The new edition of this manual brings together a decade's teaching in bioethics. It confronts new questions and monitors the latest far reaching experiments, whose results and publications need to be properly understood.

L’alternative « soins ordinaires », « soins extraordinaires » en fin de vie nous place au cœur d’un débat très actuel de pratique et d’éthique médicales. L’article examine les difficultés de la médecine de fin de vie et met en évidence certaines insuffisances des analysesmises en œuvre pour prendre les décisions appropriées. La lecture des textes magistériels sur ces questions amènent pareillement à se demander si la science bioéthique n’est pas dans une impasse.

Medical discoveries have led to an unprecedented level of competence in the field, but it is as if the patient is finding it increasingly difficult to get the right holistic care. Medicine must be put on a path towards being humanised.

In this paper, we recover the idea cast by Graham Priest to our ears in 2000: That it was possible to experience Ontological Paraconsistency in life. He had, back then, as a translation of his thinking, a painting by Escher: The stairs could be going up or down, and one could not tell where they were going by simply examining the painting. The most obvious argument as to why that was not an instance of Ontological Paraconsistency found in reality was (...) that the perspective from which you would have to stare at the painting to see something different would be different too, so that it was impossible that we were getting up and down at the same time, that is, from the same perspective. That would happen with anything we picked in this world. We recently found something that does not entirely belong to this world, however, something that could finally satisfy the requirements of Priest, and therefore prove to us that there is a place for Ontological Paraconsistency. We observe that the paraconsistent robot, Emmy (Abe et al., 2006), is an application of the Non-ontological Paraconsistency, which we always believed to be passive of existence, but we here talk about another type of paraconsistency, which would be intrinsic to the being. The purpose of this paper is then providing a definite answer to the questions: Is there any real life instance of Ontological Paraconsistency? Is Ontological Paraconsistency a useful concept in terms of logical theories? (shrink)

RIASSUNTO: Paul Magnaud, magistrato e politico francese operante tra la fine del XIX e gli inizi del XX secolo e divenuto noto con l'appellativo di "bon juge", ci offre l'opportunità di riflettere su un nodo ineliminabile della teoria e della prassi giuridica: il rapporto tra legge ed equitá, tra certezza del diritto ed esigenze di giustizia. Nel saggio vengono ricostruiti i casi principali di cui egli si occupò quando era presidente del Tribunale di Chateâu-Thierry al fine di riportare alla luce (...) un episodio della storia del diritto che può dire ancora molto al dibattito giuridico e politico contemporaneo.ABSTRACT: Paul Magnaud, who was a French politician and magistrate, mainly active between the end of 19thand the beginning of 20th century and known as the “bon juge” provides the opportunity to reflect on an unavoidable issue concerning both legal theory and practice. The specific object of that focuses on the correlation between law and fairness, as well as, legal certainty and need of justice. This essay will retrace the most important legal cases he dealt with, when he was the president of the court of Chateâu-Thierry, in order to shed light on a specific case, pertaining to the annals of the history of law, which can enhance the current judicial and political debate.PAROLE CHIAVE: legge, equità, certezza del diritto, giustizia.KEYWORDS: law, fairness, legal certainty, justice. (shrink)

In view of current scientific knowledge, it seems premature to hypothesize a qualitative distinction between processes, networks, and structures involved in abstract processes from those based on perception, episodic, or procedural memories. Predictive thought and mental travel strongly rely, at different levels of consciousness, on past and ongoing sensory input, bodily information, and the results of perceptual elaboration.

The relation between Garin and Cassirer is still an insufficiently investigated topic, here proposed also in light of their personal connections and documents. This relation represents an important episode in the Nachwirkung of Cassirer in Italy. Garin was deeply influenced by Cassirer’s historical research and philosophical thought, in the shaping of his own research fields and in the methodological debates about the history of philosophy.

The feeling of acting voluntarily is a fundamental component of human behavior and social life and is usually accompanied by a sense of agency. However, this ability can be impaired in a number of diseases and disorders. An important example is apraxia, a disturbance traditionally defined as a disorder of voluntary skillful movements that often results from frontal-parietal brain damage. The first part of this article focuses on direct evidence of some core symptoms of apraxia, emphasizing those with connections to (...) agency and free will. The loss of agency in apraxia is reflected in the monitoring of internally driven action, in the perception of specifically self-intended movements and in the neural intention to act. The second part presents an outline of the evidences supporting the functional and anatomical link between apraxia and agency. The available structural and functional results converge to reveal that the frontal–parietal network contributes to the sense of agency and its impairment in disorders such as apraxia. The current knowledge on the generation of motor intentions and action monitoring could potentially be applied to develop therapeutic strategies for the clinical rehabilitation of voluntary action. (shrink)

I evaluate the bottlenecks involved in the simulation mechanism underpinning superior predictive abilities for upcoming actions. This perceptual-motor state is characterized by a complex interrelationship designed to make predictions using a highly fine-tuned and constrained motor operation. The extension of such mechanisms to language may occur only in sensorimotor circuits devoted to the action domain.

Anche se il presente lavoro ha un taglio prettamente critico-ricostruttivo del pensiero hegeliano nelle varie fasi della sua attività filosofica, esso intende mostrare nel dettaglio il nesso strettissimo e intrinseco tra il sistema e il concetto di diritto sia dal punto di vista fenomenologico sia da quello epistemico-concettuale vero e proprio. Sin dagli inizi della riflessione di Hegel è documentata una trattazione serrata e ripetutamente approfondita del tema giuridico e in modo particolare di quello di Person proprio perché esso rappresenta (...) il fondamento di una ‘sostanzializzazione’ del soggetto nella sua oggettività che nella volontà trova il momento costitutivo della sua stessa libertà, altrimenti il soggetto sarebbe relegato inesorabilmente i insormontabilmente all’indeterminatezza più o meno naturale della sua stessa soggettività formale senza vero contenuto. A livello di letteratura secondaria, in base a quanto è stato possibile consultare, risulta che ci si sia focalizzati piuttosto sul contenuto a sé stante del concetto hegeliano di Recht e delle sue articolazioni mentre il nesso con il sistema non è stato esplicitato almeno sufficiente ed pare essere rimasto piuttosto sullo sfondo. Come appena accennato, la filosofia del diritto di Hegel è un elemento fondamentale all’interno del suo sistema e della sua evoluzione teorica sin dalla sua prima attività teoretica. Il suo concetto è essenzialmente ciò che si chiama “sostanza”, cioè l’oggettività rispetto al soggetto finito soggettivo e potenzialmente determinante della sua infinità reale, in cui la sua volontà aspirandovi trova la sua autentica (iniziale) libertà. Il concetto di diritto è necessariamente trattato sia dal punto di vista fenomenologico in modo che lo spirito finito sperimenti questa volontà giuridica nella Wirklichkeit secondo la sua forma apparente, sia dal punto di vista epistemologico in modo da presentare il suo vero concetto o idea filosofica all’interno della scienza dello spirito oggettivo. (shrink)

"This volume in Religion and Public Life, a series on religion and public affairs, provides a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The contributions address the decline of social capital-those patterns of behavior which are conducive to self-governance and the spirit of self-reliance-and its relation to the demise of the civic-humanist tradition in American education. The unifying theme, is that classical studies do not merely result in individual mastery over a particular technique or body of knowledge, (...) but also link the individual to the polity and even to the whole of the cosmic order. At the same time, American republicanism, in its exaltation of the common man from the Jeffersonian agrarian soldier to the apotheosis of Lincoln tempers the classical ideal into something less exalted, if more democratic. The effects on the contemporary state of the liberal arts curriculum are demonstrated in articles critical of the market-model university. Two essays explore the historical and philosophical significance of the discipline of rhetoric, that has suffered under the hegemony of rationalistic philosophy. A concluding contribution, invokes Giambattista Vico as an eloquent defender of the humanities. Humanities and Civic Life includes: "Rome, Florence, and Philadelphia: Using the History of the Humanities to Renew Our Civic Life" by Robert E. Proctor; "The Dark Fields of the Republic: The Persistence of Republican Thought in American History" by David Brown; "Unleashing the Humanities" by Robert Weisbuch; "Liberal Arts: Listening to Faculty" by Dennis O'Brien; "Historical Consciousness in Antiquity" by Paul Gottfried; "Taking the Measure of Relativism and the Civic Virtue of Rhetoric" by Gabriel R. Ricci; "The River: A Vichian Dialogue on Humanistic Education" by Randall E. Auxier."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

L’ipotesi da cui muove la scelta di temi ed autori di questo percorso è quella di aprire esplorazioni ed incursioni nelle pieghe della cultura umana per cogliere le frizioni e le smagliature tra etica e politica in vista della possibilità, data o negata, di riconfigurare sé stessi e la cultura di cui ogni uomo è forza viva, mutante e trasfigurante. Un viaggio tra luoghi e stanze parallele, che a volte si svelano comunicanti, altre volte solo tracce di afone esistenze. Indagine (...) della storia e tentativo di una ermeneutica politica non riduttivistica, che intercetti intimamente la concezione e la struttura antropologica a fondamento di una società e di una sua organizzazione politica. La sfida di fondo di questo lavoro è quella di ripensare il posto dell’uomo nell’ordine dei significati del corpo, e ricondurre la corporeità nell’ordine dei significati di una antropologia politica. Da questa ipotesi, viene proposto un itinerario che intercetta alcuni dualismi e fratture come nuclei di criticità da cui muovere e infiltrarsi nelle intersezioni simboliche tra piano etico e piano politico dell’esistenza. (shrink)

"_On Friendship_, with its total of one hundred sayings, is the perfect gift for friends."—Feng Yingjing, renowned scholar and civic official, 1601 Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) is best known as the Italian Jesuit missionary who brought Christianity to China. He also published a landmark text on friendship—the first book to be written in Chinese by a European—that instantly became a late Ming best seller. _On Friendship_ distilled the best ideas on friendship from Renaissance Latin texts into one hundred pure and (...) provocative Chinese maxims. Written in a masterful classical style, Ricci's sayings established his reputation as a great sage and the sentiments still ring true. Available for the first time in English, _On Friendship_ matches a carefully edited Chinese text with a facing-page English translation and includes notes on sources and biographical, historical, and cultural information. Still admired in China for its sophistication and inspirational wisdom, _On Friendship_ is a delightful cross-cultural work by a crucial and fascinating historical figure. It is also an excellent tool for learning Chinese, pairing a superb model of the classical language with an accessible and accurate translation. (shrink)

L’articolo presenta un’analisi quasi ‘pedissequa’ ed esclusiva sull’evoluzione del pensiero hegeliano concernente la Verrückheit (pazzia). Lungo l’esame dei testi che cronologicamente si sono susseguiti, si è potuto determinare uno ‘spartiacque’ di tale evoluzione per la presenza o meno dell’antropologia quale scienza filosofico-sistematica della Seele che a partire dalla fine del periodo norimberghese (18016 circa) è posta quale primo momento della filosofia dello spirito. Dal punto di vista del contenuto si è potuto mostrare come un simile tema psicopatologico sia stato delineato (...) sin dai suoi scritti giovanili come parte integrante e ineludibile dell’individualità antropica e in modo sempre più articolato e definito quale momento imprescindibile nello sviluppo della sua stessa razionalità. (shrink)

The extraordinary overall textual situation of Parmenides’ B1,1-3, due to complex, variegate and polymorphous causes, entailed and still entails diverse sorts of problematic issues so to constitute a true labyrinth of philological, hermeneutical and theoretical instances interwoven each other in almost inextricable way. In this analysis, a first substantial knot of philological type resulted necessary to a preliminary discrimination for making sure the textual reconstruction in order to argue then its most literarily clear and specifiable meaning. In this way it (...) was also possible to make sure its semantic and theoretical relevancies. This research leaded to outline and, hopefully, to demonstrate no textual corruption and following misunderstanding happened before sec. XIII, namely corresponding to the lecture present in the first available manuscript, the so-called cod. N, universally excluded and entirely misevaluated, even discarded; instead it is not only the principle, but the unique reliable codex. The detailed analyse including the autoptic exam is the result of enlightening the absolute goodness of this version and the reasons both philological and hermeneutical comparations, which allow to achieve its complete textual rehabilitation and so to grasp its real conceptual content. (shrink)

Computing systems can function as augmentation of individual humans as well as of human societies. In this contribution, we take mirror worlds as a conceptual blueprint to envision future smart environments in which the physical and the virtual layers are blended into each other. We suggest that pervasive computing technologies can be used to create a coupling between these layers, so that actions or, more generally, events in the physical layer would have an effect in the virtual layer and viceversa. (...) On top of this, wearable technologies and augmented reality techniques enable new forms of user interaction with the smart environment and with other users. Mirror worlds so conceived will enable temporal, individual, and social augmentations. We conclude by elaborating on some possible consequences at the societal level. (shrink)

El presente trabajo busca realizar una comparación entre las teorías del lenguaje de dos filósofos racionalistas, uno moderno y otro contemporáneo, Habermas y Spinoza respectivamente. Así, se intenta enfatizar que, lejos de ubicarse en ambos extremos de un abismo irreconciliable, ambos pensadores se hallarían en una posición sumamente propincua. De esta manera, el artículo procederá a elucidar las posiciones de Habermas y Spinoza respecto de la intencionalidad, el lenguaje y la democracia.

Il y a, tout au long du chemin de pensée de Heidegger, une référence à l’idée d’« habiter » (wohnen). La pensée qu’il en propose est d’une telle exigence qu’elle mérite la plus grande attention. Cette pensée s’enquiert du mode le plus propre sur lequel l’homme peut exister. Cet enjeu apparaît au cours de l’investigation phénoménologique par laquelle Heidegger cherche à mettre au jour le sens de “être” qui sous-tend la philosophie comme métaphysique, à savoir : l’“être” comme présence constante. (...) Or cette signification temporelle de “être” conduit Heidegger à un questionnement portant sur le temps comme sens de “être” (où le terme “sens” signifie ce par quoi l’être de ce qui est s’ouvre et devient compréhensible pour nous) et, ensuite, à un questionnement incessant portant sur les phénomènes dans lesquels peut consister ce sens, soit l’ouverture de l’être lui-même. -/- Notre propos est de montrer que l’ouverture de l’être implique la prise en charge de cette ouverture par l’homme, soit précisément son habiter dans celle-ci. L’ouverture de l’être implique en effet l’ouverture de l’homme à l’égard de cet être, c.-à-d. son entente (toujours affectivement disposée) de l’être de ce qui est en son ensemble, soit aussi bien de l’être de l’étant qu’il est lui-même, que de l’être de l’étant qu’il n’est pas lui-même. Or, cette ouverture ententive (et affective) à l’être, est ce qui vaut à l’homme d’être nommé Da-sein (l’étant qui est – transitivement et “activement” – le « là » (Da), c.-à-d. l’espace ouvert pour l’être). Cette ouverture n’est pas un simple état acquis une fois pour toutes. Elle n’a lieu que dans la mesure où l’homme, se laissant requérir par l’ouverture de l’être lui-même, la tient ek-statiquement ouverte. Le mode d’être du Da-sein, que Heidegger appelle son ek-sistence, réside en cette tenue ek-statique du Da-sein dans l’ouverture de l’être de ce qui est en son ensemble. Or s’il est vrai que l’homme est redevable, quant à son ouverture propre, à l’ouverture de l’être lui-même, la réciproque est vraie aussi : c’est en vertu de l’ouverture ek-statique de l’homme en tant que Da-sein à l’égard de l’être, que cet être se maintient et demeure en son ouverture, voire vient à trouver une demeure pour celle-ci. L’habiter est donc doublement transitif : il est, à la fois, l’habiter ek-statique (transitif et actif) de l’homme en tant que Da-sein dans l’ouverture de l’être, et l’habiter (lui aussi transitif) de l’être lui-même, c.-à-d. la venue (requérante) de l’être à sa demeure dans notre habiter en son espace ouvert. Cette double transitivité est l’enjeu de la pensée que Heidegger consacre à l’habiter de l’homme. Dans Être et Temps, Heidegger aborde cette double transitivité à partir de l’ek-sistence de l’homme en tant que Da-sein. Dès les Apports à la philosophie, il l’aborde à partir de l’être lui-même en quête de sa demeure, qui réside dans l’habiter de l’homme. Notons que l’homme, dans la mesure où, en tant que Da-sein, il habite – le tenant par là ouvert – l’espace ouvert de l’être, en vient à être proprement libre : il a alors en effet son séjour « dans le libre » (im Freien), c.-à-d. dans l’espace libre de l’être – comme l’indique le mot wohnen, qui en son sens originel (*wunjan apparenté à Wonne), signifie “demeurer libre et sauf”. (shrink)

The role of the cultural anthropologist in studying the results of information technology and artificial intelligence should be to contribute and reaffirm a sense of life which considers the human being in his or her totality, and to recognize the role of diversity and the imaginary. Technical revolutions have also proved to be cultural revolutions.The skills required by one culture, the identification and creation of problems and the solutions are interrelated. These interrelationships are worked out in a cultural context endowed (...) with its own experiences, knowledge and needs which define and make it different from other societies. The advanced technologies require new competences and new skills.This paper examines imaginary from two different viewpoints: (a) the imaginary aspect of body-mind relations, influenced by research into artificial intelligence and its prospects for the future; and (b) the roles and forms assumed by the imaginary in human-computer relations. (shrink)

The article outlines some aspects of the reception of the so-called four Father of the Latin Church in Renaissance Europe, as emerging in the prefaces of their Opera omnia edited in Basel during the end of the 15th and the first half of the 16th century. Through selected passages from the prefaces, the article discusses (§ 1) the relevance of these sources of old Christianity to the cultural and spiritual renewal many humanistic scholars aimed at; (§ 2) the importance of (...) print in promoting the formation and circulation of patristic editions; finally (§ 3) it illustrates the philological approach to late Antique Christian texts, which was innovative in comparison to former methods of their transmissions and is still very instructive to this day. (shrink)

The present work aimed at assessing whether the interference exerted by task-irrelevant spatial information is comparable in high- and low-susceptible individuals and whether it may be eliminated by means of a specific posthypnotic suggestion. To this purpose high- and low-susceptible participants were tested using a Simon-like interference task after the administration of a suggestion aimed at preventing the processing of the irrelevant spatial information conveyed by the stimuli. The suggestion could be administered either in the absence or following a standard (...) hypnotic induction. We showed that, outside from the hypnotic context, the Simon effect was similar in high and low-susceptible participants and it was significantly reduced following the posthypnotic suggestion in high-susceptible participants only. These results show that a specific posthypnotic suggestion can alter information processing in high-susceptible individuals and reduce the interfering effect exerted by arrow stimuli. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl devoted much attention to the analysis of internal time consciousness beginning as early as the turn of the twentieth-century. His various notes and lectures were left unorganized and unpublished until Husserl's capable assistants were given the responsibility of organizing his work for publication. This paper provides a social and philosophical account of the redaction of Husserl's materials on time consciousness as it involved the activity of his famous assistants Edith Stein, Roman Ingarden and Martin Heidegger. Special attention is (...) given to the way that both Stein and Heidegger appropriated Husserl's work and at the same time challenged fundamental elements of the master's phenomenology. (shrink)