Reconstruction of human ecosystems and their stability over time provides knowledge of the processes of adaptability developed by isolated communities. Seasonality of vital events is a good indicator of the effects of different lifestyles, which in turn depend on the ecological context in which a population developed specific subsistence models. Seasonality of births reflects the cultural attitude towards the best time to conceive, in relation to work activities and loads; the latter may also affect physiological functions related to fertility. The (...) present research concerns gross birth rates and seasonality of births and conceptions during four centuries in south-central Italy. Birth rates were between 33·0 and 36·5 per 1000. The pattern of seasonality of births and, by extension, of conceptions defines a southern-type agricultural area for the earlier periods. However, it also shows a progressive shift towards an increasing concentration of conceptions in spring namely from April to August – with a large increase in summer in the 19th century with respect to the previous periods. The new 19th century pattern is reported by Crisafulli, Dalla Zuanna & Solero (2000) as being representative of the central Adriatic region, a geographical classification to which Abruzzo can also be attributed. (shrink)

Irenaeus of Lyon uses the tale of Abraham as biblical proof for his thesis on the unity of God and of the history of salvation. In order to do this, however, he must first refute the Gnostic and Marcionite interpretations of Abraham, and so the episode of Isaac’s sacrifice. In Irenaeus’s exegesis of Gn 22:1–19, Abraham becomes the progenitor of the apostles and gentiles who are welcomed into the Church and an ante litteram disciple of Mt 4:22 and 16:24; he, (...) who prophetically foresees the day of Jesus’s passion, offers his son Isaac as a sacrifice, just as God would offer his son, the incarnate Logos, as a sacrifice for the salvation of his descendants. (shrink)

Esito di un convegno tenutosi a Roma nel 2003, i saggi raccolti in L’arte e i linguaggi della percezione offrono una variegata panoramica delle posizioni maturate nel dibattito intorno al programma epistemico di Ernst H. Gombrich, prendendo in esame non soltanto gli aspetti più squisitamente filologici della sua biografia intellettuale — la formazione, i rapporti con la scuola di Vienna, la complicata relazione con Warburg e la scuola iconologica — ma anche i fondamenti filosofici del suo pen...

I risultati dell’attività e degli esperimenti effettuati dal filosofo lucano Francesco De Sarlo presso l’Istituto di Studi Superiori e di Perfezionamento di Firenze sono riportati nei due volumi delle «Ricerche di Psicologia», del 1905 e del 1907. Questo.

Nel 1451, nel 1460 e nel 1494 tre diversi predicatori, Giacomo della Marca, Roberto Caracciolo e Bernardino da Feltre, celebrano la grandezza di Bernardino da Siena scomparso nel 1444. I sermoni dei tre appartenenti all’Osservanza francescana hanno lo scopo di mantenere la memoria di questo “secondo Francesco” e di offrire alle folle un modello. Sono tre mattoni utili per la ricostruzione della vita del Senese ma soprattutto per agire sugli uomini e sulle donne che accorrevano a sentire i tre (...) famosi ed assai seguiti predicatori. Tutto il discorso è un impasto di ricostruzione storica e di impegno nel presente come si coglie bene soprattutto nel sermone su Bernardino da Siena di Giacomo della Marca che rende emblematicamente l’intento di usare la memoria per agire sugli uomini del suo tempo in una continuità attiva con Bernardino da Siena ma anche con Francesco. (shrink)

Si indagano le ragioni letterarie che motivarono l’interesse di Leopardi per due opere di Francesco Maria Zanotti : i tre dialoghi Della forza de’ corpi che chiamano viva , scritti "per ingannare il tempo", e la satira antilockiana Della forza attrattiva delle idee . L’analisi viene incentrata sulle strategie paratestuali, retoriche e poetiche sfruttate abbondantemente da Zanotti in questi testi che tutti e due esulano dalla comunicazione scientifica canonica. La presa in considerazione di questi procedimenti risulta indispensabile per (...) capire meglio il messaggio filosofico di Zanotti, nonché per circoscrivere l’influsso degli scritti zanottiani sull’opera di Leopardi. (shrink)

El hombre posmoderno es un Narciso en busca de su identidad. La evaporación del Padre ha camiado las dinámicas en relación con el Otro y la capacidad de construir una propia identidad tiene que recurrir a los objetos de consumo. En este estudio se propone un camino que va desde la teoría clásica del Psicoanálisis hasta una nueva perspectiva que entra en el campo del Márketing y del estudio de objeto de consumo.

Standard interpretations of Kant’s moral philosophy portray him as affording agents very little, if any, latitude to exercise practical judgment for determining the proper course of action. It is typically thought that Kant holds that because all moral duties are determinable a priori and in advance of particular circumstances this leaves little to no room for agents to exercise practical judgment. In this paper I discuss two senses in which Kant does allow for the practical judgment of agents. The first (...) is an interpretation of Kant’s view of practical judgment developed by Onora O’Neill and others. The second is an underappreciated dimension of practical judgment contained in Kant’s texts. It is to a defense and examination of the importance of the second sense of practical judgment that the majority of this paper is dedicated. (shrink)

The relation between the concepts of the subject of apperception, the phenomenal self, and the noumenal self has long puzzled commentators on Kant’s theoretical account of the self. This paper argues that many of the puzzles surrounding Kant’s account can be resolved by treating the subject of apperception and other transcendental predicates of thinking as a dimension of the noumenal self. Yet this interpretation requires a clarification of how the transcendental predicates of thinking can be attributed to the noumenal self (...) without violating the thesis of noumenal ignorance. The clarification is achieved through a careful analysis of the meaning of the latter thesis. The paper’s interpretation is then shown to be consistent with Kant’s rejection of traditional ontology and with the dual-aspect view. The paper’s final section argues that transcendental predicates are properly construed as logical predicates but must be distinguished from ordinary examples of the latter. (shrink)

In Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, Henry Allison argues that Kant’s theoretical treatment of the self presents both an incoherent “official view” and a coherent “alternative view.” In this paper, I argue that Kant’s genuine position on the self can be reconstructed as a coherent unity by examining the flaws in Allison’s analysis. It is shown that Allison’s objections to Kant’s official view are based on unwarranted metaphysical assumptions and unjustified conceptual identifications. Allison’s own dual-aspect view of the transcendental distinction between phenomena (...) and noumena is used to correct these misconceptions. Thus, the official view as described by Allison is not Kant’s genuine position. Rather, it is shown that Kant treats the noumenal self as the ground or support of the activity of thinking and the subject of apperception, and that this grounding function is essential to Kant’s view but overlooked by Allison’s analysis. (shrink)

In his critical philosophy, Kant considers the 'subject' to be the source and ground of the a priori conditions of experience, but says exasperatingly little to elucidate this crucial notion. Kant's express view in the first Critique is that the self, like other objects of experience, can be considered either through the conditions of experience as a phenomenon, or as it is independently of these conditions as a noumenon. According to this view, the 'subject' that serves as the ground of (...) the a priori conditions of experience must therefore be understood either as the phenomenal or noumenal self. Commentators such as Henry Allison reject Kant's express view as inconsistent with the awareness of oneself as 'thinking subject', however, since the latter is an awareness of the activity of thinking, while 'phenomena' and 'noumena' are concepts of things. ;The dissertation presents an interpretation and defense of Kant's express view of the self against commentators such as Allison. The defense begins by applying the dual-aspect reading of the phenomena/noumena distinction to the self, which is necessary to give the view initial plausibility. It is then argued that the activity of thinking, which is represented by the 'transcendental unity of apperception' or 'I think', is attributable to the noumenal self in the negative sense, or transcendental subject. The activity of thinking is thus conceptually distinct from, but ontologically dependent upon, the transcendental subject to which it belongs. Kant's express view therefore does not, pace Allison, require the identification of the thinking subject, with the 'phenomenal' or 'noumenal' selves. ;The final two chapters of the dissertation consist of closer studies of the concepts of the 'phenomenal' and 'noumenal' selves respectively. The former examines the notions of 'inner sense' and 'self-affection' as they pertain to the phenomenal self. The latter considers the noumenal self as it functions in Kant's practical philosophy. It is seen that the results of both chapters are consistent with the previous defense of Kant's express view of the self. (shrink)

Empathy is the phenomenal experience of mirroring ourselves into others. It can be explained in terms of simulations of actions, sensations, and emotions which constitute a shared manifold for intersubjectivity. Simulation, in turn, can be sustained at the subpersonal level by a series of neural mirror matching systems.

Resumen: Propongo una lectura de los relatos eróticos de Di Giorgio, según este, el hibridismo genérico textual y sexual ampliamente reconocido por la crítica, así como la recurrencia de transformaciones y metamorfosis a impulsos de un deseo que cancela las fronteras entre lo humano, lo animal, lo vegetal y lo material, realiza una profunda crítica epistemológica a la racionalidad moderna, andro y antropocéntrica, y su forma de concebir identidad y diferencia. El eje de esta ruptura epistemológica es la desarticulación de (...) las estructuras binarias sexo/género y Naturaleza/Cultura, que disloca la alineación de cuerpo-género-deseo y la oposición clásica bios/zoé, bases fundamentales de los órdenes políticos y simbólicos de Occidente.: I propose a reading of Di Giorgio's erotic stories according to which generic textual and sexual hybridism widely recognized by critics, as well as the recurrence of transformations and metamorphosis at the urging of a desire that cancels the boundaries between the human, animal, vegetable and material, he makes a deep epistemological critique of modern rationality, andro and anthropocentric, and his way of conceiving identity and difference. The axis of this epistemological rupture is the disarticulation of the sex/gender and nature/culture binary structures, which dislocate the alignment of body-gender-desire and the classic bios/zoé opposition, fundamental bases of the political and symbolic orders of the West. (shrink)

Building on the literature on hybrid organizations, this manuscript explores the relationship between the organizational activity of social enterprises backed by venture philanthropy investors and income inequality. Using Ashoka’s portfolio of Indian social enterprises as empirical context of Western venture philanthropy investing activity, our results suggest that Indian municipalities with social enterprises that have received venture philanthropy investments experience a decrease in income inequality level and when these social enterprises are dominated by a collectivistic organizational identity orientation the effect is (...) stronger. Our findings have implications for the research on hybrid organizations, financing of social entrepreneurship and grand ethical challenges. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to argue for the idea that processes and process-based entities are to be modelled as relational structures. Relational structures are genuine structures, namely entities not committed to the existence of basic objects. My argument moves from the analysis of Whitehead’s original insight about process-based entities that, despite some residual of substance metaphysics, has the merit of grounding the intrinsic dynamism of reality on the holistic and relational characters of process-based entities. The current model of (...) process ontology requires genuine emergence and this, in turn, requires organizations, i.e., emergence in organizations. Another view about processes rely on a structural specification of processes. I suggest that the two views can be made compatible by the help of a specific sort of structures, namely relational structures. The appeal to the mathematical theory of genuine structures, category theory, reveals the formal plausibility of this convergence. According to this formal approach, genuine structures are essentially dynamic entities for they are relational, namely, as well as organizations, they are not existentially committed to particulars. (shrink)

Resumen: Este texto consiste básicamente en una presentación general de la corriente filosófica del nuevo realismo surgida en 2007 y en la que participan autores europeos y norteamericanos. Un punto en común de las diversas posiciones dentro de esta corriente es el deslinde crítico frente a la filosofía posmoderna y a la filosofía moderna en general. Explico esta crítica y sus implicaciones para la posibilidad de un restablecimiento en la filosofía contemporánea del pensamiento metafísico.: This text is basically an overview (...) of philosophical new realism which emerged in 2007 and involves European and American authors. A common point to the various positions within this current is a critical detachment from postmodern philosophy and modern philosophy in general. i explain this criticism and its implications for the possibility of a restoration in contemporary philosophy of metaphysical thought. (shrink)

Negli ultimi due anni sono stati pubblicati due importanti libri sul progresso morale: 'Moral Progress' di Philp Kitcher e 'A Better Ape' di Victor Kumar e Richmond Campbell. In questa nota critica, recensisco entrambi i libri e problematizzo il modo in cui cercano rispettivamente di legare tra loro il tema del progresso morale con la teoria dell'evoluzione.

Scopo del saggio è confrontare alcune tra le principali visiones della letteratura occidentale – tra cui la Visio Pauli e la Commedia – e le diverse redazioni della tradizione islamica dell’ascensione celeste e viaggio oltremondano del profeta Muhammad, nel tentativo di stabilire se le affinità, tematiche e strutturali, osservabili tra i due gruppi di testi siano frutto di semplice poligenesi o vadano piuttosto spiegate con rapporti di effettiva intertestualità.Tra le visiones, la tradizione mirajica e la Commedia si instaura dunque un (...) dialogo a tre voci, o di sinfonia, i cui temi principali si arricchiscono e si richiamano a vicenda. Dante, primo comparatista, è in grado di reinventare, armonizzandoli, elementi strutturali e tematici provenienti sia dalle visiones latine che dalla tradizione islamica del Isra’ wa’ l Mi‘râj.The purpose of this essay is to make a confrontation between the main important visiones of the Occidental Literature – also the Visio Pauli and the Dante’s Commedia – anche the various redactions of the Islamic Isra’ wa-l mi’râj. The confrontation is in order to establish if the remarked affinities are just due to polygenesis or rather caused by concrete intertestuality.Between the visiones, the mirajic tradition and the Commedia we are in front of a three voices dialogue: it’s like a symphony, in which the themes enriches themselves and, at least, the arrive to Dante for being harmonized. Dante is the first comparatist. (shrink)