The paper discusses some thematic issues that emerge from the Kantian study of diseases of cognition and volition, taking into consideration his anthropological works and some problems emerging from his main critical works. Starting from the explanation of the taxonomy of the main mental illnesses, some epistemological themes will be illustrated, linked to the fallible relationship between transcendental truths and the empirical dimension of knowledge and to the Kantian concept of error. Subsequently, the study of affects and passions, conceived as (...) illnesses of volition, will show the difficulties linked to a total involvement of reason in moral action, concerning the shortcomings of human action with respect to the principle of responsibility. Finally, the paper will focus on the role of legal imputability in relation to moral responsibility and to mental diseases. (shrink)

Congenital hip dysplasia is an abnormal formation of the hip socket that can cause painful arthritis of the joints. Early intervention is essential to ensure proper development of the bones that make up the hip joint, because the longer the condition goes undetected and untreated, the more difficult it is to correct. The assessment test to detect congenital hip dysplasia in newborns was first described by Marino Ortolani, an Italian pediatrician.Marino Ortolani was born in 1904 in Altedo, a small town (...) between Bologna and Ferrara in northeastern Italy. His parents were agricultural workers. He studied medicine at the University of Bologna and, after graduating in 1929, was awarded a medal for being the first.. (shrink)

During the twentieth century, the view that assertions and norms are valid insofar as they respond to principles independent of all local and temporal contexts came under attack from two perspectives: the partiality of translation and the intersubjective constitution of the self, understood as responsive to recognition. Defenses of universalism have by and large taken the form of a thinning out of substantive universalism into various forms of proceduralism. Alessandro Ferrara instead launches an entirely different strategy for transcending the (...) particularity of context without contradicting our pluralistic intuitions: a strategy centered on the exemplary universalism of judgment. Whereas exemplarity has long been thought to belong to the domain of aesthetics, this book explores the _other_ uses to which it can be put in our philosophical predicament, especially in the field of politics. After defining exemplarity and describing how something unique can possess universal significance, Ferrara addresses the force exerted by exemplarity, the nature of the judgment that discloses exemplarity, and the way in which the force of the example can bridge the difference between various contexts. Drawing not only on Kant's _Critique of the Power of Judgment_ but also on the work of Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Jürgen Habermas, Ferrara outlines a view of exemplary validity that is applicable to today's central philosophical issues, including public reason, human rights, radical evil, sovereignty, republicanism and liberalism, and religion in the public sphere. (shrink)

As people look for a way to ground their judgments of moral, political, aesthetic claims in the face of the postmodernists who claim nothing can be grounded, Reflective Authenticity attempts to rescue some of the critical ideals of the Enlightenment without falling prey to those who say that the Enlightenment's tenets of objectivity, reason, liberalism makes this impossible and in the face of multiculturalism, difference, and the death of subject, are outdated. Alessandro Ferrara suggests that the notion of reflective (...) authenticity offers the key to a new kind of exemplary universalism which, different from the generalizing universalism typical of modern thought, does not fall under the critique of foundationalism articulated by postmodernist thinkers. (shrink)

Monographic essay, Greek texts and fragments, translation, full commentary, and bibliography. Introductory essay -- Hierocles, Elements of ethics -- Stobaeus's extracts from Hierocles, On appropriate acts -- Fragments of Hierocles in the Studa.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

In 2016, the Five Stars Movement (5SM), one of the parties currently in power in Italy, launched the ‘Rousseau platform’. This is a platform meant to enhance direct democracy, transparency and the real participation of the people in the making of laws, policies and political proposals. Although ennobled with the name of Rousseau, the 5SM’s redemptive promise has been strongly criticised in the public sphere for being irresponsible and ideological. Political realism, I will argue, can perform both a diagnostic and (...) a corrective task, by providing some tools to unveil populist distortions and by offering more solid grounds for political opponents’ critique. Three aspects of realism, in particular, will be pointed out as remedies against populist drifts. First, anti-moralism, complemented by anti-utopianism and contextualism, criticises the populists’ moralistic picture of politics, its anti-pluralistic attitude and its rejection of the role of experts in politics. Second, the Weberian ethic of responsibility offers standards to assess politicians’ actions, instead of embracing the populist aversion towards any professional politician; besides, it contrasts the populist image of politics as a derogatory activity. Finally, realism as ideology critique unveils the distorting narratives underlying populist propaganda and fostering uncritical support. (shrink)

Il volume collettaneo presenta diciassette studi raccolti per sezioni tematiche, incentrati su una selezione di culti misterici della Magna Grecia. I contributi costituiscono i proceedings di un simposio sponsorizzato dalla Società Virgiliana e dalla Brandeis University, tenutosi nella Villa Virgiliana di Cuma nel 2002. Il libro è corredato da una eccellente introduzione (p. 1–29), in cui Giovanni Casadio e Patricia A. Johnston, organizzatori del convegno cumano e curatori del volume, offrono...

Les objets nous parlent et, par ce qu'ils disent, ils nous agressent ou nous réconfortent, ils nous soulagent ou ils nous attristent. Les objets peuvent quelque chose pour nous. Pourtant, nous le savons, les objets n'ont que les pouvoirs que nous voulons bien leur donner. Pourquoi donc les objets ne restent-ils pas muets? Pourquoi croyons-nous à ce qu'ils nous racontent? Cette croyance possède, pour ainsi dire, ses raisons. Nous croyons aux histoires que les objets semblent nous adresser si ces histoires (...) rencontrent nos aspirations, si elles font paraître ces objets comme des moyens en vue de leur réalisation. Du bâti à la nourriture, notre environnement n'est pas muet et nos projets qui lui donnent la parole ne lui permettront pas de se taire. (shrink)

This book presents a novel analysis of concealed-question constructions, reports of a mental attitude in which part of a sentence looks like a nominal complement, but is interpreted as an indirect question. Such constructions are puzzling in that they raise the question of how their meaning derives from their constituent parts. In particular, how a nominal complement, normally used to refer to an entity ends up with a question-like meaning. In this book, Ilaria Frana adopts a theory according to (...) which noun phrases with concealed question meanings are analysed as individual concepts. The traditional individual concept theory is modified and applied to the phenomena discussed in the recent literature and some new problematic data. The end result is a fully compositional account of a wide range of concealed-question constructions. The exploration of concealed questions offered in the book provides insights into both issues in semantic theory, such as the nature of quantification in natural languages and the use of type shifter in the grammar, and issues surrounding the syntax-semantics interface, such as the interpretation of copy traces and the effects on semantic interpretation of different syntactic analyses of relative clauses. The book will interest scholars and graduate students in linguistics, especially those interested in semantics and the syntax-semantics interface, as well as philosophers of language working on the topic of intensionality. (shrink)

We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation : the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology (...) and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization. (shrink)

This groundbreaking monograph on Bardaisan, his relation to Origen, and his Middle Platonic framework has argued, through a painstaking analysis of all evidence, that Bardaisan was a Christian Middle Platonist, a philosophical theologian who built a Logos Christology, possibly the first supporter of apokatastasis, and there is a close relation between Origen, Bardaisan, their thought, and their traditions [further proofs in an edition with essays: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming]. This monograph (and a related HTR essay) was received far beyond the field (...) of patristics, among others by P. Crone (Princeton IAS). * Dedication Page (page 5) * Table of Contents (page 7) * Preface (page 11) * 1 By way of Introductory Essay: Methodological Guidelines (page 17) * 2 Critical and Comparative Analysis of the Sources (page 45) o 1 The Very First Possible Witness: Clement (page 45) o 2 Two Early Witnesses Close to Origen and Very Appreciative of Bardaisan: Africanus and Didymus (page 46) + 2.1 Julius Africanus’ Acquaintance with both Bardaisan and Origen (page 46) + 2.2 The Origenian Didymus the Blind: The Most Appreciative Source on Bardaisan (page 56) o 3 Hippolytus (page 62) o 4 The Liber Legum Regionum (page 70) o 5 Porphyry and the Utmost Importance of His Fragments from Bardaisan: The Cosmic Christ, Middle Platonism, and a Christian Reading of the Timaeus (page 107) + 5.1 The Fragments from Bardaisan’s De India in Porphyry’s De Styge (page 107) + 5.2 Bardaisan’s Work in Porphyry’s De Abstinentia (page 124) o 6 Achilles Tatius and the Knowledge of Bardaisan in Late-Second-Century Alexandria (page 126) o 7 The Acts of Thomas (page 127) o 8 A Very Positive Witness: the Origenian Eusebius (page 131) o 9 The Origenian Gregory of Nyssa and His Own Work Against Fate (page 138) o 10 Diodore of Tarsus and His Closeness to Origens Eschatology and Refutation of Fate (page 142) o 11 Bardaisan’s Fight Against Marcionism (page 161) o 12 Jerome’s Parallel Turn: From Admirer to Criticizer of both Origen and Bardaisan (page 164) o 13 The Dialogue of Adamantius and the Portrait of a Bardaisanite (page 168) o 14 Ephrem between Documentation and Misunderstandings (page 172) o 15 Transition: The Transformation and Worsening of Bardaisan’s Image (page 254) o 16 Epiphanius’ Information: A ‘Mixed Bag’ (page 255) o 17 Two Heresiological Accounts Deriving from Epiphanius’ (page 261) o 18 Sozomen (page 262) o 19 Theodoret’s Account (page 266) o 20 Interesting Clues in a Very Appreciative Armenian Witness: Moses of Chorene (page 269) o 21 Philoxenus of Mabbug, an Anonymous, Isho’dad, and the Assimilation of Bardaisan to Valentinus or Mani (page 303) o 22 Rabbula and Theodoret (page 307) o 23 Appreciation of Bardaisan in a Local Source: the Chronicon of Edessa (page 312) o 24 The So-Called Cosmological Traditions: Importance and Methodological Guidelines. Barhadbshabba ‘Arbaya, Plus Comparisons with (Ps.) Maruta and Jacob of Edessa (page 314) o 25 Theodore Bar Konai (page 328) o 26 Theodore Abû Qurra (page 338) o 27 Moses Bar Kepha (page 339) o 28 (Ps.) John of Dara (page 347) o 29 Agapius and the So-Called Third Cosmological Tradition (page 352) o 30 Michael the Syrian’s Cosmological Testimony (page 353) o 31 Barhebraeus’ Cosmological Account (page 354) o 32 Mutaman ad-Dawla (page 355) o 33 From the “Cosmological Traditions'' to Other Doxographies and the Biographical Accounts. Masudi’s Biographical Information (page 355) o 34 The Fihrist and Arabic Sources on Bardaisan’s Anti-Dualism (page 358) o 35 Michael the Syrian’s Biographical Account (page 366) o 36 Barhebraeus (page 374) o 3 Conclusions and Contribution to Research (page 379) o Essential Bibliographical References on Bardaisan (page 381) o Index (page 389) . (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

It is well known that systems of action deontic logic emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law are subject to paradoxes. In general, paradoxes are acknowledged as such if we have intuitions telling us that things should be different. The aim of this paper is to introduce a paradox-free deontic action system by (i) identifying the basic intuitions leading to the emergence of the paradoxes (...) and (ii) exploiting these intuitions in order to develop a consistent deontic framework, where it can be shown why some phenomena seem to be paradoxical and why they are not so if interpreted in a correct way. (shrink)

This paper problematizes the precision medicine approach embraced by the All of Us Research Program (US) and by Genomics England (UK) in terms of benefits distribution, by arguing that current “diversity and inclusion” efforts do not prevent exclusiveness, unless the framing and scope of the projects are revisited in public health terms. Grounded on document analysis and fieldwork interviews, this paper analyzes efforts to address potential patterns of exclusion upstream (from participating in precision medicine research) and downstream (from benefitting from (...) precision medicine outputs). It argues that efforts for inclusion upstream are not corresponded downstream, and this unbalance jeopardizes the equitable capacities of the projects. It concludes that enhanced focus on socio-environmental determinants of health and aligned public health interventions as precision medicine outputs would be to the benefit of all and especially of those who are most at risk of (upstream as well as downstream) exclusion. (shrink)

A musical experience is marked by the synthesis of passion and rationality, emotion and understanding, and body and mind. Ferrara demonstrates that each method of musical analysis confines musical significance to a single level. He devises an "eclectic method" that provides bridges for musical sound, form, and reference. In response to the multiplicity of levels of musical significance Ferrara's eclectic method draws upon a wide-ranging number of conventional and nonconventional approaches to musical analysis which results in a dialectic (...) of methods. (shrink)

Currently available systems of action deontic logic are not designed to model procedures to assess the conduct of an agent which take into account the intentions of the agent and the circumstances in which she is acting. Yet, procedures of this kind are essential to determine what counts as culpable not doing. In light of this, we design an action logic, AL, in which it is possible to distinguish actions that are objectively possible for an agent, viz. there are no (...) objective impediments for the agent to do them, and actions that, besides being objectively possible, are compatible with the setting or intentions of the agent. (shrink)

Most studies of research integrity in the general media focus on the coverage of specific cases of misconduct. This paper tries to provide a more general, long-term perspective by analysing media discourse about research integrity and related themes in the Italian and United Kingdom daily press from 2000 to 2016. The results, based on a corpus of 853 articles, show that media coverage largely mirrors debates about integrity and misconduct. In fact, salient themes in the news include the importance to (...) overcome the so-called “rotten apple” paradigm; the key role of public trust in science; and the need to address flaws in the peer-review system. (shrink)

Some realists in political theory deny that the notion of feasibility has any place in realist theory, while others claim that feasibility constraints are essential elements of realist normative theorising. But none have so far clarified what exactly they are referring to when thinking of feasibility and political realism together. In this article, we develop a conception of the realist feasibility frontier based on an appraisal of how political realism should be distinguished from non-ideal theories. In this realist framework, political (...) standards are feasible if they meet three requirements: they are politically intelligible, contextually recognisable as authoritative, and contestable. We conclude by suggesting that our conception of realist feasibility might be compatible with utopian demands, thereby possibly finding favour with realists who otherwise refuse to resort to the notion of feasibility. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of social and emotional learning skills and resilience in explaining mental health in male and female adolescents, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three self-report questionnaires were administered to 778 participants aged between 11 and 16 years and recruited from 18 schools in Northern Italy. The SSIS-SELb-S and the CD-RISC 10 assessed SEL and resilience skills respectively, while the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was used to measure mental health in terms of (...) internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and prosocial behavior. We found that SEL and resilience skills were positively and significantly associated with each other, negatively associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, and positively related to prosocial behavior. Three linear regression analyses showed the significant role of resilience, age, and gender in explaining the variance of internalizing problems; the significant role of SEL skills, resilience, age, and gender in explaining the variance of externalizing problems; and the role of SEL skills, age, and gender in explaining prosocial behavior. Importantly, we found that resilience fully mediated the relationship between SEL skills and internalizing problems, partially mediated the relationship between SEL skills and externalizing problems and didn't mediate the relationship between SEL skills and prosocial behavior. The paper concludes with a discussion of the limitations of the study as well as its practical implications. (shrink)

Political realists claim that politics should be regulated by a distinctive political normativity, one that does not rely on external, pre-political moral standards. It is in this sense that they distinguish political realism from ‘political moralism’, regarded as an approach that understands political theory as applied ethics. Importantly, realists’ anti-moralism is not motivated by the conviction that moral considerations do not play any role in the political realm. Rather, the target is the externalism of the normative resources on which moralist (...) theories typically ground their conceptions of legitimacy. In contrast to moralists, some realists have argued for the need to elaborate internal theories of legitimacy, ones that develop normativity internally – that is, from within the political context under evaluation. This commitment entails the effort to reconnect legitimacy to the beliefs and attitudes of people subjected to the political power. In these accounts of legitimacy, critique is typically exercised internally, by means of self-reflection and ideology critique. Contra some realists, I argue that some forms of externalism are desirable and compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, and I show how to accommodate them within internalist theories of legitimacy. They are desirable because they strengthen the emancipatory potential of internal reflection and, in some cases, even stimulate it, as when, because of political circumstances, internal critique cannot be exercised. In addition, they prevent internalist approaches from falling into descriptive accounts of de facto acceptance of power. These forms of external critique can be compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, provided that they do not contrast with what I call methodological and substantive internalism. Accordingly, in the article, I discuss which stances of external critique can and should be accommodated within internalist accounts of legitimacy, without renouncing to the realist character of the approach. (shrink)

Political realists argue that the concept of political legitimacy should be linked to subjects’ beliefs, while still offering normative guidance. In this article, I suggest doing so by referring to the concepts of acceptance and acceptability. I argue that a regime is legitimate if its power is accepted by subjects, provided that such acceptance meets the requirements of acceptability: subjects’ beliefs about the regime’s legitimacy need to successfully satisfy three requirements—coherence, fact-sensitivity, and politics-sensitivity—via entering public debate. I rely on pragmatism (...) to investigate the link between subjects’ beliefs and their experience of facing political authority. (shrink)

We propose a refinement of STIT logic to make it suitable to model causal agency and responsibility in basic multi-agent scenarios in which agents can interfere with one another. We do this by supplementing STIT semantics, first, with action types and, second, with a relation of opposing between action types. We exploit these novel elements to represent a test for potential causation, based on an intuitive notion of expected result of an action, and two tests for actual causation from the (...) legal literature, i.e. the but-for and the NESS tests. We then introduce three new STIT operators modeling corresponding notions of causal responsibility, which we call potential, strong, and plain responsibility, and use them to provide a fine-grained analysis of a number of case studies involving both individual agents and groups. (shrink)

Intentionality is traditionally defined as the property of a mental state to be directed at something presented in a particular way. The fact that we can think about objects which do not exist makes this definition problematic: what kind of things are those objects? The aim of this paper is to analyse the definition of intentionality as a relation in theories which do not admit non-existent special entities. In particular, I consider John R. Searle and Tim Crane’s theories of intentionality (...) and I argue that neither Searle’s notion of a non-ordinary relation between the intentional state and the intentional object nor Crane’s idea of a relation between the intentional state and the intentional content succeed in holding together the traditional definition of intentionality and the purpose to not be committed to some kind of special entities. This intent seems finally hardly compatible with the traditional definition of intentionality. (shrink)

The main purpose of the paper is to contribute to reconstructing the kind of normativity underlying Rawls’s notion of public reason and of the reasonable. The implicit target is the somewhat popular view according to which the transition from the framework of A Theory of Justice to that of Political Liberalism would entail a loss of normativity. On the contrary, the related ideas of public reason and the reasonable are argued to presuppose a notion of normativity – linked with judgment (...) – far more consistent with the premise of the fact of pluralism. After reconstructing Rawls’s notion of public reason, the two following problems are addressed: the problem of determining when allegedly shared truths, the building stones of public reason, are really such and, second, the problem of what it means for one reason to follow or proceed from a shared basis. In the context of such discussion three distinct meanings of the term ‘reasonable’ are identified, and the normatively more demanding one – the notion of some thesis or proposal being not just reasonable, but comparatively ‘more reasonable’ than another – is found to require that the reasonable be understood as the exemplary and, consequently, that we find ways to translate the Kantian doctrine of the exemplary yet universalist validity of aesthetic judgments into a non-aesthetic vocabulary. (shrink)

The possible privatization of Social Security has long been a matter of theoretical interest to those who ideologically favor free markets and maximum personal autonomy. But in the spirit of an age when the Berlin Wall fell and the totalitarian Soviet empire collapsed through a peaceful revolution from within, the politics of Social Security has been remade in recent years in a similarly dramatic fashion.

In this paper the notion of sensus communis, as articulated by Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, is discussed from the vantage point of the author's project of exporting the model of exemplary universalism underlying reflective and, specifically, aesthetic judgment beyond the realm of aesthetics. In the first section, the relevance of such a project relative to an appraisal of the new and unsuperseded philosophical context opened by the Linguistic Turn is elucidated. Then the centrality of sensus (...) communis, for making sense of the specific universalism inherent in reflective judgment, is highlighted. In the second section, the limitations inherent in two opposite strategies for conceptualizing sensus communis are discussed: namely, the hermeneutic idea of a `horizon' and the phenomenological notion of a life-world on one hand, and the Kantian minimalist, naturalized concept of sensus communis on the other. The former is argued to become entangled in relativism, the latter to run against our intuitions concerning the inter-subjective constitution of the subject. In the final section, a third notion of sensus communis is offered, still compatible with the Kantian conception, different from the Gadamerian concept of a tradition or to the phenomenological notion of Lebenswelt, yet still capable of offering a plausible ground for the exemplary universalism of aesthetic judgment. Expanding on Kant's view of aesthetic pleasure, sensus communis is understood as consisting of a universal capacity, on the part of every human being, to sense from within a plurality of coordinates the flourishing of human life and what favours it. (shrink)

This study concerned the role of gestures that accompany discourse in deep learning processes. We assumed that co‐speech gestures favor the construction of a complete mental representation of the discourse content, and we tested the predictions that a discourse accompanied by gestures, as compared with a discourse not accompanied by gestures, should result in better recollection of conceptual information, a greater number of discourse‐based inferences drawn from the information explicitly stated in the discourse, and poorer recognition of verbatim of the (...) discourse. The results of three experiments confirmed these predictions. (shrink)

In this paper I explore modal metaphysics in regard to Francisco Suárez’s idea of real being, in order to track down an early model of the relationship between synchronical alternative states of affairs and the temporal frequency paradigm. In doing so this article will offer an interpretation of Suárez’s doctrine of eternal truths as found in Disputationes Metaphysicae d. 31, c. 12, § 38–§ 47. I argue that Suárez’s modal theory of real possibilities and logical possibilities should be regarded as (...) an actualist and essentialist form of modalism. (shrink)

El presente artículo discute la posición de Suárez sobre la teoría del doble sentido de la existencia. La subordinación, en la primera sección, entre conceptos de primer y segundo orden, en contraste con la subsución entre un objeto que cae dentro de un concepto de primer orden y la distinción entre una “marca característica” y la “propiedad” de un concepto, ayudará a clarificar el doble sentido del ens ut nomen and ens ut participium en las Disputationes Metaphysicae de F. Suárez. (...) Este análisis nos proporciona una consideración más cercana, en la segunda sección del artículo, a la explicación del ente como ente real en Suárez, y subraya el patrón de la ciencia dentro de su contexto histórico. Tan pronto como buceamos un poco en la materia, aparece de modo claro, como consideramos de forma breve en las notas conclusivas, que esta investigación sobre la significación del ens ut nomen and ens ut participium en Suárez será particularmente útil para una discusión contemporánea de lo que denominamos “teoría de los dos sentidos de la de la existencia” y, quizás, puede tener interés histórico y teorético, relativo al orden lógico y ontológico derivado de estos dos sentidos de la existencia, considerando qué efecto puede tener, si seguimos más de cerca la aproximación suareziana. (shrink)