Background: Advances in biomedical sciences, technologies and care practices have resulted in an increase in ethical problems and a resulting growth of difficulties encountered by health workers in their professional activity. Objective: The main objective of this study was to analyse knowledge in the ethical field and experience with and the propensity for using ethics consultations by nurses and physicians. Methods: Between March and June 2014, a cross-sectional observational study was conducted on a sample of 351 nurses and 128 physicians (...) in four central Italian hospitals. For data collection, a semi-structured questionnaire was used, consisting of 21 items divided into four sections exploring (1) demographic and occupational characteristics, (2) knowledge in the ethics field, (3) experience with ethical issues and (4) the propensity to use ethics consultation. Ethical considerations: Research ethics approval was obtained from the Italian Nurses Professional Board. Results: The results show that both nurses and physicians are faced with ethically sensitive situations. Nurses were found to have better judgement concerning their own knowledge than physicians, but more physicians were found to have a deeper level of specific training in ethics issues. The propensity to ask for ethics consultations to address ethical issues was found to be significantly associated with the degree to which ethical issues have deepened (and the level of experience acquired in this field). Conclusion: The presence of a consulting service that can lead to shared choices may represent, together with basic and continuing education, a valid support for professional growth in the ethical field for both physicians and nurses. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What Is ‘High’ and What Is ‘Low’ in the Significance of Reason The Standpoint of Reason: or When Certainty Is Not Yet Truth Philosophical Issues: Standard Views and Reappraisals References Further Reading.

This article addresses the notions of gender performativity and temporality in Butler’s early work on gender. The paper is articulated in four steps. First it gives an account of the role and nature of temporality in Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Second, it shows some similarities and connections between the role played by temporality in Butler’s theory of gender performativity and its role in Marx’s analysis of capital. Third, it raises some criticisms of Butler’s understanding of temporality and historicity, focusing (...) in particular on the lack of historicisation of her own categories in bothGender TroubleandBodies that Matter. This deficit is a consequence of the epistemological framework within which she is operating, in particular of her understanding of social practices and relations through the lens of linguistic concepts extrapolated from their theoretical context. The article concludes by referring to Floyd’s and Hennessy’s analyses of the formation of sexual identities as examples of the fruitful historicisation of gender performativity, which also sheds some light on the ‘the abstract character’ of the temporality of gender performativity. (shrink)

Italy is one of the European countries with the highest levels of gender inequalities (World Economic Forum 2011). The aims of this paper were to understand to what extent the well-documented gender gap in Italian adult society has an impact on both political and civic actions of younger generations, and whether the process of participation assumes specific features according to gender. 835 Italian participants (49.6% males; 50.4% female, aged from 16 to 26 years old; 20% under voting age) completed a (...) self-administered questionnaire. Analyses confirmed general trends (voting at elections is the most frequently performed political action among Italian youth) and showed the existence of a small gender gap (a major orientation of young women toward civic action, while young men are more engaged in manifest political participation). The results confirmed that family cultural capital and normative support are significant predictors of political participation, in particular for girls and young women. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Heft: Ahead of print.

IntroductionAnimal Assisted Interventions are increasingly common in pediatric care settings as a means to promote the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of hospitalized children and adolescents.ObjectivesThe aim of this work was to review published studies implementing AAIs in hospital settings and to assess the effects of AAIs on the biobehavioral response to stress and pain, social behavior, quality of life and level of satisfaction with hospitalization in children and adolescents. Stress and burden, quality of life, mood and level of satisfaction (...) with hospitalization in parents/caregivers as well as stress and burden, perception of the work environment and job satisfaction in hospital staff were also reviewed.MethodsAll published studies reporting quantitative assessments were systematically searched using PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest and Web of Science databases in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. The aim was to identify studies examining the effects of AAIs on behavioral, psychological and physiological responses to stress in children and adolescents formally admitted to a hospital for a stay, as well as in those undergoing a visit for treatments or medical examinations.ResultsOf the 350 studies screened, 21 were eligible for inclusion. Most of them focused on stress, pain, and anxiety reduction in pediatric patients, and used both physiological parameters and behavioral and psychological observations/scales. All studies employed dogs. Results show the potential of AAIs to reduce anxiety and behavioral distress in pediatric patients while acting on physiological measures associated with arousal.ConclusionAlthough further, more rigorous studies are still needed, the findings of this review may have implications for clinical practices suggesting appropriate planning of AAIs by pediatric healthcare professionals.Systematic Review Registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=178993], identifier [CRD42020178993]. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique :"Alors que le féminisme est plus que jamais nécessaire, il est malmené de toutes parts. D'un côté, des pseudo-radicalités instruisent le procès d'un " féminisme blanc " qui irait d'Olympe de Gouges à aujourd'hui. De l'autre, une mouvance de droite et d'extrême droite instrumentalise le féminisme dans une perspective identitaire, nationaliste et raciste. Face à ces entreprises de brouillage et de régression, il est urgent de réaffirmer la valeur de l'émancipation et de plaider pour un (...) féminisme universel, concret et pluriel. Ni décolonial, ni occidental, le féminisme se construit sans cesse, dans les luttes et la solidarité des combats quotidiens.". (shrink)

La pensée est un patrimoine discret et secret au point qu'elle n'est pas habituellement considérée comme un patrimoine au sens propre. Pourtant elle est à l'origine de tous les autres. Probablement sans l'exercice de cette faculté qui leur est propre, les êtres humains n'auraient jamais conçu leurs monuments extraordinaires ni leurs constructions admirables. Du plus petit phénomène jusqu'à la loi générale qui en coordonnerait les enchaînements, la recherche cultivée à l'intérieur de jardins divers et multiples tout le long de l'histoire (...) révèle un désir caché d'absolu. Comme si le jardinier dans l'aspiration d'élargir son horizon avait été amené à un certain moment à pousser les murs et à se retrouver chez le voisin, dans le monde et hors du monde par étapes successives. Un jeu de l'observation, de la mémoire et de l'imagination. En 2003, dans le cadre idéal de la Chartreuse de Valbonne, quelques représentants de disciplines diverses allaient reprendre ce jeu autour d'un thème aussi libre que contraignant tel que l'Espace Spirituel peut l'être. Quelques architectes, mathématiciens, musicologues, musiciens, et philosophes évoquent l'expression : Espace Spirituel chacun selon son angle de vue. L'idée d'Espace dans une cathédrale, dans le désert ou dans un chou fleur... Le Spirituel traverse les cultures du christianisme au judaïsme à l'indouisme. Le regard a l'écoulement du temps et les vignobles de la Chartreuse de Valbonne comme perspective. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is to lead the reader through the complexity of Hegel’s philosophical understanding of organic nature by highlighting its distinctive theoretical features and by examining these historically, both against the background of the approaches, achievements and trends of the empirical sciences of his time and in light of their scholarly reception.1 First, I focuss on Hegel’s definition of the ‘universal form’ of life, pointing to what the connection is, in his philosophy of nature, between the structure (...) of conceptual and living processes in the path to the individualization of matter. Second, since Hegel calls animal life “the truth of organics,” 2 I shall try to explain how in the philosophy of nature the Idea of life comes to differentiate itself into certain essential characteristics of immediate, finite and individual animals, passing through the stages of geological nature and vegetable organisms. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 1 Seiten: 9-46.

Massimiliano Tomba’s book, Marx’s Temporalities, stresses the centrality of the body for the critique of exploitation and suggests that a new phenotype is produced by consumerism and by the dynamic of capitalist accumulation, with its plural temporalities. However, both the body of the worker and the new phenotype do not appear to have a sex or a gender in Tomba’s book. In this intervention, I read some of Tomba’s insights about the body, the new phenotype, and primary accumulation in the (...) light of a critical gender and feminist perspective. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Dialectic of Reason Observing Nature Observing the Nature of the Self References Further Reading.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 5-11.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 109-127.

Summary Since its first description, the imprinting phenomenon has been deeply investigated, and researchers can nowadays provide profound knowledge of its functioning. Here, I present how this peculiar form of early exposure learning can be used as a strategy to study animal cognition. Starting from imprinting as a social trigger for the domestic chick and combining it with the unique possibility of accurate control of sensory experiences in this animal model, I present evidence that in artificial environments, imprinting serves as (...) a rigorous test of the core domains of cognition. Whether basic cognitive concepts are already present at birth or whether they need extensive experience to develop are questions that can be addressed in precocial birds and still, following the tradition of the seminal works made by Lorenz, can inform on human cognitive processing. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the nature of feminine bodily comportment described by Iris Marion Young in ‘Throwing Like a Girl.’ According to Young, the style of movement of women, who undergo patriarchal oppression, reveals their existential status as a socio-historically oppressed group. Her claim is that patriarchal oppression acts upon women’s bodily functions, thus causing feminine motility to exhibit an inhibited intentionality, an ambiguous transcendence and a discontinuous unity. In this paper I take issue with these three modalities of (...) feminine comportment. Firstly, I resort to Max Scheler’s phenomenological description of the different stages leading to motor action to show that the bodily functionality of oppressed women is intact when considered from the motor-intentional perspective. Secondly, I advocate, via Scheler’s phenomenology, a different mode through which to interpret the bodily expressivity of oppressed women. My claim is that feminine motility expresses the negative impact that sexism has upon the oppressed women’s emotional pre-theoretical and pre-non-motor level. My thesis is that patriarchal society negatively influences, and thereby compromises, the constitution of women’s axiological apparatus by inhibiting their preferences of values. Finally, I argue that the axiological apparatus of oppressive men is likewise compromised, and hence needs to be re-educated as much as that of the oppressed women. The main aim of this paper is to suggest a correct reading of the hampered motility of oppressed women, which keeps into consideration the phenomenon of ‘oppression’ in its entirety, and which can thus lead to adequate axiological therapies. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of semiotic studies about advertising, beginning with the early work done in the 1960s. Advertising communication plays a particular role in semiotic studies in the second half of the twentieth century. Pioneering studies of advertising messages, in particular those of Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco, date to the 1960s and were carried out for the most part using the tools of classical rhetoric. Following a period in which semiotics displayed a relative lack of interest in (...) advertisements, in the 1980s advertising texts were used as examples in applied narratological analysis by Jean-Marie Floch and others. This occurred at the same time as the so-called “passion turn of semiotics,” which stressed that the passions and emotions present in texts are crucial issues in textual semiotics, and it also seemed to offer fresh perspectives for the analysis of advertising communication. The passion turn took account of the evolution of advertising itself, since modern advertising is more and more interested in conveying passions and emotions. The effectiveness of an advert tends to be closely bound up with the presentation of sensations associated with a given product or brand. Recently, semioticians have begun to study more general features of advertising and marketing discourse. (shrink)

Vignette research is a phenomenological approach that attempts to access the experiential basis of knowledge by examining lifeworlds in educational or social contexts, going ‘to the things themselves’ (Husserl). The vignette methodology enables researchers to capture their own experiences with the experiences of others as they occur in the field by adopting a stance of ‘co-experiential experience’. The vignette aims to provide a depiction of pedagogical events as close as possible to lived experience. The focus is on experiential circumstances that (...) affect researchers in the field. A vignette, as a linguistically condensed text, presents a short, concise narrative in which something surprising, special, or peculiar emerges. The final vignette is subjected to phenomenological analysis, a process known as ‘vignette reading’, wherein processes of categorisation or operationalisation are set aside, and the vignette is approached by the reader without drawing conclusions from the experience. (shrink)

To readers of the Science of Logic, “mode” signifies the externality of the absolute, and its proper place within the text is at the level of the determinations of reflection, within the Doctrine of Essence. Let us take a look at the third section of the Doctrine of Essence: “Actuality”. In its broadest meaning, this signifies “reflected absoluteness,” that is to say, the unity of essence and existence; therefore, it is not a purely immediate existence, but “the immediate unity of (...) form between inner and outer.” Through this definition, a new kind of logical process is made possible - that of the actual totality’s self-manifestation. In the opening chapter of this section, headed “The Absolute,” the determination of the absolute is carried through from its initial unity to truly absolute identity by means of the complex play of reflection. Hegel’s treatment of this subject is beyond the scope of this paper; but if, at the initial stage of its dialectical cycle, reflection is external to the absolute - instead of being the proper determination of it - then it can at least be observed that in the third subdivision of the chapter what is under consideration is the negative return of the absolute into itself, and that this return is accomplished in such a way that “mode” is both the externality of the absolute and its reflection into itself: its being into itself and for itself. As one of the recent commentators on the Science of Logic has pointed out: “Le mode est ‘1’apparance comme apparance’: avec lui se profile un type d’extériorité qui ne sera plus en dette à l’egard d’une interiorité … la manifestation de l’absolu n’est pas une sortie de soi, mais plutôt sa constitution dans l’exteriorité des modes, puis des modalités de l’effectivité.”. (shrink)

In the 1787 Transcendental Deduction of the Categories Kant indicates the only possible ways by which one can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects (B166), using analogies between modes of explanation and biological theories about the origin of life. He endorses epigenesis as a model for his system of pure reason (B167). This paper examines various interpretive claims about the meaning of this theory of generation and its significance for Kant’s philosophy (Section 1), (...) showing that, after his Critical shift in perspective, in 1775/77 Kant already combined preformed elements and their purposively oriented formation by natural forces (Section 2). Contrary to the standard view, Kant’s theory of race appears to constitute the background to assess Blumenbach’s later (1799/1781) shift to epigenesis after supporting Haller’s preformism (Section 3). In Section 4, I argue that the ground of affinity between epigenesis and formal idealism rests in tracing the first origin of these conformities: externala posterioriclimate conditions and predisposed germs and dispositions within the generative power of the human body; and externala posterioriexperience and spontaneousa prioriconcepts of its objects, within pure sensory intuiting and pure thinking. In both cases the external empirical conditions would function as occasioning propelling factors affecting internal pre-established forms of generation. (shrink)

From 1754 to 1756 Kant wrote on such central, related topics as the axial rotation of the Earth, the theory of heat, and the composition of matter, focusing on space, force, and motion. It has been noted that each of these topics pertains to his 1755 Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, in which he drew on extant cosmogonies and the analogical form of Newtonianism developed by naturalists including Buffon, Haller, and Thomas Wright. How does Kant build on (...) these various sources? This article aims to provide a nuanced account of specific features of the relation between natural history and natural philosophy in Kant’s early developmental theory of the universe and to illuminate the strategy that guides his innovative, selective appropriation of contemporaneous insights. -/- . (shrink)

The article traces the reflections found in the Hellenika on the theme of Athens/Sparta bipolarity, with the intention of illustrating Xenophon's interest in this international arrangement of the Greek world and of emphasizing its repercussions in Xenophon’s historiographical project.

As guest editor of this special issue of Esercizi Filosofici, the author introduces Kenneth R. Westphal’s and Paolo Parrini’s position papers on pragmatism, idealism and realism by elucidating the background and rationale of the workshop she organized on 29 April, 2015 at the Department of Humanities of the University of Trieste, within the framework of her undergraduate course in «History of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy». The Appendix lists questions posed by students and by the audience, to which the invited speakers (...) replied in discussion following the presentations; their respective replies follow their main papers. -/- published (open access) in: Esercizi Filosofici, vol.10, n.1(2015), pp.1-15 . (shrink)

For the first time, documental evidence is provided in German to support the claim that during his Bern period Hegel continued to cultivate his interests and training in mathematics, physics and the natural sciences, thus filling an important lacuna in the development of Hegel's thought, also for the multifarious fund representative of both French Cartesian school and Newtonian handbooks present in Tschugg's library. So far, indeed, the Geometrische Studien and the 1801 De orbitis had been viewed as a sudden return (...) to previous concern, after the Bern's gap. Moreover, according to the received view, the sources of Hegel's Dissertation dated back to the Frankfurt period. (shrink)

This Introduction by the editors of this special issue presents eleven contributions on the theme of fear in the Indian Subcontinent by Italian academic scholars.