This article compares the De ordine and the De libero arbitrio in order to show how in the works after the so-called “Dialogues of Cassiciacum” a greater philosophical and dialectical complexity is evident. In particular, the complexity of the method used is analysed, the development of the topic of moral evil is highlighted, as well as the issue of the necessity of evil.

This article begins by surveying the names of the Father and their occurrences in the Cassiciacum Dialogues, then moves from language to ideas. It explores the meaning, sources and content of notions associated with each named Father. It concludes with a philosophical synthesis focused on the theoretical features of the figure of “the Father”, which conforms with Christian faith as interpreted through careful use of neoplatonic thought.

To believe that every single scientist ought to be individually engaged in ethical thinking in order for science to be responsible at a collective level may be too demanding, if not plainly unrealistic. In fact, ethical labor is typically distributed across different kinds of scientists within the scientific community. Based on the empirical data collected within the Horizon 2020 ‘RRI-Practice’ project, we propose a classification of the members of the scientific community depending on their engagement in this collective activity. Our (...) classification offers, on the one hand, a model of how the ethical aspects of science are taken into consideration by scientists and, on the other, some indications on how to institutionalize ethics in science. (shrink)

The present paper is divided in two parts . In the first part we will propose Meinong’s theory of time outlined in 1899 interpreted in such a way that the subtlety of his argumentation is emphasised. In the second, we will discuss different solutions for the celebrated McTaggart’s paradox, reaching the conclusion that a theory of time suggested by the reflections of the Austrian Philosopher seems to be the most adequate perspective for tackling this problem.

The paper lists several editions of Euclid’s Elements in the Early Modern Age, giving for each of them the axioms and postulates employed to ground elementary mathematics.

The conjunction fallacy has been a key topic in debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. Despite extensive inquiry, however, the attempt of providing a satisfactory account of the phenomenon has proven challenging. Here, we elaborate the suggestion (first discussed by Sides et al., 2001) that in standard conjunction problems the fallacious probability judgments experimentally observed are typically guided by sound assessments of confirmation relations, meant in terms of contemporary Bayesian confirmation theory. Our main formal result is (...) a confirmation-theoretic account of the conjuntion fallacy which is proven robust (i.e., not depending on various alternative ways of measuring degrees of confirmation). The proposed analysis is shown distinct from contentions that the conjunction effect is in fact not a fallacy and is compared with major competing explanations of the phenomenon, including earlier references to a confirmation-theoretic account. (shrink)

En este libro, que aparece en Italia en 1987, publicado muchas veces y muy comentado también en el extranjero, Vincenzo Ferrari analiza las funciones sociales del derecho en una perspectiva relativista, subjetivista y conflictualista, opuesta a la del funcionalismo sociológico. De tal manera, el derecho se revela como un medio de acción social dirigido a lograr los proyectos de seres humanos empeñados en relaciones variables de cooperación y de lucha. Así, se muestra cómo las normas jurídicas pueden orientar las (...) actitudes y desorientarlas; solucionar los conflictos y agravarlos o fomentarlos; legitimar cualquier forma de poder con argumentos tan válidos como ficticios. Solo al nivel de los ideales se redescubre el valor del derecho, su potencialidad libertadora y su naturaleza igualitaria. (shrink)

L'Ora e l'attimo narra--attraverso il confronto di Vico con Platone e Kant, Hegel e Nietzsche, Gadamer e, infine, Benjamin - la storia discontinua di un passaggio epocale nella concezione del mondo storico: il passaggio dal primato dell'orizzonte universale eterno, l''Ora', in cui si inquadrano le diverse età della storia, al primato dell'attimo, in cui sono parimenti possibili sia l'inizio di una 'nuova Ora' che la fine della storia dell'uomo ad opera dell'uomo. In Vico questo 'passaggio,' variamente contrastato e sofferto, ma (...) alla fine vincente, assume la figura del transito dalla 'mathesis universalis' della storia alla visione morale del mondo umano--Back cover. (shrink)

Foucault's preoccupation with the visual, specifically his positing of a sort of ‘positive unconscious of vision’, offers an entry point for examining data generated through a field study of home‐care case management practice. In Foucault's work, our attention is directed not so much to what is seen but to what can be seen and to the effects of practices of knowledge and power in constituting these particular realities. Knowledge emerges as a matter of what it is possible for knowers, for (...) nurses, to see and to say, as well as the conditions that constitute these specific possibilities for seeing and saying in a given context. Given the significance of practices of seeing in case management – seeing clients, seeing situations – examining how possibilities for understanding are constituted through ways of seeing helps us to ‘see’ the limits of currently possible practice. In the case examined in this paper, these limits constitute a gap between what a client may actually need and what it is possible, in the context of current practice, to provide. To change practice it seems important, if only as a first step, to recognize the constraints of thought in what we see. (shrink)

The analysis undertaken in this paper explores the significance of a central finding from a recent field study of home care case management practice: a notable feature of case management work is the preparation of an orderly, ordered space where care may be offered. However, out of their encounters with an almost endless variety of situations, out of people's diverse narratives of need, case managers seem able to pick out only limited range of recognized needs to which to respond and (...) demonstrate a series of responses themselves equally limited. Though this observation suggests a kind of efficiency that is currently highly valued within healthcare systems, it also underlines the system's inability to engage difference and variability in a meaningful way. This inability or limitation in effectively engaging difference is conceptualized here as, in some sense, a problem, and the nature of this problem is explored through the rhetorical process of problem setting. The central question becomes how might we develop and deploy an orderly and coherent system of care without essentializing people's experiences, without treating these experiences reductively, without, in a Foucaultian frame of reference, allowing what can be understood as similarity or resemblance among clients and situations to be folded back into sameness? As we encounter complexity, variability and difference in practice, how should we treat it? (shrink)

This article aims at sketching a philosophical theory of sound based on the perspective of sound designers: unique agents blurring the boundaries between engineering, music, acoustics and sound-based art. After having introduced the general framing in Section 1, focusing on a short history of the theory and practice of sound design, in Section 2 we propose a reading of sound as monad. We derive such intuition from the technology of digital sampling of audio signals, based on the decomposition of complex (...) sound waves in a number of elementary sinusoidal waves. Thus, in Section 3, we attempt at grounding the resulting “sound-atom” on Leibniz’s notion of monad, intended both as a “simple substance without parts” and as a “nucleus of forces in statu possibilitatis.” The insight is resumed and further discussed in Section 4, where we draw our conclusions by demonstrating the fitness of such framing with regards to the standpoint of sound design, while accounting for the work of sound artists Carsten Nicolai and Ryoji Ikeda. (shrink)

Designing a pension system is both a complex endeavor and a long lasting legacy. Complexity stems from the many trade-offs that conceiving a pension system entail and from how these initial decisions affect the social and economic behavioral responses of workers and retirees. Policy-makers planning a pension system have to evaluate its internal economic consistency, but also these feedbacks. Economic and demographic models that allow a quantitative evaluation of these costs and benefits are required. More than ever at the initial (...) stage of design, since pension systems are persistent. Yet, pension systems are not monolith, but living entities that change over time. Some of these modifications are produced by individuals’ reactions to incentives built in the system, and need to be foreseen during the initial planning. Other changes are induced by reform measures and constitute the policy responses to unpredicted exogenous shocks – such as population aging. Re-designing the pension system to cope with new demands, while being limited by existing constraints, is a difficult task. Recent reforms of the Italian pension system are discussed in detail to highlight the policy trade-offs and the economic motivations behind the decision of the reform policies. (shrink)

Researchers agree on ascribing the De incarnatione Christi contra Apollinarium and the De salutari epiphania contra Apollinarium to two different authors, who probably shared the same theological education. The latter not only uses a mature theological style but shows a better knowledge of Apollinarius of Laodicea and his disciples’ writings. Even though the two authors try to demonstrate the presence of a perfect humanity in Christ, against Apollinarian thought, we can find some important differences in their works concerning the topic (...) of the impeccabilitas of Christ and the relationship between sin and freedom. They explain in a different way the theory of salvation according to Apollinarius: while according to the author of De incarnatione Christi contra Apollinarium the man can save himself through the imitation of Christ, for the other writer salvation has been accomplished only because Christ is devoid of any trace of sin. (shrink)

Is the ubiquity of contemporary popular music akin to a deliberate aggression to the hearing, making the listening experience devoid of any sense? If so, is there any strategy to morph this supposed confusion into meaningful stimuli? Relying on epistemology, we attempt at promoting the act of listening as a proper way of world-making and refer to Mark Reybrouck, Bruno Nettl, Steven Brown and Joseph Jordania—among others—to gather appropriate heuristic tools. In the last part of the essay, we advance the (...) concept of timbral quotation as an additional means to grasp meaningful cues in the timbrical richness of contemporary popular compositions. We shall sustain the particular fitness of this tool especially with regard to nowadays’ Western popular music, more and more timbre-centered rather than harmony-centered. (shrink)