O objetivo deste artigo é examinar o conceito agostiniano de futuro tal como aparece em "Confissões", XI. Buscaremos mostrar que a noção de futuro é tanto uma parte constitutiva quanto uma expressão própria do conceito agostiniano de tempo. Vamos analisar inicialmente a reflexão agostiniana concernente à criação do mundo e à pergunta acerca do ser do tempo. Em seguida, vamos examinar o conceito de instante e sua natureza cinética. A terceira parte tratará da reflexão agostiniana sobre a medida do tempo, (...) isto é, sobre o tempo como objeto de quantificação. Finalmente, voltaremos à noção agostiniana de futuro e sua ligação com o conceito de movimento. The aim of this paper is to examine the emergence of the Augustinian concept of future in "Confessions" XI. We will argue that the notion of future is both an essential element and a specific expression of Augustine's concept of time. Firstly, we will focus on the Augustinian reflections about the creation of the world and the question whether time is a being or not. The notion of instant and its kinetic nature will be the center of our concerns in the second part of the paper. In the third part, we will examine Augustine's reflections about the measurement of time, that is, about time as object of quantification. Finally, we will be back to the notion of future and its connection with the concept of movement. (shrink)

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a severe mental illness that affects 5 to 20% of the general population. Current antidepressant drugs exerts only a partial clinical efficacy because approximately 30% of depressed patients failed to respond to these drugs and antidepressants produce remission only in 30% of patients. This can be explained by the fact that the complex pathophysiology of depression has not been completely elucidated, and treatments have been mainly developed following the “monoaminergic hypothesis” of depression without considering the (...) key role of other factors involved in the pathogenesis of MDD, such as the role of chronic stress and neuroinflammation. Chronic stress acts as a risk factor for the development of MDD through the impairment of neurotrophins signaling such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and transforming-growth-factor-β1 (TGF-β1). Stress-induced depressive pathology contributes to altered BDNF level and function in MDD patients and, thereby, an impairment of neuroplasticity at the regional and circuit level. Recent studies demonstrate that aerobic exercise strongly increases BDNF production and it may contribute as a non-pharmacological strategy to improve the treatment of cognitive and affective symptoms in MDD. Here we will provide a general overview on the possible synergism between physical activity and antidepressants in MDD. Physical activity can synergize with antidepressant treatment by rescuing neurotrophin signaling in MDD patients, promoting neuronal health and recovery of function in MDD-related circuits, finally enhancing pharmacotherapeutic response. This synergism might be particularly relevant in elderly patients with late-life depression, a clinical subgroup with an increased risk to develop dementia. (shrink)

This is a draft of the introduction to the collective volume "The birth of string theory", including the book's index and preface. The book explores the history of the theory’s early stages of development, as told by its main protagonists. It journeys from the first version of the theory in the late 1960s, as an attempt to describe the physics of strong interactions outside the framework of quantum field theory, to its reinterpretation around the mid-1970s as a quantum theory of (...) gravity unified with the other interactions, and its successive developments up to the superstring revolution in 1984. The introductive Chapter summarizes the main developments and contains a chronological synopsis with a list of key results and publications. (shrink)

How does the use of military drones affect the legal, political, and moral responsibility of different actors involved in their deployment and design? This volume offers a fresh contribution to the ethics of drone warfare by providing, for the first time, a systematic interdisciplinary discussion of different responsibility issues raised by military drones. The book discusses four main sets of questions: First, from a legal point of view, we analyse the ways in which the use of drones makes the attribution (...) of criminal responsibility to individuals for war crimes more complicated and what adjustments may be required in international criminal law and in military practices to avoid ’responsibility gaps’ in warfare. From a moral and political perspective, the volume looks at the conditions under which the use of military drones by states is impermissible, permissible, or even obligatory and what the responsibilities of a state in the use of drones towards both its citizens and potential targets are. From a socio-technical perspective, what kind of new human machine interaction might drones bring and which new kinds of shared agency and responsibility? Finally, we ask how the use of drones changes our conception of agency and responsibility. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in ethics and to those in law, politics and the military involved in the design, deployment and evaluation of military drones. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine whether and, if so, how far, the Augustinian notion of pulchrum is related to Plotinus’ concept of beauty, as it appears in Ennead I. 6. The Augustinian notion of beauty will be analyzed by focusing on the De natura boni, considering plurality and unity in Augustine’s identification of bonum with esse, both in their ontological and axiological dimensions. Topics selected for special consideration will be, first, beauty as outcome of modus, species and (...) ordo naturalis, and, secondly, corruptio as cause of deformitas. The first part of the paper will attempt to explain the Augustinian identification of esse with bonum and pulchrum.The second part will analyze Plotinus’ notion of beauty, as spelled out in Ennead I. 6, considering the Plotinian identity of to kalon and to agathon. Topics selected for analysis will be, first, the concept of form as cause of beauty, and secondly, the notion of to aischron as partial or absolute lack of form. The second part of the paper will attempt to explain Plotinus’ concept of good as yielding the nature of beauty through an analysis of Plotinus’ reflections on being and unity. The third part of this paper will consider the differences between Plotinus’ and Augustine’s identity of ugliness and non-being, as related to the notion of matter. Topics selected for analysis will be, firstly, Plotinus’ identity of matter and to aischron, and, secondly, Augustine’s concept of matter as capacitas formarum. The conclusion will prove how Plotinus’ concept of matter as coinciding with ugliness shows a wide theoretical difference between Augustine’s and Plotinus’ ontological-axiological patterns. (shrink)

Rodolfo Sacco developed the idea of “mute behaviours” during his studies on mute law. The notion of “mute behaviours” denotes an action that is able to mould a legal relationship without any use of language. Certainly, this concept may give rise to some doubts in relation to the attribution—to a behaviour qualified as mute—of the capability to affect dynamics involving a plurality of people. Aiming to clarify the idea of “mute behaviours” by this point of view, the authors analysed the (...) semiotic terminology used by Sacco himself to explain this notion and the issue of its silent nature. Therefore, the terms “signifying signs” and “symptoms”, deemed by Sacco—respectively—incompatible and compatible with the theory of mute behaviours were considered. The former term was traced back to the notion of conventional and arbitrary sign, the notion of the latter was reconstructed linking it to the concept of signs based on signification and suggesting a possible framework in view of the idea of “presentative meanings” developed by the philosopher Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue. Clarified this dichotomy by a terminological analysis, the authors noticed—as affirmed by Rodolfo Sacco himself—the impossibility to ascribe the notion of gesture to the mute behaviour’s category, as some exegetes proposed. Consequently to this last remark, the authors tried to analyse the relationship between gestures and “mute behaviours”, identifying the category of “sema-pragmatic acts”, that includes gestures and may be seen as an intermediate phase between “mute behaviours” and legally relevant behaviours operated by speaking. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é o de esboçar a prova da existência de Deus traçada por Agostinho de Hipona no segundo livro do De libero arbitrio. Tendo em vista tal fim, na primeira parte desta pesquisa, examinar-se-á o critério indicado pelo Hiponense para provar que Deus existe. Em seguida, isto é, na segunda etapa deste estudo, analisar-se-á a reflexão agostiniana sobre a Verdade como objeto comum e imutável do conhecimento da razão humana. Por fim, na terceira parte desta pesquisa, examinar-se-á (...) por que a Verdade é superior à razão e assim mostrar-se-á por que, para Agostinho, Deus existe. (shrink)

We argue that lack of direct and conscious control is not, in principle, a reason to be afraid of machines in general and robots in particular: in order to articulate the ethical and political risks of increasing automation one must, therefore, tackle the difficult task of precisely delineating the theoretical and practical limits of sustainable delegation to robots.

L’obiettivo del presente articolo è mostrare che, come sostentuto da Armstrong, il pensiero agostiniano si caratterizza per un’attitudine positiva nei confronti del mondo sensibile e del corpo. A tal fine, saranno analizzate le riflessioni di Agostino presenti nel primo libro del De Libero Arbitrio e nel decimo libro delle Confessioni. La presente indagine si articolerà in tre momenti. In primo luogo, esaminerò le analisi dell’Ipponate relative alla natura del peccato per mostrare che, per Agostino, agire bene è amare i beni (...) eterni. In seguito, traccerò le riflessioni agostiniane dedicate al peccato e all’ordine della natura umana per chiarire perché, per l’Ipponate, dominare le passioni è realizzare la propria natura. Infine, esaminerò le analisi agostiniane dedicate ai concetti di uti e frui per mostrare cosa l’Ipponate intenda per uso corretto dei beni temporali e per dominio della ragione sulle passioni. Sarà così possibile evidenziare che, per Agostino, contenere le passioni non significa astenersi da esse e allontanarsi dalle creature, ma utilizzare entrambe correttamente. Parole chiave: Agostino; peccato; mondo sensibile; uti; frui. (shrink)

En este artículo abordamos las modulaciones estéticas de la protesta social contra la violencia letal en la ciudad de Rosario (Argentina), tomando como casos el repertorio en torno al Triple Crimen de Villa Moreno encabezado por el Movimiento 26 de Junio entre los años 2012-2014 y los repertorios contra la violencia institucional impulsados por la Multisectorial Contra la Violencia Institucional durante el año 2020. En primer término, indagamos en la dimensión estética de la protesta social de ambos repertorios (espacialidad, temporalidad, (...) morfología y semiología) y, en segundo lugar, sobre sus recursos expresivos artísticos. Nos proponemos analizar las principales coordenadas del escenario manifestante emergido en el año 2012 que permitió, a través de singulares estrategias estéticas de politización de la violencia, enunciar las modalidades de la violencia letal sobre jóvenes de sectores populares así como promover su asunción como una problemática que atañe al conjunto del cuerpo social. Asimismo, nos preguntamos por las continuidades y discontinuidades experimentadas en dichos repertorios contra la violencia letal desde la emergencia sanitaria originada con motivo de la propagación del Covid-19. Por último, en las reflexiones finales, sintetizamos los principales hallazgos de investigación y deslizamos nuevos interrogantes sobre el tiempo presente de la protesta. (shrink)

The economic and social thinking of Latin America was enriched by the Latin American Development School (LDS). That is the name given in this essay to the contributions from distinguished social scientists who, during fifty years (1950-2000), articulated their ideas around the, so called, Center-P..

Mitchell Franklin's contributions to American legal thought were in large part the result of his devotion to the study of the United States' Romanist legal heritage. A leading theme of his work is that the Roman legal tradition presents more promising prospects for progressive legal developments than the Anglo-American common law tradition. Thus, Franklin became an advocate of Roman-style codification of American law which began with the American revolution and has continued. His Romanist position sharply distinguished Franklin from almost all (...) American jurists of this century, even those considered liberal and progressive. Thus, Franklin criticized Holmes for his Anglophilic Humean1 conceptions of law and judicial hegemony. (shrink)

En este artículo buscamos explicar lo que llamamos “la nueva preponderancia de la dimensión política en las relaciones internacionales”, entendiendo por aquello la creciente importancia que han adquirido últimamente tanto los actores políticos como el apostar por estrategias multidimensionales en política exterior –en contraposición a estrategias unidimensionales basadas en el contractualismo económico-comercial-, para tratar de dar respuesta a las inquietantes y complejas interrogantes que presenta el actual escenario mundial. La tesis del trabajo es que esta “vuelta a la política” en (...) el plano internacional se explica por la confluencia de dos fenómenos-procesos: por un lado el cambio de ciclo económico –propulsado en gran parte por la crisis financiera global-, que implica el inicio de lo que el economista inglés Robert Skidelsky llama ciclo “liberal-keynesiano”, y por otro lado la transformación del sistema internacional y el paso a lo que el académico estadounidense Richard Haass llama “la era de la no polaridad”. (shrink)

David Shoemaker has claimed that a binary approach to moral responsibility leaves out something important, namely instances of marginal agency, cases where agents seem to be eligible for some responsibility responses but not others. In this paper we endorse and extend Shoemaker’s approach by presenting and discussing one more case of marginal agency not yet covered by Shoemaker or in the other literature on moral responsibility. Our case is that of Kenneth Parks, a Canadian man who drove a long way (...) to his mother-in-law’s and killed her in a state of somnambulism. We support our claim about Parks’ marginal responsibility in three steps: we first deny that Parks acts involuntarily as traditionally claimed in the legal literature; we then propose to extend Shoemaker’s analysis of marginal responsibility based on quality of will so as to include two other dimensions: the moral status of the agent and the actual causal effects of their actions; finally, we distinguish Parks’ marginal responsibility from four other existing concepts: “tracing”, diminished responsibility, causal responsibility, and moral disapproval without responsibility. (shrink)

Per il dialeteismo ci sono contraddizioni vere. Questa concezione filosofica ha assunto una forma chiara e definita a partire dal lavoro del filosofo e logico Graham Priest – uno dei suoi padri fondatori, nonché uno dei suoi più strenui difensori. Questo libro intende portare il dialeteismo all’attenzione di un ampio pubblico, che non sia solo quello degli addetti ai lavori. Il volume è suddiviso in due parti. La prima include le cinque lezioni su "Dialeteismo e storia della filosofia" tenute da (...) Priest e Filippo Casati a Padova nel 2016, in occasione del Corso di Eccellenza per il dottorato in filosofia dell’Università di Padova. La seconda contiene quattro contributi sul dialeteismo di autori italiani. (shrink)

L'obiettivo di questo lavoro è analizzare la percezione che gli insegnanti di scuola secondaria di secondo grado dell’area metropolitana di Bologna (Italia) hanno della storia e del suo insegnamento. Attraverso una ricerca quantitativa svolta attraverso la somministrazione di un questionario su scala Likert a novantanove insegnanti dell’area metropolitana di Bologna si sono potuti identificare risultati ambivalenti. Da una parte, gli insegnanti possiedono generalmente una ottima e spesso consapevole, ma migliorabile, concezione epistemologica nei confronti della storia e del suo insegnamento; tuttavia, (...) emerge una concezione non olistica del patrimonio, degli strumenti e delle metodologie didattiche a disposizione nella pratica docente; infatti gli insegnanti affermano di utilizzare in classe prevalentemente la spiegazione frontale, lasciando alle attività laboratoriali legate alle fonti un ruolo marginale. (shrink)

In this paper I deal with the process involved in understanding metaphors. My aim is to show how synaesthetic sentences moderate the conflict between the minimalist point of view and the radical contextualist standpoint. Synaesthetic sentences are constituted by a term that belongs to a perceptual domain which is defined by a term that corresponds to another perceptual domain (for example “caressing voice”, “dark sound”, or “sweet smell”). In particular, I will defend two claims: first, against radical contextualism, it is (...) possible to maintain the distinction between “what is literal” and “what is metaphorical”. Second, against the minimalist view, the literal meaning of a metaphorical utterance is not necessarily computed as a first step by default. (shrink)

According to IOM, there have been 20.000 dead or missing migrants in the Mediterranean since 2014. According to the NGO United, there have been 44.000 dead people on the European borders since the beginning of 1990s. more than the 75% of these people goes missing in the sea. In Italy only a small part of retrieved bodies can be identified and sometimes repatriated. In most cases, the bodies are buried with no names in coastal cemeteries. In the face of the (...) expeditious disposal of the bodies, linked to public health issues and to the working of the devices that connotate the border regime, those communities that accommodate these corpses face the need to “integrate” someone else’s death in their own universe of sense thanks to specific practices of “hospitality” dedicated to the defunct. Through a project that maps buried migrants in the cemetery of Catania and in collaboration with the local committee of Red Cross and the municipality of Catania, since 2017 we have started, with the program Mecmi, an ethnography of the practices of body disposal and of burial rituals dedicated to more than 260 corpses. (shrink)

Il presente volume raccoglie diversi articoli, relazioni e conferenze, fatti in circostanze diverse e in vari luoghi durante il decennio 1953-1962. I saggi qui presentati sono stati quindi gia pubblicati tutti, eccetto pochi. Tuttavia essi vengono qui non solo organicamente riuniti, ma anche in molti punti rimaneggiati, completati e in qualche caso fusi insieme. La grande attualita di argomenti di filosofia della scienza ci hanno spinto a curare la presente raccolta, come modesto contributo ad una delle piu urgenti problematiche della (...) cultura moderna. In essa, infatti, se occorre evitare il pericolo che la scienza nel senso stretto subordini a se ogni altro valore, bisogna pero anche riconoscere ad essa il suo reale valore teoretico e pratico ed evitare quindi che la filosofia si isoli in un piano puramente concettuale ed astratto, avulso dalla vera realta dei nostri tempi. (shrink)

A partire dalla tesi che nel neoliberalismo è all’opera una pratica di governo degli altri che si effettua tramite la sollecitazione di un modo particolare di governo di sé, nel presente contributo si tenterà di considerare lo specifico regime di verità che si profila in relazione a questa forma di esercizio del potere. Per comprendere questa particolare declinazione della veridizione come tecnica di sé atta ad assicurare il governo degli altri l’articolo si svilupperà in tre parti. In un primo momento (...) si tenterà di definire la nozione di regime di verità affinché sia possibile comprenderne la portata in relazione alla governamentalità neoliberale. Si avrà così modo, in un secondo momento, di analizzare il regime di verità neoliberale andando a definire il suo funzionamento e i suoi bersagli. Sarà possibile, infine, studiare gli effetti che tali pratiche veridizionali ingenerano nei processi di soggettivazione nella misura in cui producono un individuo imprenditore di sé, le cui scelte e comportamenti devono essere animati dalla logica del capitale umano. (shrink)

Per l’antropologo Pierre Clastres, i concetti di “Stato” e di “politico” sono sempre stati colti, nel mondo occidentale, come due elementi interdipendenti: lo Stato è politico, non c’è politica senza Stato. I suoi studi etno-antropologici tentano di ribaltare questa visione, concettualizzando le società primitive come “senza” e “contro lo Stato”. Il presente testo esamina i testi di Clastres cercando di inserire le sue riflessioni all’interno di paradigmi giuridici e politologici consolidati e di dimostrare come l’antropologia politica e le scienze politiche (...) possano mettersi in comunicazione. (shrink)

Il linguaggio permea la nostra vita quotidiana: quando chiediamo un caffè al bar, quando discutiamo con i nostri amici, quando salutiamo qualcuno o ci presentiamo a un colloquio di lavoro, comunichiamo utilizzando parole ed espressioni di una certa lingua. Conversare è un'attività spontanea e apparentemente elementare, ma che coinvolge meccanismi estremamente complessi e sofisticati. Tramite numerosi esempi e illustrando le teorie linguistiche e filosofiche più recenti, questo libro vuole fornire al lettore una "cassetta degli attrezzi" utile per comprendere e analizzare (...) il funzionamento di quel particolare tipo di azione che è l'agire linguistico. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:During my stint as a visiting scholar at St. Bonaventure University, I stumbled on two very interesting manuscripts that are not as well known as they deserve to be. I would like to make these two 'pebbles' more accessible to other scholars and to anyone who desires to approach this valuable material, which is preserved in the Friedsam Memorial Library.The First Manuscript: A "Handbook" for the Observant FriarsAt St. (...) Bonaventure University, I was working on the sources concerning John of Capistrano's polemics against the Jews and the Turks. To this purpose, I scanned the Ottokar Bonmann Archive at St. Bonaventure for letters, sermons, and treatises. At the same time I was working on the critical edition of Capistrano's La dichiarazione in volgare sulla Regola di san Francesco, which amounts to a vernacular explanation and interpretation of the Rule of St. Francis. It is one of the first vernacular texts of its kind, providing, in a few simple words, an explanation of the meaning of Franciscan spirituality. As its author is one of the "four columns" of the Observant family, it can, in fact, be understood as a vademecum for the Observants. My first impressions in this direction were confirmed and reinforced by looking at the manuscript Holy Name College, cod. 35, which is now preserved in the Friedsam Memorial Library of St. Bonaventure University .Chiappini lists three manuscripts containing La dichiarazione:1. L'Aquila, Archivio di Stato, cod. S.73, ff. 461b - 469b 2. Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, cod. XII.G.5 n. 23. Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, cod. B.131, ff. 53r-66vBonmann found six other manuscripts:1. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana , Vat. lat. 13100, ff. 80r-94v2. Rome, Biblioteca S. Isidoro 1/68, ff. 244r-254v3. Rome, Biblioteca S. Isidoro 1/85, ff. 10r-24r4. Washington DC, Library Holy Name College, cod. 355. Zara, Biblioteca Paravia, cod. 1552, ff. 3v-13v6. Private collection of Giovanni PansaSince I have not yet been able to see the last two manuscripts , some questions remain concerning their actual contents. When we consider the Zara manuscript, for example, we notice that Chiappini claims it to contain on folios 3v-13v the Expositione della Clementina de Clemente V, sopra la regula de li frati minori, traslata ad litteram de latino in vulgare per lo venerabile frate Iohanni de Capestrano . Based on the similarity of subject matter and the use of the vernacular language, Bonmann inferred that this text included Capistrano's dichiarazione. The circumstances surrounding the manuscript in Giovanni Pansa's private collection present us with a real detective story. This Italian bibliofile described the manuscript for the first time in 1887, when it resided in a library in Sulmona. Pansa subsequently bought the manuscript and sold it in Rome before 1925 to the antiquarian bookstore of Ermanno Loescher & Company. Since then, the manuscript has disappeared without leaving any trace. All details concerning this story can be found in the work of Chiappini, who wrote that the manuscript contains the Postilla in clementina "Exivi" super Regulam fratrum minorum per sanctum Ioannem de Capestrano. This might be the same Postilla as that found in MS. 20 of the Capestrano library. Based on all this, I believe that Bonmann misunderstood Chiappini's reference.Thus far I have found one manuscript not mentioned by Chiappini or Bonmann, namely MS Roma, Biblioteca S. Isidoro, 1/87, ff. 66ss. Hence there are now either ten or perhaps only eight manuscripts available for the creation of a critical edition . One of these, as I have indicated above, is manuscript Holy Name College, cod. 35, currently kept in the Friedsam Memorial Library of St. Bonaventure University. As I had the opportunity to study this manuscript, I can provide a more precise description of its codicological properties and contents. (shrink)