffability, its relation to the waking world and a particular causality. In order to do this, I will be guided by two authors – Maria Zambrano and Maurice Merleau-Ponty – who seems to be apparently distant but who share a vision of dreaming as a life-world in continuity with the waking world, which (...) is comprehensible only by adopting a non-rational gaze, such as that offered by poetry and myth. The final aim will be to rehabilitate the dreaming experience as a lived one, able to express deep subjective meanings. (shrink)

In recent decades, phenomenology and hermeneutical phenomenology have taken the lead in addressing the question of personal identity through the inquiry of “who are you?”. However, this lead has questionable aspects in capturing the relationality between self, others, and the surrounding world, characterized by its ever-changing state. To understand personal identity in its ever-changing state of becoming, the primary focus of this paper is twofold: firstly, exploring how to reconcile these complex relations into a unified conception of personal identity by (...) following Husserl’s notion of “indeterminate determinacy” and his theory of variation, and secondly, considering the limitations of defining this unity as an “autobiography or biography" in accordance with Arendt’s notion of a "life-story". In the final analyses the notion of life-story will be revised together with Waldenfels’s analyses on “radical alien” and Sözer’s “in-between”. This will prompt a reconsideration of personal identity as a process, leading to a genetic phenomenological perspective that recognizes the “indeterminacy of the self”. (shrink)

The primacy of representation, to which – at least according to Paul Ricoeur – Edmund Husserl would have remained faithful, is radically questioned in Emmanuel Levinas’ famous essay on the "ruin of representation" (1959). The phenomenological structure of intentionality, in which “something appears as something”, confirms the need to “break out of the magic circle of representation”. Indeed, it is precisely by means of a detailed analysis of “intentionality”, insofar as the latter appears as characterized by an essential Mehrmeinun. Levinas (...) brings out the overcoming of representation, that is, the abandonment of the latter's claim to subordinate thought to the objective necessity of presence. Within the horizon of presence, the necessity of being-thus-and-not-otherwise overwhelms the sense of the possible, and the actual evidence annihilates the being-able-to-be-otherwise of human experience. Through the analysis of intentionality and its potentiality, it is possible to bring out the transition from a philosophy of the necessary constraints of evidence, linked to the primacy of representation, to a philosophy of the power-able-to-be-otherwise. After all, the ruin of representation is the ruin of the instant or eternity of evidence, relegated into the actuality of consciousness. By subtracting itself from the self-referential necessity of evidence, the ethical Sinngebung evocated by Levinas at the end of his 1959 article connects intentionality to the sense of the possible, making explicit its openness to the future in radical form. (shrink)

In a collection of essays published in the 1970s under the title Vernunft in die Zeitalter der Wissenschaft, Gadamer confronts developments in analytical epistemology, arguing about epistemology from a hermeneutical point of view. Relations between the two traditions remain difficult. Paolo Parrini was among the few who opened to a real dialogue, neither superficial nor formal. He considered the hermeneutical tradition from an epistemological point of view, finding many connections via a third view between metaphysical realism and strong relativism. This (...) theoretically dense and challenging perspective was expressed in two essays – “Ermeneutica ed epistemologia” (1998) and “Ermeneutica ed epistemologia 2: Heidegger, Kant e la verità” (2011). Parrini focused on the concept of Offenheit der Erfahrung in Gadamer’s Wahrheit und Methode and, later, on Heidegger’s theory of truth as alètheia. In this paper the author argues that original results of Parrini’s research confirm the fruitfulness of the encounter between hermeneutics and epistemology. He tries at the same time to identify some friction points and theoretical constraints, for further comparative development, in theory of language and theory of history, on which Gadamer’s ontological hermeneutics lies. The first tends to eliminate any distance between experience and language; the second presents conflicting aspects about identity conditions of past events, as investigated in history. To become fully productive, the dialogue between epistemological and hermeneutical traditions will be able to face a deep revision about these topics. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to focus on the double entanglement of the body as an original medium and as a vehicle of technique. It follows Waldenfels’ long course of investigations devoted to these issues. In particular, the author will try to highlight the strong points of his proposal, attempting to critically extend their range, on the one hand, and problematizing certain assumptions that may become the subject of further investigation, on the other. He will focus above all on (...) the question of the bodily self as embedded in and structured by many gestures and practices that are properly technical. Finally, the author will show how the conceptual tools of this phenomenology can be employed in the analysis of some significant contemporary phenomena. (shrink)

Bernhard Waldenfels is certainly one of the leading representatives of the contemporary philosophical tradition with a phenomenological orientation. His scientific education, his intellectual background and his very rich range of publications, many of which have been translated into the major languages, characterise him as a significant heir to the great German philosophical tradition, which he has enlivened in creative contact with contemporary thought, of which he is an acknowledged protagonist...

In the following paper, we will focus in particular on the research and reflections carried out by the French anthropologist Philippe Descola, who offers us a useful perspective to radically rethink the conceptualisation that, through a millenary movement, has led our Western culture, represented by what he calls the Moderns (borrowing an expression from Bruno Latour), to objectify the natural environment and to deploy it as a separate and unmanageable entity to be dominated.

The essay aims to provide a comprehensive survey of the theoretical and aesthetic interpretation of Claude Debussy's musical work by Vladimir Jankélévitch, while simultaneously delineating how and why the phenomenon of Debussysm emerges as an innovative and revolutionary style, if compared to the previous tradition. The text discusses the potential relationships between philosophical Phenomenology and musical Impressionism, highlighting - also through the concepts of mystery and instantaneity - how the philosopher reads in the composer's music the emergence of a vision (...) of reality centered on the punctuativity of events. (shrink)

That Loch Ness Monsters, “Nessies”, might exist has been argued by many people on the basis of films, sonar contacts, photos, and eyewitness accounts. At the same time, some observers have insisted that these are not real creatures, nothing but misperceptions of natural phenomena or known animals. Their arguments typically address the weakest evidence (eyewitness accounts) rather than the strongest objective evidence of sonar and film. Such evasion or avoidance constitutes a strategy of misdirection, as does the insistence that, since (...) Nessies are not recognized by “science,” therefore taking their possible existence seriously amounts to doing pseudo-science. Debunkers arguably irrational and go beyond the evidence in declaring that Nessies are definitely non-existent. Although Nessie fans do believe that they exist, most will admit that final proof requires a specimen or detailed close-up of unequivocally valid photography and insist only that enough evidence exists to warrant further searches: that is not pseudo-science. (shrink)

The topic of “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP) has historically been regarded with skepticism by the scientific community. After a period of relative openness and ambivalence in the 1950s and 60s, it eventually became generally categorized as a “paranormal” concern and dismissed as a legitimate focus of inquiry. However, the issue has risen to public prominence over recent years. As such, this paper argues UAP should be redeemed as a scientific topic and given the scrutiny that such a potentially important phenomenon (...) merits. The focus here is not assessing the nature of UAP per se but simply to argue this is a valid topic that the scientific community has shied away from which deserves real consideration. (shrink)

The trickster concept has been proposed as a useful description of paranormal phenomena in response to nine decades of inconsistent experimental results and the inability to develop sustained practical applications of psi. However, the trickster of mythology is too diverse and ambiguous for scientific research. The term ‘psi-trickster’ is used here to refer to an active factor that makes psi effects inconsistent and unsustainable but can be investigated scientifically. My transition from optimism about psi experiments to reluctantly accepting the psi-trickster (...) is described. The primary purpose of this essay is to describe strategies and options for research given the apparent psi-trickster. Strategies for dealing with the psi-trickster include: (a) hope that continued experimental research will overcome it; (b) accept the far-reaching implications of the usual assumptions for psi experiments and develop models of unconscious conflicting psi influences by many different people; (c) investigate the possibility that reliable psi effects occur in rare conditions, such as after many years of intense meditation practice; (d) propose physics-based models; and (e) consider that factors other than the motivations of living persons may be involved. Experimental psi research has the ultimate goal of converting psi to technology. Like other technologies, the most advanced development will be for military uses and for corporate profits. Spontaneous psi experiences tend to inspire a sense of meaning in life and a belief that the person’s life is watched over, similar to mystical and near-death experiences. The psi-trickster characteristics prevent psi from being converted to technology and preserve its mysterious, mystical aspects. An in-depth investigation is needed to understand how paranormal beliefs and experiences affect a person’s life and society as a whole. This is the first step in investigating the psi-trickster characteristics and should include the distribution of beliefs in the population for the full spectrum from skeptics to proponents. (shrink)

The trickster concept has been proposed as a useful description of paranormal phenomena in response to nine decades of inconsistent experimental results and the inability to develop sustained practical applications of psi. However, the trickster of mythology is too diverse and ambiguous for scientific research. The term ‘psi-trickster’ is used here to refer to an active factor that makes psi effects inconsistent and unsustainable but can be investigated scientifically. My transition from optimism about psi experiments to reluctantly accepting the psi-trickster (...) is described. The primary purpose of this essay is to describe strategies and options for research given the apparent psi-trickster. Strategies for dealing with the psi-trickster include: (a) hope that continued experimental research will overcome it; (b) accept the far-reaching implications of the usual assumptions for psi experiments and develop models of unconscious conflicting psi influences by many different people; (c) investigate the possibility that reliable psi effects occur in rare conditions, such as after many years of intense meditation practice; (d) propose physics-based models; and (e) consider that factors other than the motivations of living persons may be involved. Experimental psi research has the ultimate goal of converting psi to technology. Like other technologies, the most advanced development will be for military uses and for corporate profits. Spontaneous psi experiences tend to inspire a sense of meaning in life and a belief that the person’s life is watched over, similar to mystical and near-death experiences. The psi-trickster characteristics prevent psi from being converted to technology and preserve its mysterious, mystical aspects. An in-depth investigation is needed to understand how paranormal beliefs and experiences affect a person’s life and society as a whole. This is the first step in investigating the psi-trickster characteristics and should include the distribution of beliefs in the population for the full spectrum from skeptics to proponents. (shrink)

We recruited subjects who reported feeling stressed and needing a break and were seeking an opportunity to experience relaxation. Inaudible binaural beats (BB) were used to measure the ability of BB to induce relaxation. Measurements included EEG, Menlascan (cardiovascular and ANS) (Menla Technologies, Independence, Missouri), and GDV (Gas Discharge Visualization/Kirlian Photography) (Korotkov et al., 2020). Further, a Big Five Character Assessment was administered, and individual Brief Mood Introspection Scales (BMIS) were collected for each condition. Subjects experienced an improvement in brain (...) function, microcirculation or cardiovascular score, bioenergy, and a calmer brain after adding binaural beats to brown noise or to music plus brown noise, although the Menlascan scores and Big Five character assessment results were less conclusive. BB seems to have profound effects on the physiology of subjects, and since the beats were not audible, these effects could not be attributed to the placebo effect. These results are encouraging in terms of developing musical products incorporating BB to affect human neural rhythms and corollary states of consciousness and warrant further research with more subjects and different frequencies of BB and different music tracks. (shrink)

A survey of modern-era field Egyptologists reveals a very high incidence of unusual deaths consistent with symptoms of haematopoietic cancer, a scenario that parallels radiation sickness caused by exposure to abnormally high radiation previously reported in ancient tombs. However, the high radiation in tombs is not explained by the ‘natural’ background, which is rare in limestone bedrock. Here, re-examination of Egyptian funerary literature reveals reference to saffron cake in portions of 2-3-5 (yellowcake U-235), giving power by means of an invisible (...) ‘efflux’, and leaving a legacy of hazardous ‘excrements’ (wastes) which were buried in an underground ‘tomb’ called the per D’jet (house of millions of years). The ancient curse warned that those who break this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose. (shrink)

Background: Research indicates that meditation increases mindfulness and paranormal experiences of precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, and synchronicities. There is limited knowledge about the prevalence or impact of these experiences on meditators and the general population. Aims: To compare self-reported well-being, mindfulness, connectedness, personality, paranormal experiences, beliefs, and performance on psi tasks in a meditation group versus an exercise control group. Method: This is a randomized trial that explored changes, including well-being, mindfulness, connectedness, psi, extraordinary experiences, beliefs, and ability to impact a (...) random number generator in the participants, comparing a meditation vs. exercise control group. We collected data at baseline, “Mid” or halfway through the intervention (week 4), post 1, which is at the end of intervention (week 9), and post 2, which is two months post-intervention. Data was collected securely online with IRB approval. Results: Data from 72 participants (N=45 meditation/N=27 exercise) demonstrated improvement in some well-being measures (anxiety and general health). The study examined the effects of meditation versus exercise on various psychosocial measures and paranormal experiences. The meditation group displayed higher scores in openness and extroversion compared to the exercise group, which was unexpected and required further investigation. The meditation cohort also reported more paranormal experiences, with about half of them considering these experiences important or meaningful. However, the experiment exploring psychic abilities did not yield significant results. While the study had limitations, such as a predominantly non-diverse sample, it adds to the existing body of evidence linking meditation and exercise to positive psychosocial outcomes. Conclusions: The randomly selected meditation naïve cohort trained in brief structured meditation demonstrated increases over time in mindfulness, connectedness, extraversion, and paranormal experiences and beliefs compared to an exercise cohort. Performance on the psi tasks did not improve in either group over time, and these tasks may not be sensitive enough to detect significant changes. (shrink)

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) have become a serious topic in the US Congress, and new legislation has been released outlining a plan for declassification for the public. There are numerous factors that could lead an individual to mistakenly think they saw a UAP, and one of those factors might be the proclivities of the personalities that observe what they think to be a UAP. This study examined the big five personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, as well as (...) schizotypy traits, to see if UAP experiencers could be distinguished from people who had not seen a UAP. The study included 206 participants, with 103 people who self-reported to have seen a UAP. Latent profile analysis was conducted on the personality variables to explore the grouping of participants. Group one was average on the traits, a second cluster was labeled as the Neurotic/Schizotypy group, which was high in neuroticism and schizotypy traits, and a third group was labeled as O-ACE, which were high on openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion but low on neuroticism and schizotypy traits. The findings indicated that the O-ACE group was more likely to see UAP, but this effect was not strong. A presumptuous stereotype exists in the general public that people who see UAP are probably people who are emotionally reactive (neurotic) and vulnerable to perceptual and cognitive abnormalities, but this was not evident in our data. We also found that the descriptive UAP accounts by the general public were similar to the descriptions provided by military witnesses. It was also of note that only 28% of participants reported their sightings anywhere, and 14% used a UFO reporting organization, which suggests that events are vastly underreported. Stigma and a lack of places to legitimately report sightings appeared to be primary barriers. The conclusion of this study is that personality factors are an insufficient explanation for most UAP sightings. (shrink)

In an earlier study, Rupert Sheldrake, Pam Smart, and Michael Nahm reviewed accounts of end-of-life experiences (ELEs) involving non-human animals. They showed animal ELEs to be similar to human ELEs, suggesting common underlying processes. Here, we consider apparent after-death communications (ADCs) from non-human animals and compare them to accounts of ADCs from humans. We collected 442 accounts of animal ADCs from our own appeals and from reports in the literature. We found a close resemblance between ADCs from animals and from (...) humans in the types of experience—dream visitations, a sense of presence, visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory apparitions, and psychokinetic effects. As with human ADCs, the great majority of animal ADCs were reported to have occurred in the first hours or days after death, with a dramatic falling off over time. Moreover, our data show that people grieve their pets in much the same fashion as they grieve their human loved ones, suggesting that human bereavement studies would do well to take into account the animal data to which we draw attention. Doing so may help clarify issues regarding the fundamental nature of the experiences—determining whether they are best regarded as internal hallucinations, as living-agent-psi-mediated subjective or objective phenomena, or as actual contacts with the deceased—which in turn carries implications not only for academic studies of bereavement but for clinical practice with the bereaved. (shrink)

Two reviews of two books. Title to be changed.

The essay intends to propose a reflection on the philosophical writing and style discussing Emil Cioran's thought, based mainly on the conversations and interviews in which the Franco-Romanian philosopher offered notable interpretative keys on this theme. With this contribution we attempt to articulate philosophical writing as a lógos which, starting from sensation, from life in the most direct way in which it is perceived, expresses existence, with the aim of freeing it from the evils that grip it.

This paper analyses the main concepts of Florensky's technical works – namely his studies on topology and his engineering work at Glavelektro and at the Technical Encyclopedia – within the framework of an allegedly 'new and future' conception of the world. The aim is to show that not only is Florensky's technical-scientific work detachable from his metaphysics, but that it is possible to identify the theoretical and methodological features of an original scientific approach and a transversal model of rationality capable (...) of overcoming the rigid demarcations between nature and culture. Such science shall contain both an Ars inveniendi and a morphology of particularities. (shrink)

The paper investigates the salient features of Florensky's "concrete metaphysics" and the interpretative and forecasting framework he draws from it to prefigure the features of future science. The intent is to reconstruct, through a documented analysis based on the texts, his attitude towards Europe and the western world, certainly characterised by a critical confrontation, based on the perception and denunciation of the crisis of the hegemonic models of rationality and civilisation in their cultures, but anything hostile and antagonistic, and never (...) evaluated by him as foreign realities, neither as regards their destiny, nor that of Russia, Christianity and philosophical and scientific thought in general. (shrink)

In The pillar and ground of the truth, Pavel Florensky meditates on the anthropological potential of the mysticism of the heart as opposed to false mysticisms that generate a fragmented and distorted experience of life. The mysticism of the heart in one of its highest figures that arises in the sphere of christian asceticism points instead to the integration of the person, to a transfiguration of his perception by which he enters into relationship with a frequency of the real that (...) resembles a sort of entrance to Paradise. Florensky's thought is a challenge to the lifestyle imposed on us by contemporary culture, which is related to those false mysticisms because of its logic centered on the will to control, the maximization of instrumental efficiency, dispersion, consumption, which causes the degradation of human life in isolation and the loss of enthusiasm for existence. (shrink)

The Russian thinker Florensky and the French philosopher Weil devoted much space in their writings to the crisis of the West. The article highlights the many convergences that exist between their explanations of the reasons for this state of things, but also between their proposals for a solution based on the analysis of what they both consider to be the foundation stone of Western culture: ancient Greece, specifically its culture and thought imbued with an arcane religious-mystical tradition, the best representative (...) of which is Plato. Florensky and Weil agree that the renewal of Western culture should consist in rediscovering its ancient roots and, simultaneously, in reappropriating that which founds the culture and thought of ancient Greece: the gaze on the transcendent, that is, on that reality of which the real (the world, life, etc.) is an ontological symbol. (shrink)

A book written in 1938 by a German jurist, philosopher and essayist, Walter Schubart, emerges from a tragic past that we deem distant, and forces us, more than eighty years later, to question problematically our present day. The profound contradictions of that time have not been resolved, and the same spectres for the same and new nightmares play on the scene. The text is reread and interpreted to bring out what were for Schubart the crucial junctures of the conflict not (...) only between Russia and Europe but also between West and East, in search of a possible synthesis glimpsed by the author himself when in the conclusion he uses a metaphor: Europe is the vat, Russia the wine, each needs the other. The current geopolitical context is certainly not moving in that direction. But have other perspectives or other ways of interpreting such conflicts and thus other implicit solutions presented themselves between those two worlds? Poignant from this point of view may be the intense work of Pavel Florensky – considered only very marginally by Schubart. In the interweavings of theology, philosophy, science, linguistics and art, Florensky opens up to a profound reworking of both Western and Eastern culture, showing that the conflict can be recomposed on the scene by getting rid of spectres. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a hermeneutic reading of the beginning of the first letter entitled Los dos mundos in the book La Columna y el Fundamento de la Verdad. I consider this text important,as it offers us the epistemological principles that will guide Florensky's investigation. I understand that Florensky proposes a phenomenology, in which the phenomenological reduction is the Cross of Christ. A perspective that brings it closer to the hesychast tradition, which considers the purification of the heart through (...) the Cross, the path to the visit of the Uncreated Light, as a path towards theosis. In the case of Florensky, we have a similar path to achieving a mystical modality of knowledge, in which the intuitive and discursive register are combined in a fertile and rigorous way. (shrink)

Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries was characterized by extreme violence. In his course at the Collège de France, Il faut défendre la société (1974/1975), M. Foucault has argued that the birth of the modern state, through the juridico-political theory of sovereignty, and Hobbes-style contractualism and Leviathan, falsely closed the problem. He offers an alternative based on counter-history, but disdains many of Montaigne 's materials that could reinforce his thesis.

Starting from the impossible question “what is music?”, the paper attempts to circumscribe its meaning through different epistemological strategies: historical, empirical, objective. An attempt is made to reflect on the character of intangibility and sensoriality of musical experience that reveals its antinomic essence. Musical experience appears stretched between ineffable and exact, useless and necessary. The second part of the work is dedicated to the observation of the music phenomenon through the neuroscientific perspective.

This article traces Florensky’s intellectual biography. The author underlines that, more than his numerous scientific, philosophical, theological, mystical works, his most important and imperishable message is the heroic elevation of his Christian testimony in the gulag. Florensky transfigures the “night” with the achievement of a higher spiritual dimension, which he calls “the art of gratuitousness”, of the pure disinterested gift of oneself to God and others, that gratuitousness which is synonymous with grace and beauty.

The thought of P.A. Florensky is a peculiar expression of Russian philosophy and, more generally, of Russian cultural identity. At the same time, it can nevertheless be regarded as a legitimate heir to the cultural tradition which from its powerful Ionian roots unfolds through the peaks and abysses of Western philosophy stricto sensu, up to the ultimate crises of contemporary thought...

The variability, the fugacity, the subjectivity and "privacy" of taste sensations, their excessive involvement with corporeality, appetites, pleasure, emotions and affectivity, their proximal character, their instability and, last but not least, the difficult verbal translatability of flavors, are the factors that have determined the misrecognition of taste, fueling the prejudice on its unreliability from the point of view of knowledge. Despite its cognitive devaluation, the sense housed in the mouth and responsible for the choice of foods, the recognition and evaluation (...) of the flavors of food and drinks, in our daily life it nevertheless manages to establish such a perfect balance between body and mind, subjectivity and objectivity, need and desire, pleasure and knowledge, intimacy and sociability, to motivate his election as a topic of philosophical interest. Therefore, dealing with sensoriality starting from the “minor” senses, the most rooted in bodily experience, also means trying to show the interweaving of bodily experience, cognition and subjective dimension from an embodied perspective. And in the specific case of taste, it means re-evaluating the body through the daily experience of eating. (shrink)

In this contribution, the former Director of the last Criminal Asylum to close its doors, gives us a brief overview of his experience. He argues the most significant breakup moments, without forgetting the proposals and suggestions for future improvements. Finally, he gives us an original document, from the V. Madia historical archive. This is a life in the asylum portrait.

It is a well-known fact that besides having an indispensable nutritional function, food also has an important cultural value. Methods to transform and make use of food have their origins in social contexts and contribute to generating cultural processes and forms of life. According to this view, food is also a cultural invention which has come to influence man’s ways of being and living, as well as the manner in which man relates to others, the world and the divine...

In this contribution, the authors give us a brief analysis of the legislative landscape that marked the transition from the Judicial Psychiatric Hospitals to the Articulations for the Protection of Mental Health and the Residences for the Execution of Security Measures; the focus is on the health area in the regional context (Sicily) with specific reference to the Vittorio Madia prison in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto.

In these pages the author deals with the genesis of AttraversaMenti. The touching movie After this exile was born from the project Cinema, soul shape. The film was filmed in the Vittorio Madia intramural library rooms during the renovation. The restoration is, here, as background of important cues of choral and personal reflection.

This extract recounts the experience of the current Vittorio Madia Prison director: the passion, the desire to improve and teamwork. Yet also, the concern for future challenges.

The aim of the present study was to explore the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in rehabilitation settings. The term bibliotherapy, coined in the 1930’s by the psychiatrist William Menninger, conveys the importance of reading as a tool for cultural promotion and growth, as a means through which to acquire knowledge, enhance one's cognitive and emotional abilities, develop strategies for managing discomfort, as well as a psychoeducational and cognitive technique in the psychotherapeutic field. A study carried out on Pubmed showed that recent (...) research on bibliotherapy, in particular experimental research, would be lacking and requires a humanistic medical approach, drawing on the knowledge and methods of psychology and cognitive literary studies, as well as clinical disciplines to broaden our understanding of how the dynamic processes of interpretation mediate between the textual and characteristic structures of mental health and illness. This narrative review was conducted on PubMed database and used two key terms “Bibliotherapy” AND “rehabilitation” AND “prison”. Studies in line with this specific issue were included. The search of PubMed database provided a total of 470 items recruited online; of these 464 studies were excluded according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. After the screening, a total of 6 studies assessing the bibliotherapy in rehabilitation setting, met the inclusion criteria and were included in the narrative review. Bibliotherapy as a self-help approach also in psychotherapeutic treatments can activate the desire to seek changes in attitudes and behaviour, to acquire knowledge of symptoms, and the value of self-care. A psychological intervention self-administered through ACT bibliotherapy with minimal therapeutic support can improve the physical and emotional functioning of adults with chronic pain. If studies report the efficacy of parent-mediated bibliotherapy in situations of childhood anxiety, nocturnal fears, specific phobias, in adolescence chatbot-delivered self-help depression intervention was proven to be superior to the minimal level of bibliotherapy in terms of reduction on depression and anxiety. Bibliotherapy interventions may be helpful to fight against weight gain and potentially facilitate smoking cessation. (shrink)

The great challenge of prison is the repair function and not only towards those who have suffered the damage, but also for the recluse. The article focuses on the penitentiary environment as a place for training and learning through the social library: a space in prison free, participated, co-built and attentive to the needs of differences.

The work is interwoven around the opportunity of empowerment that the return of a library offers to prisoners of the V. Madia prison in Barcelona Pozzo di Gotto. A library is an ideal and concrete space where one can discover themself and others. It is a place where you can practice freedom and work for it. It is an opportunity to give content to the “empty time” in which one is forced, when an impediment hinders the free enjoyment of oneself. (...) To articulate this idea the condition of loss of freedom, stress and fragility, in which the inmates, placed in correspondence with the situation of segregation, illiteracy, violence and loss of human rights that afflicts Iranian women are considered. In the Nafisi Room, as we read in the book Reading Lolita in Tehran, confronting readings of literary works censored by the regime, young women of Tehran start a process of resilience and reaffirmation of themselves through a practice of reading, that similarly and for the same purposes will be able to make women and men detained, go to the library now functioning in Madia prison. (shrink)

Vittorio Madia (1895-1954) was the director of the Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (Sicily) criminal asylum from 1929 to 1954 and an important figure in the history of Italian psychiatry. He studied Criminal Anthropology and Lombrosian Theory in Naples, which led him to develop a rehabilitation model based on freedom and work and the introduction of Occupational Therapy. His tenure in the asylum was characterised by methodological and organizational precision, vision of the potential of the institute for rehabilitation and treatment, and (...) individual treatment for the inmates; in just a few years, under his direction the criminal asylum in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto became unrivalled for excellence in Italy and was acknowledged as being as well run as similar institutions in the United States of America and in Europe. His son Aldo (1920-2005) worked closely with his father and succeeded him as director of the asylum, continuing his father’s work to further the inmates’ moral and psychic rehabilitation. This narrative review describes Vittorio Madia’s personal and professional career in caring for the criminally insane. (shrink)

The psychiatric question, the history of insanity, and psychiatric power have historical connections to the construction of the state and society around the principles of inclusion and exclusion. Asylum is an institution whose dominant feature has been far more exclusion than care. In Italy, starting with the Italian experience led by Basaglia in Gorizia in the early 1960s, a radical critique of psychiatry as an ideology of social control has been structured. This cycle of anti-institutional struggles, and the following debate, (...) culminated in the passing of Law 180. In this context, the discussion on overcoming the judicial asylum occupied a wide space. The paper examines some of the issues around which the critique of the criminal asylum has been developed and intertwined with the struggle against the asylum. (shrink)

This essay is based on selected medical records from Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto’s criminal asylum, concerning cases of uxoricide. Through the analysis of these medical records and the related judicial information, the article focuses on the contexts in which gender-based violence took place, in order to reconstruct the voices and proofs of the social actors involved. It furthermore identifies the “tolerance limit” of gender-based violence, and how this could fluctuate and be subjected to bargaining. The voices and anxieties of the (...) men involved, and the study of these medical surveys stimulate a reflection, from a relational and performative perspective, on the connection between masculinity and gender-based violence. By proposing a consideration on the fine line between pathological and criminal uxoricide violence, the essay underlines how uxoricide seems to be linked to a male identity that is sometimes built on power relationships. (shrink)

In the last century, Goffman defined prisons as places of residence and work for groups of people who share a common predicament, spending part of their lives under a closed regime, whose all-embracing nature is manifested in the blocking of social exchange and any relations with the outside world (Goffman 1961: 11). Comprehensive, all-encompassing institutions where, from a Foucauldian perspective, a strong bureaucratic organisation manages mass groups of individuals, exerting strict control over them to the point of shaping their actions, (...) relationships and very identity; a disciplinary and punitive regime, structured to produce a specific kind of citizen (Foucault 1975: 135). This is a clear but far too rigid an analysis to reflect what is today the submerged, we might say hidden, reality of Italian and international prisons. In order to understand the experience of imprisonment today, it is more helpful to refer to places of confinement (Pandolfino 2022), where it is necessary to look not only at institutions or places, but also at the relations between sites, practices, social relations and subjective states of mind (Jefferson 2014: 49)... (shrink)

The present paper returns the results of a project conducted in the “Germana Stefanini” Women's Prison in Rome. The initiative has had various editions with the aim of enhancing the benefits of books and reading in the prison context to promote paths of empowerment and redemption. The use of special texts (silent books or wordless picture books) and the methodological choices allowed the participants to experience a time of wonder and to consider beauty in all its forms as a resource (...) for redefining their own identity. The space of punishment has thus been transformed into a valuable opportunity for learning outside the homologating and depersonalising logic of the disciplinary device, also in contrast with the stereotypes that still condition the biographies of many women. (shrink)

Vol. 7, n. 2, December 2023 (special issue).

The purpose of this essay is to analyze religious food prescriptions and avoidances, to show, through a cross-cultural and comparative approach, the inner reason underlying such a wide range of different biases and rules sedimented through millennia of religious practices. Since food also transmits meanings, any food performs a semiotic power and shows how religious identities are embedded in everyday life. As a result, "we are what we eat," not only organically but in terms of beliefs and representations. For these (...) reasons, food often functions as an identity marker that traces invisible borders between an in-group of people sharing the same religious identity or background, and an out-group of people with different identities. Therefore, in acquiring personal or social identity inside a larger community, food plays a relevant part in linking cultivation, culture, and worship, which is why this project highlights the relationship between religious food prescriptions and identity. People connect to their religious group through food patterns, and religious rules concerning food are often used to retain cultic and cultural identity. ultuale e culturale. (shrink)

Modern research on near-death experiences (NDEs), powerful spiritual experiences triggered by a close brush with death, has focused on experiences characterized by profound positive feelings, ranging from incredible peace and calmness to bliss and ecstasy. However, throughout history there have been accounts of frightening deathbed visions and terrifying journeys to a hellish realm peopled by evil forces or beings. It is difficult to determine the prevalence of these distressing NDEs because the anxiety and judgmentalism they evoke deter experiencers from acknowledging (...) and revealing them. Nevertheless, most recent studies estimate their prevalence at between 11% and 22% of all NDEs. Their phenomenology varies widely, but attempts to categorize distressing NDEs have yielded several distinct types. Various researchers have attributed distressing NDEs to the personal characteristics of the experiencer, to biological factors of the brush with death, or to other circumstances around the event. Overall, distressing NDEs appear to be associated with fewer permanent aftereffects than the more common pleasant NDEs, which may reflect the reluctance of experiencers to focus attention on unpleasant experiences. Nevertheless, some distressing NDEs lead to long-lasting emotional trauma. Several strategies have been described by which experiencers try to come to terms with and find meaning in, their distressing NDEs. Much research remains to be done on the causes and aftereffects of distressing NDEs and their relationship to other dark spiritual experiences. (shrink)

Episodes of demonic or spirit possession, where individuals perceive their bodies and minds as being controlled by supernatural entities, have been the subject of extensive research across various disciplines. Despite this, the extent to which existing scientific explanations can account for these phenomena is still uncertain, especially in terms of the aspects that remain unexplained. This official review aims to clarify the current scientific understanding of the origins, mechanisms, and causes of these seemingly extraordinary experiences. Our analysis includes 52 documented (...) cases of possession, reviewed from literature published between 1890 and 2023 and incorporating insights from psychology, medicine, anthropology, and theology. We examine common symptom patterns, delve into the research conducted, and evaluate how many cases are still unexplained within the existing behavioral science framework. Quantitative models indicate a 0.01923 probability of a possession case being scientifically unexplained. The likelihood of discovering new, truly unexplained cases of demonic possession in the future is estimated at 0.0031, with a 0.0023 probability of encountering five such cases in a single year. Moreover, we assess the medical and psychological interventions employed in these cases and propose practical guidelines for the safe use of exorcisms and specific pharmacological treatments. This study advocates for the integration of therapeutic interventions, combined with the expertise of anthropologists for culturally sensitive actions and Catholic Church priests for spiritual guidance, including exorcisms where appropriate as determined by ecclesiastical authorities. Our conclusion suggests that integrative approaches provide the most comprehensive clinical support in such cases and underscore how possession episodes challenge our scientific understanding of consciousness and its boundaries. (shrink)

In this paper, the phenomenology of the Trickster (its ‘darker’ side) is explored. The archetypal Trickster is shown to manifest as psychosociological aberrations and bizarre physical effects often associated with unique individuals during certain emotionally charged states. Though the Trickster and its many variants have mythological roots, the modern-day equivalent (free, for example, from anthropomorphization) can be seen as an activated psychological proneness to err in thinking when a liminal phase is entered into—that borderland between doubt and certainty. Mainstream academia (...) considers the field of parapsychology to be controversial—it is marginalized because the phenomena it studies (the paranormal) is mostly illusive, usually weak even when proved to be statistically anomalous, and the psi process itself has not been theoretically explained. This state of affairs propagates uncertainty which can trigger ‘tricksterish’ (spurious) interpretations of parapsychological data and findings: Long-term experimenter psi and chronological decline effects are cases in point. Due caution and bias-free analysis of the data and findings may help ameliorate, perhaps even dissolve, the problem of the Trickster. (shrink)

Previous research has examined the relationship between exposure to death and dying and death anxiety. However, the extent to which research in this area provides a coherent body of work is unclear. To investigate varied exposures of death and dying and to reproduce findings, a measure that encompasses the range of ways in which people can be exposed is necessary. Accordingly, this study developed a new measure, the Exposure to Death and Dying Scale (ED&DS), and investigated specifically how professional exposure (...) to death and dying was related to death anxiety in high-exposure and non-exposure professions. Professional exposure is defined as exposure to death and dying in a professional setting, as opposed to in one’s personal relationships or with one’s self. The Death Anxiety Scale Extended (DAS-E) was used to provide a score for unease surrounding death. Participants (N = 468) were separated into different groups based on their profession: non-exposure professions and high-exposure professions, which consisted of 6 sub-categories: mental health professionals, the general medical field, nursing, mortuary professionals, end-of-life care, and forensic professionals. Professional exposure rates to both death and dying were calculated, as well as death anxiety scores and time spent in each profession. Non-exposure professions were shown to have lower levels of exposure than all categories of high-exposure professions. One-way ANOVA revealed that exposure (vs. non) professionals had a lower level of death anxiety. High-exposure occupations varied in levels of death anxiety. The mental health group had the highest mean death anxiety (111.52), followed by the forensic professionals (107.36), general medical field (106.66), nurses (104.79), mortuary professionals (104.60), and end-of-life carers (93.89). Although there was a trend toward a decline in death anxiety with increasing time spent in high-exposure occupations, there was also an increase in death anxiety among individuals with the longest tenure in their field, indicating that this is not a clear linear relationship. Overall, this study showed that the higher professional exposure to death and dying, the lower that individual’s reported death anxiety was, regardless of the type of exposure experienced. (shrink)

Studies of the mediating factors of imaginary companions (ICs) in children and adults are well-represented in the literature. However, the nature and structure of behavioral expressions in IC characters have been less formally scrutinized. We examined these issues in a convenience sample of 389 adults. Of these, 155 self-reported childhood ICs and retrospectively characterized their IC phenomenology via a set of 14 items modified from previous research. Rasch analyses showed that IC experiences form a true probabilistic hierarchy whose structure varied (...) little across respondents’ age, gender, having siblings, as well as the respondents’ number of past ICs, or their decision to inform others about their IC. This hierarchy starts with shallow (i.e., ostensibly ‘adaptive or positive’) experiences and transition to deep (i.e., relatively ‘maladaptive or negative’) contents at higher levels. Network analysis suggested that respondents invented ICs primarily to combat feelings of loneliness. However, contrary to the Rasch model, when comparing shallow vs deep IC experients’ answers, positive and negative perceptual contents lost their distinction, thereby severely distorting measurement. These distortions were sufficiently powerful to reliably predict respondents’ group membership. Results derived from retrospective accounts of childhood experiences, which might differ from IC contents and dynamics measured either in real-time or within adult populations. However, these findings suggest that ICs comprise a latent dimension of shallow-to-deep perceptions that might relate to schizotypal or dissociative phenomena manifesting in everyday contexts. (shrink)

Paranormal tourism is a lucrative market offering visitors the opportunity to engage with enchanting experiences and stories in destinations around the world. Specifically, ghost tourism connects people to the dead (and death) through dark narratives, supernatural legends, and participatory experiences. Previous scholarship has suggested that ghost tourism exhibits characteristics of dark tourism (by visiting dark places) and spiritual tourism (by engaging in spiritual practices); however, this relationship has not been fully explored. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to consider (...) where the experiential and motivational characteristics of dark, spiritual, and paranormal tourism converge, and to consider whether this convergence produces a dark spiritual experience for consumers. Three dimensions are identified as contributing towards the degree of dark experience offered by ghost tourism: place, promotion and production, and participation. To conclude, a Dark Spiritual Experience Spectrum is proposed, illustrating the characteristics of each dimension and their influence on the degree of dark spiritual experience offered to consumers. It is argued that these dimensions have the potential to impact the tourist experience, influence visitor motivations, and, consequently, drive an evolving paranormal market. (shrink)

In European culture, a systematic reflection on attention starts from the seventeenth century with Descartes until Freud’s notion of fluctuating attention, which promotes free associations and is realized in the suspension of everything that focuses attention. The practice of attention encourages the acceptance of reality as it is: that is basically the exact opposite of the neurotic disposition, which manifests itself with a sense of dissatisfaction linked to a conflict between reality as it is and reality as one would like (...) it to be. Being open to what it is, includes choiceless awareness, not undermined by comparison with what could be but what is not. This is not an easy exercise, because it presupposes the education to use a "naked attention": objectless, open, impersonal and non-judgmental. In this way the events are simply "recorded", separated from emotional reactions and projections, not interpreted according to pre-established grids. Naked attention acts like a mirror reflecting what is happening in the mind, body and environment, acknowledging that everything changes: sensations, feelings, images, thoughts. The happiest outcome consists in developing the art of saying yes to life as it presents itself: a coniunctio oppositorum between mutability and invariability. (shrink)

The term “attention” does not find a prominent place in Freudian-derived psychoanalysis, nor does the literature currently seem to devote, excuse the pun, much attention to it. In principle, a path could emerge that moves from Freud’s idea of “free-floating attention”, to proceed to the relationship between attention and interpretation as proposed by Wilfred Bion, and finally arrive at the concept of rêverie, developed above all by Thomas Ogden and of central interest for post Bionian developments. From a brief examination, (...) one could say that psychoanalysis is more interested in dis-attention than in attention, or in any case in those transformations/alterations of the attentional sphere that signal entry onto the scene of the unconscious. The author tries to reflect on the various relationships that can exist between free-floating attention, rêverie and inattention, to then return on the light of this to the problem of interpretation: thus different ways of conceiving may emerge, precisely on the basis of the different types of attention that we bring into play during the analytic session. (shrink)

This paper explores the intimate connections that exist between the psychological phenomena of internal attention and mental automatism. The article does not regard attention as a psychological process made up of cognitive components, rather it takes into consideration the internal dimension that is shared by the meditative state as it is maintained by J. Krishnamurti in his public lectures. Some connections between the Weltanschauung of J. Krishnamurti and those of the pre-socratic “sofoi“ (“wise philosophers” or “knowledge seekers”) are here highlighted, (...) due to their being cultural, psychological and intangible worlds that connect the east with the west, with special regard to Heidegger’s philosophy. The article investigates attentive processes and goes on to examine some clinical examples taken from experiments of hysteria induced somnambulism and from experiments of hypnosis through which the author explores both the notion of mental automatism and that of affective type autonomous complex, as they appeared in Janet’s and Jung’s works. The analysis is concluded with exemplary clinical anecdotes that show how reflexive attention can lead to consciousness where automatism would otherwise reign and therefore make one able to abandon the predominant psychological complex responsible for psychopathological blocks. (shrink)

The reflection on attention here proposed takes its cue from clinical experience with some young patients who came to therapy due to having difficulty concentrating in their studies. Starting from Jung’s reflections on the two forms of thinking, it is underlined how, in these clinical cases, attention was “captured” by the affective world, rather than being addressed towards an object. Jung’s idea of a polarity of thought – in which, on the one pole, attention is directed to the external world (...) and, on the other, is “captured” by the internal world – allows us to understand the importance of affection as a motivational drive. The lack of attention is therefore seen not as a cognitive problem, but as an emotional discomfort. The close connection between feelings and attention, as well as the role that perception plays in attention, is further articulated through the thought of several philosophers such as Masullo, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur and Waldenfels. Following the thread of their reflections, this paper shows how the difficulty of these young people to direct attention to their studies does not depend on will, but on an affective recognition. When this recognition is lacking, the individual is captured by a fantasy world rather than the world in which we project ourselves. (shrink)

It all starts from here: “pay attention to your internal world, that is, your thoughts, your fantasies, your emotions, your dreams and so on”. The analyst does not give the patient many indications other than this. Evidently, attention is not an accessory in the analytical process but rather represents one of the foundations on which the patient’s path of psychic transformation begins and revolves. In this sense, attention is both what makes analysis possible, and what undergoes a profound change from (...) the analysis in qualitative terms. Referring to an article on the subject by Bruno Callieri entitled “Phenomenological aspects of attention” (Callieri 1997-1998), we can in fact distinguish different forms of attention. This distinction is represented by the different mental structure: attention that goes towards the active search for its object; attention that is concentrated around itself; and finally a form of “pathic attention”, of pure observation, that does not wait for anything in particular. Precisely because of this condition of passivity, it is capable of letting itself be struck at the right moment. In the same way, Freud and Bion, respectively with the concept of “free-floating attention” and “listening without memory or desire”, suggested to the analyst the assumption of a mental disposition that is without guidance, and capable of staying in the present. Consciousness inhabits the present but there seems to be no trace of this very brief moment that comes before being, since attention tends to saturate the unknown by re-proposing what is already familiar, thus guaranteeing a sense of continuity. Yet, it is precisely in the present that experience can be denied and we can find ourselves faced with indefinite and undefinable things once and for all, rather than known or knowable objects. Therefore, to facilitate the transition of consciousness from the object to the thing, the Ego retreats to settle on a pure observational function. It favours the appearance of other secondary complexes, in a Jungian-oriented psychic perspective, and it is capable of intercepting more subtle aspects of the experience. Such attention continues until it is shaken by the sudden emergence of intuition which, in Jung’s words, represents a direct perception of the unconscious. If thought is a construction of consciousness that reflects its spatio-temporal characteristics, intuition conversely presents itself as the irruption of that which has a psychoid nature. Its foundation is in a source in which the experience is syncretic, affectively and sensorially connoted, and which would give the Ego something to think about. Intuition would therefore be offered to the Ego as a free event brought about by careful waiting, as in a double systolic and diastolic movement, opposite but complementary. Some excellent examples can be traced back to this dynamics, such as Minkowski’s concepts of diagnosis by penetration and Lacan’s logical time, which respectively capture man in his being and his becoming. (shrink)

As an authoritative voice of classical philosophy, Plutarch of Chaeronea still offers a deep meditation on language, showing the correct way to listen, and assigning primacy to the word. By listening to the word of the other we practice the art of the word, which means educating ourselves in a truthful dialogue in which profound intention is solely the truth, which presupposes knowing how to welcome the words of the other into one’s own interiority, respecting the Socratic imperative taken from (...) the oracle of Delphi: “know thyself”. Franz Rosenzweig, Ferdinand Ebner and Emmanuel Levinas can be considered the today's exponents of the “philosophy of dialogue”, who, even without mutual influences, found in different ways and in a passionate and very personal meditations on meaning and value of language, the oldest and deepest root of Western philosophy: listening to the “word”, and philosophy as dialogue in truth. (shrink)