What is the relationship between persons and things? And how does the body transform this relationship? In this highly original new book, Roberto Esposito - one of Italy’s leading political philosophers - considers these questions and shows that starting from the body, rather than from the thing or the person, can help us to reconsider the status of both. Ever since its beginnings, our civilization has been based on a strict, unequivocal distinction between persons and things, founded on the (...) instrumental domination of persons over things. This opposition arose out of ancient Roman law and persisted throughout modernity, to take its place in our current global market, where it continues to generate growing contradictions. Although the distinction seems to appear clear and necessary to us, what we are continually witnessing in legal, economic, and technological practice is a reversal of perspectives: some categories of persons are becoming assimilated with things, while some types of things are taking on a personal profile. With his customary rigour, Roberto Esposito argues that there exists an escape route out of this paradox, constituted by a new point of view founded in the body. Neither a person nor a thing, the human body becomes the decisive element in rethinking the concepts and values that govern our philosophical, legal, and political lexicons. (shrink)

From its beginning in the 1940s, the nuclear regime has been the subject of aesthetic as well as political practices and interventions. This article examines a number of such interventions, from the Surrealists via the Situationists to the present. The focus is on forms of aesthetic activism that challenges the reigning thanatocracy. Key figures are Roberto Matta and Wolfgang Paalen, Situationists such as Debord and Vaneigem in the late 1950s and 1960s, later writings by ex-Situationists and pro-Situs such (...) as René Riesel and Jaime Semprun, as well as contemporary artists such as Ei Arakawa and The Otolith Group. Through concepts and tropes such as invisibility, survival and mutation, these practitioners seek to counteract the “insensible” nature of radiation and problematize post-war society’s dependency on nuclear deterrence and “peaceful” nuclear technology alike. (shrink)

This paper argues that some of the misunderstandings surrounding the meaning and function of the concept of human dignity in bioethics arise from a lack of distinction between two different roles that this notion plays: one as an overarching policy principle, and the other as a moral standard of patient care. While the former is a very general concept which fulfils a foundational and a guiding role of the normative framework governing biomedical issues, the latter reflects a much more concrete (...) and context-specific understanding of the patient as a “person”. The importance of dignity as a policy principle will be described by appealing to the distinction between principles and rules as developed by some legal philosophers. The value of dignity as a standard of patient care will be illustrated with the help of concrete examples and by drawing on the taxonomies of dignity proposed by Jonathan Mann and other scholars. The overall scope of the article is to highlight this double and complementary role of human dignity in bioethics. (shrink)

ArgumentBy the time the members of the Surrealist group had fled Paris and dispersed at the beginning of World War II, they had taken account of quantum mechanics and were seeking various ways of assimilating its findings into Surrealist theory. This can be detected in writings issuing from the Surrealist milieu as early as the late 1920s. However, while writers and thinkers outside the field of physics swiftly expressed their awareness of the epistemological crisis brought about by quantum mechanics, Surrealism's (...) artists began to conscript the concepts and imagery of modern physics into their work only at the end of the 1930s. Focusing on two “second generation” Surrealist painters, the Chilean Roberto Matta and the Viennese Wolfgang Paalen, this article discusses the peculiar difficulties faced by artists in finding a language for the “new reality” revealed by the physicists, and argues that the relocation of Surrealism in a discursive field which includes quantum physics discloses the rationale behind its artists' shift to a semi-abstract language. (shrink)

Philosophical questions about events lie at the crossing of several disciplines, from metaphysics and logic to philosophy of language, action theory, the philosophy of space and time.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

En el curso de 1934/35 Heidegger se refiere a cuatro momentos esenciales del temple fundamental: desplazamiento hacia los límites del ente, inserción en la existencia histórica y arraigo en la tierra y el suelo natal, apertura del ente en conjunto como la unidad de un mundo, y fundación del ser. El artículo explora el vínculo de los cuatro momentos con las siguientes oposiciones: indigencia/disponibilidad, no-hogareño/hogareño, duelo/alegría, lejanía/cercanía y condición-de-oculto/condición-de-no-oculto. Se analiza esta quinta oposición en relación con las diversas modalidades en (...) que se manifiesta el ánimo. Las oposiciones pueden ser consideradas también rasgos distintivos del temple fundamental. Se interrelacionan, y, además, se despliegan siempre a partir de una intimidad fundamental que opera como un nexo en medio de los antagonismos. El énfasis está puesto en el curso de 1934/35 con referencias a ulteriores textos complementarios. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that the formalisms for decoherence originally devised to deal just with closed or open systems can be subsumed under a general conceptual framework, in such a way that they cooperate in the understanding of the same physical phenomenon. This new perspective dissolves certain conceptual difficulties of the einselection program but, at the same time, shows that the openness of the quantum system is not the essential ingredient for decoherence. †To contact the authors, please write to: (...) Mario Castagnino, CONICET-IAFE, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Casilla de Correos 67, Sucursal 28, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina; Roberto Laura, IFIR-Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Av. Pellegrini 250, 2000 Rosario, Argentina; Olimpia Lombardi, CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, C. Larralde 3440, 6°D, 1430, Buenos Aires; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This article seeks to locate the seminar series that Derrida delivered at the École normale superieure during the mid-seventies within the broader political and theoretical aspirations of the Groupe de recherches sur l’enseignement philosophique (GREPH), particularly considering the group’s thematization and politicisation of pedagogy in the history of philosophy and the philosophical establishment. It also aims to contextualise Derrida’s recourse to a Marxian and Marxist problematic as part of these aspirations in view of his longer-term engagement with the question of (...) philosophy in Marx and Marxism. The article brings together these two contextual dimensions of Derrida’s teaching activities at the ENS through a close reading of the seminar series he delivered on the agrégation topic of Theory and Practice in 1976–7. This reading focuses specifically on how Derrida mobilised the Althusserian problematic to attempt to transform the role and function of the agrégés-répétiteur (a position he shared with Althusser at the ENS) within the frame of reference of his political work with GREPH. (shrink)

The article deals with John Hermann Randall’s theory of history, namely, the philosophical account of what it takes for an object to be a historical object. The goal of the article is to highlight the deep connections existing between Randall’s philosophical views on history and the writing of history, heavily indebted to Dewey’s and Woodbridge naturalism (the so-called Columbia Naturalism), and his historiographical work. In the first section, I briefly sketch some major aspects of originality of Randall’s historiographical work, as (...) well as the intellectual context to which he belonged. In the second section I lay out the most important features of Columbia Naturalism. In the third section I discuss in detail Randall’s theory of history, focusing on its ontological, epistemic, and epistemological features. In the fourth section, I confront Lovejoy and Randall’s historiographical works in order to show how philosophical theories affect historiographical practices. (shrink)

Duas questões fundamentais do pirronismo serão abordadas, a primeira é de natureza histórica: seria tal Neopirronismo congruente com o espírito e a letra do Pirronismo original? Nesse particular a resposta não poderia ser mais afirmativa. Distinguindo-se tanto chamada leitura dita “Urbana” quanto da leitura dita “Rústica,” não há como negar originalidade à leitura Neopirrônica. Ora, mas uma vez que Neopirronismo se assume como projeto filosófico próprio, ele enfrenta uma segunda questão premente: ele se sustentaria pelas suas próprias pernas? A tentativa (...) de apresentar uma resposta negativa no artigo encontra inspiração em três grandes fontes, são elas: Kant, Wittgenstein e Kripke/Putnam. (shrink)

He then shows how we can rebuild our political, economic, and social institutions, making them more faithful to the experimental nature of democracy. The consequence is to redefine the focus for ideological debate and institutional innovation throughout the world, in developed and developing countries alike.

Formal ontology combines two ideas, one originating with Husserl, the other with Frege: that of ontology of the formal aspects of all objects, irrespective of their particular nature, and ontology pursued by employing the tools of modern formal disciplines, notably logic and semantics. These two traditions have converged in recent years and this is the first collection to encompass them as a whole in a single volume. It assembles essays from authors around the world already widely known for their work (...) in formal ontology, and illustrates that through the application of formal methods the ancient discipline of ontology may be put on a firm methodological basis. The essays not only illuminate the nature of ontology and its relation to other areas, in language, logic and everyday life, but also demonstrate that common issues from the analytical and phenomenological traditions may be discussed without ideological barriers. Audience: advanced students of and specialists in philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, computer science, database engineering. (shrink)

According to a leading view, emotions such as admiration, contempt, pride, and shame are important vehicles of agential development. Through admiration and contempt, we establish models and countermodels against which to shape our character; through pride and shame, we get a sense of how we measure up to them. Critics of this view object that these emotions always deliver uncompromising evaluations: admiration casts people in a completely positive light, while contempt casts aspersion on them. Therefore, insofar as they lack the (...) capacity for nuance, these emotions are systematically unfitting and misleading. This paper discusses this objection as originally formulated by John Doris as well as Macalester Bell’s response. Drawing from research on emotional intentionality, it will be argued that Doris’ and Bell’s accounts are respectively misguided criticisms and inadequate defences of these emotions. Their mistake lies in an invalid transition from the claim that these emotions are intentionally directed towards persons to the claim that they deliver global evaluations of those towards whom they are directed. By rejecting this inference, it will be shown that these emotions can deliver nuanced and fitting evaluations in a way Doris’ objection overlooks and Bell’s response precludes us from articulating. (shrink)

Sumário - Introdução; Ética e política; Jornada de seis horas; As utopias do século XXI; Dois mil e cinquenta; Política e ética; Política e ética II; Política e ética III; Desenvolvimento moral; O programa de direitos humanos; A verdade e o futuro da nação; Restaurando a ética; Moral e interesse; A eficácia sempre vence; A volta da política; O policial Beltrame; O amor cidadão.

It is well known that Francis of Marchia and William of Ockham joined Michael of Cesena's rebellion against the pope, together escaping from Avignon and signing documents supporting Cesena's defence of Franciscan poverty. The relationship between the works of the two thinkers, on the other hand, is the subject of ongoing investigation. After discussing Francis' rejection in his Commentary on the Sentences of Ockham's theory of quantity, this paper shows how Francis' Improbatio became a source for Ockham's Opus Nonaginta Dierum. (...) Building on Offler's ground-breaking critical edition of the latter work, it is argued that Ockham made extensive use of Francis' Improbatio, even though on several points he felt it necessary to reformulate the arguments of his confrère or even to substantially modify his positions. The two Franciscan theologians differed deeply both in their basic philosophical commitments and in their methodological attitude. These differences emerged even when they were—so to speak—fighting on the same front. (shrink)

Kant’s Refutation targets what he calls the problematic idealist. This is understood by the mainstream of Kantian scholarship as the global skeptic that Descartes briefly adumbrated in his first Meditation. The widespread view in the literature is that the fate of the Refutation is tied to its success as an argument against this Cartesian global skepticism. This consensus is what I want to question in this paper. I argue that Kant’s opponent – the problematic idealist – is not the Cartesian (...) global skeptic, but rather what I prefer to call here the Cartesian problematic external-world idealist. According to Cartesian global skepticism we cannot know whether our commonsensical beliefs are true until we rule out the skeptical hypotheses are false. In contrast, the Cartesian external-world idealist sees as problematic the assumption that the underlying nature of outer things of which we have ideas is mind-independent rather than caused by our own thinking being. My aim here is to disentangle Cartesian global skepticism from Cartesian problematic external-word idealism and show that, if measured against global skepticism, Kant’s Refutation is doomed to fail; while against problematic idealism, it is at least a promising argument. (shrink)

El presente ensayo quiere profundizar en el alcance de la metáfora “el amigo es otro yo” contenida en la Ética a Nicómaco 1166a, 31-32. En términos epistemológicos, evaluaremos cómo esta metáfora tiene relación con (i) el tipo de entidad que es el amigo y (ii) el tipo de relación que es la amistad. En cuanto al ámbito psicológico, se someterá a examen el grado de identidad implícito en la metáfora. Es decir, mediante un examen de diversos pasajes del libro IX (...) de la Ética a Nicómaco, argumentaremos que el grado de identidad implícito en la metáfora “el amigo es otro yo” admite ciertas diferencias de carácter y de opinión, pues esto también es propio del tipo específico de relación que es la amistad virtuosa. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to provide a relational explanation of the sources of moral normativity, within a Neo-Kantian framework. To this purpose, the key notions employed are those of we-society and stance-taking, developed by Neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert. Specifically, by resorting to such notions, the paper attempts to overcome two limits ascribed to the theory of moral normativity of Ch. Korsgaard: namely W. Smith’s objection of solipsism and S. Crowell’s problem of non-deliberate action, whereby Ch. Korsgaard’s identification of (...) the source of normativity in reflection would lead her theory to a form of solipsism and to failing to explain actions based on so-called ‘mindless coping’. In tackling these objections, the paper outlines a Rickertian inspired theory, according to which the sources of moral normativity can be explained on the basis of the heterological I-You relationship, which is the foundation of the we-society intended as a set of values, patterns of expectations, tacit consents, and procedural knowledge. (shrink)