This paper focuses on the materialistic account of the blending and the way it shapes an original organism model. I aim to shed light on the threads of connections we can gather between the Presocratic and the Stoic views on the physical krasis of the body. The Stoics share with Parmenides and Empedocles the idea of a single material cosmic continuum in which thought and perception depend on the various blendings of the physical constituents of the body. Both of these (...) naturalistic traditions are committed to the view that substance is continuous and undergoes constant and qualitative change. My point is to underline how this view of a sympathetic cosmos presupposes a model of the individuality that is radically open. Thus, by taking off the notion of the krasis, the Stoics take off a problem – namely, that of the organism – that is first fleshed out by the Presocratics – Parmenides and Empedocles in particular – philosophers. In this respect, the Stoic view of relational identity indebts to the Presocratic account, beyond and against the Aristotelian one. (shrink)

Originally published in Italian in 1976, this book describes the methods scientists use to investigate the physical world. It is ideal for students and teachers of science and the philosophy of science. It is both a high-level popularization and a critical appraisal of these methods, describing important advances in physics and analyzing the historical development, value, reliability and philosophical implications of the way physicists approach the problems confronting them. The introductory chapter on the meaning of physical theories and the mathematical (...) tools used to develop them is followed by a general discussion on the foundations of physics under four major headings: the physics of the reversible, the physics of the irreversible, microphysics, and cosmology. Throughout, the subject matter of physical theories is linked to discussion of the attendant philosophical and epistemological implications, such as the validity of the theories, inductive inference, causal explanation, probability, the role of observation and the reality of physical objects. (shrink)

Franco “Bifo” Berardi tells us that the current transformation of every domain of social life into economy has led to “the subjugation of the soul to work processes.” There is a newfound love of work and, consequently, writes Berardi, “no desire, no vitality seems to exist anymore outside of the economic enterprise.” Concerned as it once was with “fostering the soul,” and concerned as it now is with preparing students for the job market, what role might education have in Berardi’s (...) musings? Can “creativity,” “self-actualization” and “curiosity,” which are so valued in education, still speak and help foster a sense of the soul that exceeds economy and work? In this paper, I explore these questions by providing an account of what is at stake in Berardi’s conception of the soul and its subjugation to work. I draw on his ideas to critically appraise the seemingly-benign aspirations of the “creative class,” a term coined to signal a new era for human flourishing afforded by shifts towards personal creativity in the digital economy. I then move to consider how, in particular, the ubiquitous promotion of “creativity” and “curiosity” in education tends to replicate a form of learning that puts the soul to work, as it were, promoting a narrow, self-enterprising subject with a frantic instrumental orientation towards the world. I conclude with a discussion on how demands on learners, to be always curious, innovative, nimble and open to discovery lead to panic, collapse and depression: the diseases of the soul. (shrink)

In this paper I refute an apparently obvious objection to Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities according to which if in the counterfactual scenario the agent does not act, then the agent could have avoided acting in the actual scenario. And because what happens in the counterfactual scenario cannot count as the relevant agent's actions given the sort of external control that agent is under, then we can ground responsibility on that agent having been able to avoid acting. (...) I illustrate how this objection to Frankfurt's famous counterexample is motivated by Frankfurt's own 'guidance' view of agency. My argument consists in showing that even if we concede that the agent does not act in the counterfactual scenario, that does not show that the agent could have avoided acting in the actual scenario. This depends on the crucial distinction between 'not φ-ing' and 'avoiding φ-ing'. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Images of Ancient Rome in Late Eighteenth-Century Neapolitan HistoriographyMelissa CalaresuThe case of the late Neapolitan enlightenment, the variety and sophistication of which has been little recognized outside of Italian scholarship, illustrates the significance of particular regional concerns and intellectual traditions in the development of enlightened movements in Europe. 1 This becomes apparent when examining how Neapolitans looked to their own past in relation to the unique set of political (...) and social problems of the Kingdom of Naples. In this article I shall examine a number of historical writings published in the 1780s. This was a decade of intense intellectual activity which saw the publication of the defining works of the later Neapolitan enlightenment, such as Gaetano Filangieri’s Scienza della legislazione from 1780 and Francesco Mario Pagano’s Saggi politici between 1783 and 1785. 2 It was also the decade in which Giuseppe Maria Galanti’s Storia filosofica e politica delle nazioni antiche e moderne [End Page 641] introduced in translation important texts of the British and French Enlightenments, and the journal Scelta miscellanea briefly became an important focal point of collaboration and intellectual exchange for reform-minded intellectuals in Naples. 3 The impetus which bound together these many projects of the 1780s was twofold: on one hand, the growing awareness of the particular problems of Neapolitan society and of the urgent need for reform, expressed through the language and concerns of the wider enlightened movement; and at the same time a revived sense of a distinct cultural and political identity. The writing of history, even of the most remote age, did not escape these concerns.The cultural renewal of the 1780s brought new histories of the Kingdom, and in these Rome played an essential role. As Naples’s most powerful neighbor in ancient times, Rome defeated the Samnites, the tribe which had inhabited the Kingdom, and brought the region under Imperial control. From the Middle Ages the universal pretensions of the Roman papacy had continually threatened the temporal authority of Neapolitan rulers, and the symbol of these pretensions had survived into the eighteenth century with the offering each year of a feudal homage, the Chinea, to Rome. It was against this threat which Pietro Giannone’s anti-clericalism in the Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli (1723) was directed. 4 The symbol of Rome, ancient and modern, served as an effective foil for Neapolitan intellectuals who believed that the development of good government in the Kingdom had been frustrated by the interference of outside powers.This interference was perceived as having broken the natural bond between the rulers of Naples and their subjects. The Spanish viceroys already had an established and especially reviled place in this history of misgovernment in Naples. 5 The arrival of Charles III in 1734 and the establishment of an autonomous monarchy in the Kingdom broke this history and brought a new optimism for the possibility of reform. As regalisti, the reformers of the end of the [End Page 642] eighteenth century continued their efforts to strengthen the jurisdictional rights of the now autonomous Bourbon monarchy against both the Papacy and the feudal nobility within the Kingdom. 6 Within these historiographical and political traditions Rome was clearly recognized as a recurring symbol of oppression and obstacle to Naples’s sovereignty, and late eighteenth-century historians looked back to a period before the arrival of the ancient Romans to find a native tradition which could inform contemporary reform and upon which a cultural identity could be constructed.Italian writers, from the Renaissance, had charted the early history of the various city-states, duchies, and kingdoms in the Italian peninsula relative to the rise and fall of ancient Rome. Despite the local patriotism which these histories expressed, Rome remained a powerful symbol and model of civilization, and it was from such a model that both politics and culture were discussed and compared in Europe. Consequently, interest in pre-Roman Italy most often related to the reconstruction of the origins and early history of Rome, and it was towards this which most antiquarians and historians worked in their attempts to understand the causes for its rise. 7 In any case antiquarian interest in pre-Roman... (shrink)

The 21st century is characterized by an unpredictable and challenging work environment, and the Intrapreneurial Self-Capital (ISC) career and life construct can be seen as a core of individual intrapreneurial resources that enables people to cope with ongoing challenges, changes, and transitions founding innovative solutions when confronted with the constraints imposed by such an environment. The ISC is a challenging construct since it can enhance behavior and attitudes through specific training, unlike personality traits, which are considered substantially stable in the (...) literature. Against this background, the present study examined the relationship between ISC and well-being (hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being) controlling for the effects of personality traits. The Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ), the Intrapreneurial Self-Capital Scale (ISCS), the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), and the Flourishing Scale (FS) were administered to 258 Italian workers. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that ISC explained a percentage of incremental variance beyond that explained by personality traits in relation to both life satisfaction and flourishing. These results indicate that ISC is a key resource for hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being and that it offers new research and intervention opportunities. (shrink)

Mascolo successfully defends a relational, developmental approach to emotions. I draw parallels between his perspective and the enactive approach, in particular with the concept of participa...

In a previous paper, I had argued that Strong’s counterexamples to Marquis’s argument against abortion—according to which terminating fetuses is wrong because it deprives them of a valuable future—fail either because they have no bearing on Marquis’s argument or because they make unacceptable claims about what constitutes a valuable future. In this paper I respond to Strong’s criticism of my argument according to which I fail to acknowledge that Marquis uses "future like ours" and "valuable future" interchangeably. I show that (...) my argument does not rely on not acknowledging that "future like ours" and "valuable future" are interchangeable; and that, rather, it is exactly by replacing "future like ours" with "valuable future" that I construct my argument against Strong. I conclude with some remarks on how Marquis’s concept of "future like ours" should be interpreted. (shrink)

China's domestic labor market has limited demand for tertiary graduates due to an unbalanced industrial structure, with a weak contribution to economic performance over the past decade. This study estimates the asymmetric effects of higher education progress (highly educated employed workforce), higher education utilization (highly educated unemployed workforce), and the separate effects of higher education utilization interactions with high-tech industries on economic growth in China from 1980 to 2020. Using a Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model, this study finds that (...) the expansion of higher education progress (the employed workforce with higher education) promotes economic growth, while contraction of higher education progress (employed workforce with higher education) reduces economic growth. Likewise, an increase in higher education utilization (the unemployed labor force with higher education) suppresses economic growth, while a decline in the higher education utilization (the unemployed labor force with higher education) promotes economic growth. The study also found that the expansion of high-tech industries and government spending on education significantly stimulate economic growth. The moderating role of higher education utilization (unemployed labor force with higher education) in the impact of high-tech industries on economic growth is significantly positive. This study strategically proposes that China's higher-educated unemployed labor force can be adjusted to high-tech industries, which need to be developed equally in all regions. Moreover, the country is required to invest more in higher education and the development of high technological industries across all regions, thus may lead to higher economic growth. (shrink)

In this paper we define sheaf spaces of BL-algebras (or BL-sheaf spaces), we study completely regular and compact BL-sheaf spaces and compact representations of BL-algebras and, finally, we prove that the category of non-trivial BL-algebras is equivalent with the category of compact local BL-sheaf spaces.

Drawing on recent developments in media entertainment research, this study examined the relationship between social question and answer (Q&A) websites use and users’ perceived enjoyment with the goal of expanding the line of research on the enjoyment of new and interactive forms of media entertainment. Special attention was paid to meaningfulness, self-presentation, and social presence, which were introduced as mediators. An online survey of users of a social Q&A website was carried out (N = 150). Results indicated an indirect effect (...) of social Q&A websites usage on enjoyment through users’ meaningfulness, self-presentation success, and social presence. Theoretical implications and further directions were discussed in detail. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to present a model of ethical technology management which assumes that elites who make the system design and development decisions should minimize the risks to stakeholders rather than maximize gains for their organizations. Given the unsettled state in ethical theory a familiar substantive Social, Economic, Environmental and Rights value set or ‘SEER’ ethic is presented. To enable foresight of the negative SEER effects of innovations a technology life cycle is introduced. A cognate issue life (...) cycle is presented to facilitate the ethical resolution of SEER issues associated with such effects. The resultant problem of increased front end load delays and costs, due to ongoing system redesign and stakeholder discussions is found to preferable to high ‘rear end load’ crisis costs, e.g., ofthe Ford Pinto, Exxon Valdez, Dalkon lUD Shield, and the Union Carbide Bhopal plant. Furthermore the model promises improved returns on the capital investments involved, indications for further research in ethics, economics and organizational theory are noted. (shrink)

BL-algebras are the Lindenbaum algebras for Hájek's Basic Logic, just as Boolean algebras correspond to the classical propositional calculus. The finite totally ordered BL-algebras are ordinal sums of MV-chains. We develop a natural duality, in the sense of Davey and Werner, for each subvariety generated by a finite BL-chain, and we use it to describe the injective and the weak injective members of these classes.

This article discusses the role of intrapreneurial self-capital (ISC) as a possible primary preventive resource to effectively deal with the complexity of the current entrepreneurial environment. The article deepens both the similarities and differences between ISC and psychological capital and thus proceeds to present the most recent empirical evidence that connects ISC to (a) employability and career decision making, (b) innovative behavior, and (c) well-being. The possibilities for further research and interventions are additionally discussed.

Even before turning to instruments, we already have a technical-cultural body, since our body always keeps track of the action of technology and culture. It is indeed thanks to both technology and culture that our body had become what it is, that is a human body, meaning a sort of biological paradox - a body unfit for survival, unspecialized and unadapted, but extremely plastic. This does not imply that the action that current technologies have upon our bodies, with their extraordinary (...) capabilities of manipulation, does not have any consequences or cause concerns. We do nothing alien to our "nature" when we expose ourselves to the action of technology, as well as we do nothing alien to us when we set limits to technology, and not only to it. The continuous process of self-limitation is in fact a necessity for men. And setting limits to the possible is also the only way to safeguard it. (shrink)

Dominical categories are categories in which the notions of partial morphisms and their domains become explicit, with the latter being endomorphisms rather than subobjects of their sources. These categories form the basis for a novel abstract formulation of recursion theory, to which the present paper is devoted. The abstractness has of course its usual concomitant advantage of generality: it is interesting to see that many of the fundamental results of recursion theory remain valid in contexts far removed from their classic (...) manifestations. A principal reason for introducing this new formulation is to achieve an algebraization of the generalized incompleteness theorem, by providing a category-theoretic development of the concepts and tools of elementary recursion theory that are inherent in demonstrating the theorem.Dominical recursion theory avoids the commitment to sets and partial functions which is characteristic of other formulations, and thus allows for an intrinsic recursion theory within such structures as polyadic algebras. It is worthy of notice that much of elementary recursion theory can be developedwithout referencetoelements.By Gödel's generalized incompleteness theorem for consistent arithmetical systemTwe mean any statement of the following sort: if every recursive set is definable inT, thenTis essentially undecidable [41]; or if all recursive functions are definable inT, thenTis essentially undecidable [41]; or if every recursive set is definable inT, thenT0andR0 are recursively inseparable [39]; or if all re sets are representable inT, thenT0is creative [28], [39]; or ifTis a Rosser theory, thenT0andR0are effectively inseparable [39]. (shrink)

This study uses a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies methodology to provide the first systematic analysis of how trust is discursively constructed in crypto-drug markets. The data come from two purpose-built corpora. One comprises all the forum messages posted on the flag ship crypto-drug market Silk Road during the years in which it traded on the hidden net. The other corpus comprises all the reports published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime during the same period. Our analysis of (...) trust focuses on the identities of those buying and selling drugs. The findings reveal that the Silk Road community members regularly discussed vendors’ identities alongside a continuum of trust–risk calculation, explicitly identifying both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices and hence engaging in self-regulatory discourses, and mainly constructed drug users’ identities in relation to values of expertise, integrity and benevolence. The findings also suggest that hard law enforcement activity, such as crypto-drug market closure, may encourage technological innovation within these markets. Moreover, our results show a disconnect between the discursive reality of the policy-making documents we examined and the very crypto-drug markets that they seek to legislate. (shrink)

Moving from the paradigms of “mentalization” and “reflective function”, this article develops the concept of “mentalizing” in organizations, understood as a process of construction of shared meaning in the work contexts, and whose absence or deterioration produces suffering in organizational experience, exposing individuals to significant psychosocial risks. This model converges in outlining a framework in which the absence of a reflective competence and the lack of symbolization of the experience of work fall on the perception of one's own job, and (...) on the relationship with colleagues and management, producing unsustainability of the work experience. The availability of reflective spaces that are inscribed in the ordinary dimension of work thus appears as a solution capable of promoting organizational well-being. (shrink)

A growing body of research has focused on the relationship between board diversity and firm performance. A series of empirical literatures have also examined a significant positive correlation between the two. But these results only demonstrate the relationship between the input of ‘diversity’ and the output of ‘firm performance’. Such research is more of a black box because board diversity must act on certain strategies or decisions to affect firm performance. Some scholars try theoretical analysis with the purpose of opening (...) the black box. In order to verify the relevant theoretical analysis results, this study uses the mediating effect analysis model in the field of psychology, through multiple regression, impulse analysis, variance decomposition and other methods, to thus empirically test the mediating effect of technological innovation in the process of board diversification promoting corporate performance. We found that board diversity can improve firm performance by enhancing the level of technological innovation. Among them, technological innovation has played a complete mediating role in the diversity of board members’ functional and occupational background, and played a partial mediating role in the diversification of directors’ part-time jobs. Technological innovation is a key indicator bridging board diversity and firm performance. This study can explore and explain the inner workings of the significant relationship between board diversity and firm performance, and link research findings on similar phenomena. The research results may make the existing board governance theories more systematic, expand the extension of theoretical research, and provide some empirical research references for academics and practitioners. (shrink)

Food sovereignty can be conceptualized as a political proposal for social change in the field of agri-food relations. However, specific strategies of how to achieve this transformative potential are diverse, and context-dependent. The paper explores this diversity by examining discourses on the food sovereignty construction process in Catalonia. Using Q methodology we have explored visions held by individuals participating in the social movement for food sovereignty, identifying five discourses: activism, anti-purism, self-management, pedagogy, and pragmatism. Key strategies of transformation include social (...) mobilization, institutional negotiation, self-management, education to foster value change, and politics of the possible. The relevance assigned to ideological affinity explains different views on the subject of transformation, particularly regarding the involvement of the administration and the productive sector. As regards transformative strategies, discourses assign differing importance to the role of agency for effecting social transformation, which influences their assessment of individual actions as an effective means for social change. Forms of individualized and classic collective action currently coexist within the Catalan agri-food movement, but such diversity is not acknowledged as an effective alliance towards food sovereignty. Moreover, all discourses agree to a dual definition of food sovereignty, both as a process, that is, as democratization of the decision-making process in the agri-food sector, and as a result, that is, establishing an agri-food model alternative to the neo-liberal one. However, the discourses share an unclear view of democracy as decentralized collective decision-making that does not make explicit how this model should be implemented to achieve social control of the agri-food system. (shrink)

An ecologically informed view of ethics focuses upon individuals considered in relation to the communities within which they live. Such a view holds that ethics is rooted in the fundamental relationships characterizing particular types of communities. From this perspective, the different communities of the polity, family, and ecosystem superficially appear to have very different ethical systems. In fact, however, all are characterized by respect for community members. Respect is the fundamental ethical insight. This view suggests a way of harmonizing modern (...) society’s relationship with the natural world and of bringing ethical theory into closer harmony with humankind’s most timeless insights. (shrink)

This paper argues that we know the future by applying a recent solution of the problem of future contingents to knowledge attributions about the future. MacFarlane has put forward a version of assessment-context relativism that enables us to assign a truth value 'true' (or 'false') to future contingents such as There Will Be A Sea Battle Tomorrow. Here I argue that the same solution can be applied to knowledge attributions about the future by dismissing three disanalogies between the case of (...) future contingents and the case of knowledge attributions about the future. Therefore none of the traditional conditions for knowledge can be utilized to deny that we know the future, as I argue in the last section. (shrink)

We revisit the sequential search problem by Hey. In a 2 ×\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\times $$\end{document} 2 factorial design, varying fixed and random cost treatments with and without recall, we address open research questions that were originally stated by Hey. Our results provide clear evidence for Hey’s conjecture that recall negatively affects performance in sequential search. With experience, however, search behavior with and without recall converges toward the optimal reservation rule. We further find that (...) the utilization of optimal reservation rules is independent from the stochastic nature of the search cost. (shrink)

The paper investigates, first of all, the epistemological status of one of the most elusive, yet vital, genres of literature, that aimed at childhood and adolescence. The “for” or “of” with which reference is made to the literature also known as ” youth” risks, in fact, to preserve the status quo of a discipline that has struggled (and still struggles) to find its own validity and legitimacy, discounted over time with an “invisibility” or a derubrication to derivative literature, secondary, weak (...) in its artistic and aesthetic canons. On the contrary, the aim here is to confirm, as witnessed by the most recent scientific studies, the total autonomy of literature for childhood and adolescence which, relying on at least two codes, iconic and verbal, boasts considerable expressive freedom, lending itself also as a faithful interpreter of post-modernity. One theorises, therefore, the possibility of speaking of a literature ‘from’ childhood and ‘from’ adolescence, underlining the need to consider the specification in the same way as a geographical and cultural location. Since we are dealing with works written and illustrated by individuals who are not boys or girls by birth (since the latter are not yet masters of iconographic writing), the most relevant will be those that faithfully draw on the physical and metaphysical region of childhood, restoring its complexity and expression, as a direct emanation of that other culture, which still and always exists and resists in us. (shrink)

Die neuen Reproduktionstechnologien in der heutigen Zeit sind dabei Familien zu verändern – sowohl in der Theorie als auch in der Praxis.

El presente artículo recorre la lectura arendtiana de Platón guiada a partir de las anotaciones y reflexiones de la autora alemana bosquejadas en el Denktagebuch, 1950 bis 1973. Si bien, la figura de Platón a sido recurrentemente evocada en diferentes trabajos de Arendt, aquí nos detendremos a hilvanar lo que denominó como el problema de la tradición del pensamiento político occidental, es decir, la hostilidad de la filosofía para con la política.

Some philosophers and cognitive scientists think that a naturalised philosophy of the (self-) conscious mind should lead us to reject the very existence of the self. The paper focuses on two case-studies which are representative of this kind of attitude. In particular we examine, and criticise, Thomas Metzinger's 'no-self alternative' and Daniel Dennett's narrative elimination of the self. Our aim is not to prove that any elimination of the self from the inventory of the world based on the empirical study (...) of the mind is doomed to failure. Instead, we would like to introduce a note of caution: it is far from clear that cognitive science and naturalistic philosophies of mind force upon us, or even suggest, a picture of the world without persons and selves. (shrink)

The paper proposes a new understanding of the notion of “aura” as it emerges, including similarities and differences, in the aesthetic thought of Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. In particular, the paper shows how, not only in Adorno but already in Benjamin, such a concept designates also the capacity of artwork to refers, by its own internal, to an irreducible otherness. In this perspective, in a world increasingly dominated by a tendency to homologation and mercification – with the resulting (...) identification of art and cultural industry –, contemporary art looks like a continuous oscillation between the will to deny aura and, other times, the awareness of its necessary survival, closely related (in particular, according to Adorno) to the recognition of the need to “save” not only the appearance but also, by that very fact, the aesthetic autonomy. (shrink)

The path articulated in this paper has as its background and horizon the question of hospitality. In order to propose a re-thinking of this concept and the practices related to it, in this paper an attempt will be made to analyze the phenomenology of hostility starting from the analysis of the concepts of the stranger and the foreigner, and then focusing on the concept of community in order to outline the assumptions of a philosophy of hospitality. The thesis of this (...) work is that identity can only be defined in relation to otherness and that the latter does not come from an external dimension but from an internal dimension. In this sense, the stranger who must be welcomed is the one who is always on the verge of arriving and who in his coming always crosses the threshold, the limit that establishes the division between the inside and the outside, between the proper and the foreign. (shrink)