This paper examines Max Adler's philosophical thought, in order to elucidate how he was able to spot a religious meaning in the materialistic conception of history and to understand his connection to Judaism. The first part expounds on how the prominence of religious issues was perceived in the Marxist milieu; the second part analyzes Adler's particular position, above all in harmony with Kantian philosophy; and the third part brings out the essential differences between Adler's and Kant's ideas on religion. Finally (...) the paper shows how Adler's hope in an ultramundane salvation of mankind separates his interpretation from Jewish messianism. (shrink)

Ross's Kritik der sogenannten praktischen Erkenntnis pertains more to moral philosophy than to the philosophy of law, even if its contents are important for the latter, too. Its main objective is to show the theoretical groundlessness of any evaluative judgment. This happens when Ross takes the behaviourist approach of reducing psychology to physiology, which opens up fruitful comparisons with Marxist materialism, and in particular with that of Georges Politzer. Another fundamental question concerns the assumption that theoretical nihilism would lead to (...) practical nihilism, as argued by Theodor Geiger (but denied by Ross). And yet, if Geiger is right, can this have no effect on people's everyday lives? (shrink)

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to inter-act with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots (...) were able to adequately demonstrate this, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), or functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) embedded in interactive human-robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive mechanisms involved in human-human interactions, and high-light the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human-robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human-robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under which attribution of intentionality to robot agents might be disadvantageous, and discuss challenges associated with designing social robots that are inspired by neuroscientific principles. (shrink)

This book is the first translation from Latin into English of the juridical writings of one of the greatest minds of the Enlightenment and one of the greatest figures in Italian philosophy. The complete text is fully annotated, supplied with an extensive introduction, completed by historical and biographical documents, and graced with evocative illustrations. Legal scholars, philosophers, historians, and political scientists throughout the world may now discover a classic by one of the world's great jurists.

Honeybees show lateral asymmetry in both learning about odours associated with reward and recalling memory of these associations. We have extended this research to show that bees exhibit lateral biases in their initial response to odours: viz., turning towards the source of an odour presented on their right side and turning away from it when presented on their left side. The odours we presented were the main component of the alarm pheromone, iso-amyl acetate (IAA), and four floral scents. The significant (...) bias to turn towards IAA odour on the right and away from it on the left is, we argue, a lateralization of the fight-flight response elicited by this pheromone. It contrasts to an absence of any asymmetry in the turning response to an odour of the flowers on which the bees had been feeding prior to testing: to this odour they turned towards when it was presented on either the left or right side. Lemon and orange odours were responded to differently on the left and right sides (towards on the right, away on the left) but no asymmetry was found in responses to rose odour. Our results show that side biases are present even in the initial, orienting response of bees to certain odours. (shrink)

Recent investigations have revealed 1) that the isochores of the human genome group into two super‐families characterized by two different long‐range 3D structures, and 2) that these structures, essentially based on the distribution and topology of short sequences, mold primary chromatin domains (and define nucleosome binding). More specifically, GC‐poor, gene‐poor isochores are low‐heterogeneity sequences with oligo‐A spikes that mold the lamina‐associated domains (LADs), whereas GC‐rich, gene‐rich isochores are characterized by single or multiple GC peaks that mold the topologically associating domains (...) (TADs). The formation of these “primary TADs” may be followed by extrusion under the action of cohesin and CTCF. Finally, the genomic code, which is responsible for the pervasive encoding and molding of primary chromatin domains (LADs and primary TADs, namely the “gene spaces”/“spatial compartments”) resolves the longstanding problems of “non‐coding DNA,” “junk DNA,” and “selfish DNA” leading to a new vision of the genome as shaped by DNA sequences. (shrink)

"Contents: " "Man Without Letters." Newton, the Enigma. Paolo Toscanelli and His Friends. Alessandro Volta. Galileo Today. Necessity, Contingency, and Natural Law. Prologue to Parmenides. Galileo and Oppenheimer. The Role of Art in the Scientific Renaissance. The Italian Novel Today--A Note on Realism. The Seventeenth-Century Legacy: Our Mirror of Being. Philolaos in Limbo, Or: What Happened to the Pythagoreans? Paralipomena of the Future. Vico and Descartes. Eudodux and Plato: A Study in Chronology. "Scientific Rationalism." Einstein (pour le decennal de sa (...) mort). Les Grandes Doctrines Cosmologiques. De Bruno a Leibnitz. Postface a Galilee; Les Suites de l'Affaire. La Storia da Riscrivere. Fato Antico--Fato Moderno. Salvemini. Il Rovescio della Medaglia. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate about the role of affect in transformative change towards gender equality, by comparing the building of affect in two recently founded women’s networks in Italian and Dutch universities. By conceptualizing networking as a social and cultural practice that organizes a collective body through the building of affect between specific groups of organizational stakeholders, we reveal the emotional, dynamic and context-dependent character of transformative change. We found that similar women’s networks build affect with organizational stakeholders (...) in different ways, shaping boundaries of different collective bodies through emotions and adapting to the cultural meaning attributed to earlier actions. By bridging bottom-up and top-down approaches to gender equality and tailoring the building of affect to the local context they potentially contribute to transformational change towards gender equality. (shrink)

In his encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’, Pope Francis proposes that the natural moral law can be reimagined as an ecological moral law that challenges us to evaluate the morality of our actions not only within our personal and nonpersonal relationships in society but also within the greater reality that is creation. In this essay, the author offers several reflections on the ramifications of this innovative proposal on a contemporary Catholic bioethics that seeks to be faithful to the classical (...) moral tradition. (shrink)

BackgroundWe describe our experience from a multi-national application of a European Union-funded research-driven paediatric trial (DEEP-2, EudraCT 2012-000353-31; NCT01825512). This paper aims to evaluate the impact of the local and national rules on the trial authorisation process in European and non-European countries. National/local provisions and procedures, number of Ethics Committees and Competent Authorities to be addressed, documentation required, special provisions for the paediatric population, timelines for completing the authorisation process and queries received were collected; compliance with the European provisions were (...) evaluated. Descriptive analysis, Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test and General Linear Model analysis were used to determine factors potentially influencing the timelines. The Cluster Analysis procedure was used to identify homogenous groups of cases.ResultThe authorisation process was completed in 7.7 to 53.8 months in European countries and in 17.1 to 27.1 months in non-European countries. The main factors influencing these timelines were the requests for changes/clarifications in European countries and the different national legislations in non-European countries.ConclusionThis work confirms that the procedures and requirements for the clinical trial application of a paediatric trial are different. In the European Union, the timeframes for submission were generally harmonised but longer. In non-European countries, delays were caused by national dispositions but the entire authorisation process resulted faster with less requests from ECs/cas. The upcoming application of Regulation (EU) 536/2014 is expected to harmonise practices in Europe and possibly outside. Networks on paediatric research acting at international level will be crucial in this effort. (shrink)

1. La trasformazione dei principi di legittimazione degli ordinamenti giuridici contemporanei -- 2. I mutamenti nel sistema giuridico -- 3. Analisi del linguaggio giuridico, legistica e legimatica -- 4. I diritti difficili nel sistema giuridico.

Giorgio Levi Della Vida (1886-1967) was not only an eminent Islamologist, belonging to that tradition of Italian Oriental studies that stretches from Ignazio Guidi to Leone Caetani, Carlo Alfonso Nallino and Francesco Gabrieli - he was also a man with solid roots in his own time. He taught in Naples and Rome, then for the ten years 1939-1948 at the University of Pennsylvania. He was one of the few university teachers who, when the oath of loyalty to the Italian (...) fascist regime was introduced, in October 1931, opted not to accept that act of submission. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer was one of the seminal works of political philosophy in recent decades. It was also the beginning of a series of interconnected investigations of staggering ambition and scope, investigating the deepest foundations of Western politics and thought. The Use of Bodies represents the ninth and final volume in this twenty-year undertaking, breaking considerable new ground while clarifying the stakes and implications of the project as a whole. It comprises three major sections. The first uses Aristotle's (...) discussion of slavery as a starting point for radically rethinking notions of selfhood; the second calls for a complete reworking of Western ontology; and the third explores the enigmatic concept of "form-of-life," which is in many ways the motivating force behind the entire Homo Sacer project. Interwoven between these major sections are shorter reflections on individual thinkers, while the epilogue pushes toward a new approach to political life that breaks with the destructive deadlocks of Western thought. The Use of Bodies represents a true masterwork by one of our greatest living philosophers. (shrink)

This biography of Macchiavelli is widely regarded as Ridolfi’s masterpiece and is based on much material drawn from private and public archives. It presents a fresh interpretation of Macchiavelli’s career and writings and here, for example the dating of the composition of such famous works as the Prince and the Mandragola is established for the first time. This English translation, when originally published in 1963 included numerous correction and additions which brought it up to date with the most recent (...) studies on Macchiavelli and his works. (shrink)

English, French, German, and Italian, with summaries in the same languages.

Arguing that Western power is both "government" and "glory," this book reveals the "theological-economic" paradigm at the origin of several of the most important components of modern politics and illuminates the function of consent and the ...