The global age is distinguished by disobedience, from the protests in Tiananmen Square to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the anti-G8 and anti-WTO demonstrations. In this book, Raffaele Laudani offers a systematic review of how disobedience has been conceptualized, supported, and criticized throughout history. Laudani documents the appearance of "disobedience" in the political lexicon from ancient times to the present, and explains the word's manifestations, showing how its semantic wealth transcended its liberal interpretations in the 1960s and (...) 1970s. Disobedience, Laudani finds, is not merely an alternative to revolution and rebellion, but a different way of conceiving radical politics, one based on withdrawal of consent and defection in relation to the established order. (shrink)

The well-replicated observation that many people maintain mental health despite exposure to severe psychological or physical adversity has ignited interest in the mechanisms that protect against stress-related mental illness. Focusing on resilience rather than pathophysiology in many ways represents a paradigm shift in clinical-psychological and psychiatric research that has great potential for the development of new prevention and treatment strategies. More recently, research into resilience also arrived in the neurobiological community, posing nontrivial questions about ecological validity and translatability. Drawing on (...) concepts and findings from transdiagnostic psychiatry, emotion research, and behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, we propose a unified theoretical framework for the neuroscientific study of general resilience mechanisms. The framework is applicable to both animal and human research and supports the design and interpretation of translational studies. The theory emphasizes the causal role of stimulus appraisal (evaluation) processes in the generation of emotional responses, including responses to potential stressors. On this basis, it posits that a positive (non-negative) appraisal style is the key mechanism that protects against the detrimental effects of stress and mediates the effects of other known resilience factors. Appraisal style is shaped by three classes of cognitive processes – positive situation classification, reappraisal, and interference inhibition – that can be investigated at the neural level. Prospects for the future development of resilience research are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, we deal with Torricelli’s principle in mechanics according to which two heavy bodies linked together cannot move by themselves unless their common centre of gravity descends. At the beginning of the De motu gravium naturaliter descendentium, in his Opera geometrica (1644), Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647) expressed this principle in a very brief section entitled Praemittamus. Our aim is to sustain the idea that Torricelli was constructing a general view of a kind of physics based on general principles, of (...) which the previous one is the most important and explicit statement. In our discussion, the following themes are addressed: (1) a comparison between the Torricelli’s principle and the virtual work principle; (2) the role of Torricelli principle within the history of the virtual work principle; (3) the logic behind the demonstrations offered in physics relying on general principles such as that of Torricelli. (shrink)

Malebranche's ideas about the imagination have inspired philosophers over the centuries. Drawing on the writings of Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes and many other sources, Malebranche created his own innovative theory. It is especially his work on the force of the imagination, however, that was to be of lasting influence. In this introductory article, we briefly discuss Malebranche's theory of the imagination and point out its role in mathematics, contagion of ideas, monstrous births, errors of the mind and rhetoric.

Suivre ± pas à pas? et ± avec franchise? toute la série de ses études : c'est précisément ce que Vico (1668-1744) se proposait de faire dans son autobiographie Vie de Giambattista Vico écrite par lui-même, parue en 1728.00Mais, parce que placée dans la perspective de la polémique contre la diffusion du cartésianisme à Naples, cette reconstruction a posteriori eut pour effet de léguer une image du penseur toute orientée vers un but : la conception de la Science nouvelle.00Rompant avec (...) cette artificielle perspective, Raffaele Ruggiero raconte une autre histoire de Vico. Il rend leur pleine autonomie à toutes les expériences intellectuelles du savant penseur : sa formation, ses études juridiques, son engagement littéraire, son invention d'une nouvelle rhétorique de la science. Il révèle la multiplicité des inspirations culturelles qui ont façonné sa physionomie unique de philosophe et d'écrivain, et l'articulation complexe de ses intérêts scientifiques destinés à remodeler l'encyclopédie des savoirs à l'aube de la modernité.00Convoquant toutes ses œuvres, le replaçant dans son contexte, celui d'un protagoniste de la République des Lettres à l'époque des Lumières, Raffaele Ruggiero expose le rapport ambigu et passionnant de Vico à ses sources et à ses fantômes polémiques. (shrink)

This paper analyzes how national institutions impact corporate social responsibility practices for small- and medium-sized enterprises in the food-processing industries of France and Morocco. In this study, CSR practices are defined around two main dimensions: corporate performance and the CSR approach. Qualitative data were collected during semi-structured interviews with SME managers in charge of CSR issues. We then performed a content analysis. Our study shows that there is a distinct difference between the CSR practices adopted by SMEs in France and (...) Morocco. Indeed, the findings suggest that under the rule-based governance system of France, most SMEs view CSR as an economic tool and it is adopted as an opportunity-seeking perspective anchored in the search for global performance. The findings also show that under the relationship-based governance system of Morocco, SMEs mainly see CSR from a constraint-reducing perspective. However, some Moroccan SMEs have begun to see the economic opportunities of CSR, especially in accessing foreign markets. (shrink)

The emotions of shame and guilt have recently appeared in debates concerning legal punishment, in particular in the context of so called shaming and guilting penalties. The bulk of the discussion, however, has focussed on the justification of such penalties. The focus of this article is broader than that. My aim is to offer an analysis of the concept of legal punishment that sheds light on the possible connections between punishing practices such as shaming and guilting penalties, on the one (...) hand, and emotions such as guilt, shame, and perhaps humiliation, on the other. I␣contend that this analysis enhances our understanding of the various theories of punishment that populate this part of criminal law theory and thereby sharpens the critical tools needed to assess them. My general conclusion is that, in different ways, all of the theories we encounter in this area can benefit from paying renewed attention to the nature of the connection between the state’s act of punishing and its expected or perceived emotional effect on the individual. (shrink)

The antithesis between paganism and Christianity is usually resolved, in current opinion, into the theological antithesis between polytheism and monotheism. But a religious life means more than mere theology, and one has the right to ask oneself what is, in reality, the religious character of paganism.Between polytheism and monotheism, the enotheism of Max Muller (and of F. W. J. Schelling) is not a mean term, and still less a moment of transition from one to the other, for the simple reason (...) that it is situated on a different plane. In the fervour of prayer, under the impulse of devotion, the believer is so absorbed in the thought of the God he is adoring at that very moment-this is described as enotheism-that for him, at that moment, it is as if no other god existed. This will not prevent him, at another moment, from consecrating himself with equal fervour to the adoration of another god. The famous Egyptian hymn inspired by the religious ideas of Amenophis IV, and which invokes Aten, the Sun, as “sole God,” is just as far from true monotheism with its absolute negation of every divine being except the One, as are the Vedic hymns in which Indra is celebrated as the god “besides whom there are no others” (Rig-Veda, VI 21.10; cfr. I 81.5; 165.9; IV 30.1; VII 32.23). (shrink)

The recent discovery of a fragmentary manuscript of Utpaladeva’s long commentary (Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) on his own Īśvarapratyabhijñā-kārikā (ĪPK) and Vṛtti enables us to assess the role of this work as the real centre of gravity of the Pratyabhijñā philosophy as a whole, though the later Śaiva tradition chose instead Abhinavagupta’s Vimarśinī as the standard text. This brilliant, and more compact and accessible, text was copied and copied again during the centuries and became popular in south India too, where a (...) number of manuscripts in the principal southern scripts are still available. The success of a particular commentary is very often the indirect cause of the decline of the others, which are less and less read and, consequently, copied, until their complete or almost complete loss. Of the lengthy and difficult Vivṛti by Utpaladeva—corresponding to the extent of 8,000 ślokas (hence the traditional denomination of Aṣṭasāhasrī)—the fragmentary śāradā manuscript that has come to light covers only the section ĪPK I.3.6 through I.5.3. Although the portion of the recovered text is comparatively short (33 folios), it proves to be particularly important in the economy of Pratyabhijñā philosophy due to the crucial points being dealt with there at great length, always in a hard-fought debate with the logical-epistemological school of Buddhism. (shrink)

In The Aesthetics of Grace: Philosophy, Art, and Nature, Raffaele Milani traces the fascinating history of the idea of 'grace' from ancient times to the 1700s. Although this term has been displaced by other concepts with the advent of modernism and postmodernism, the complex ideas related to the notion of 'grace' remain an important aesthetic category, and Milani presents an impressive panorama of reflections on and interpretations of the subject. The subtitle of the work indicates the broad scope of (...) a study that recounts the origins of the term in Latin gratias (favor, regard, or gift), corresponding to the Greek Kharites (givers of beauty and charm). The volume then goes on to examine the Middle Ages, when the concept acquires a more specifically religious meaning (divine mercy, thanks), the Renaissance, when the terms 'gracefulness' and 'elegance' come to dominate in the treatises of the time, and the Ages of Romanticism and Neoclassicism, with their particular treatment of the topic. In the process, Milani meditates on the visual representations of these multiple meanings in the form of second-century frescoes, fifteenth-century paintings by Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Da Vinci, Mantegna, Correggio, and Carracci, seventeenth-century canvases by Poussin and sculptures by Bernini, and eighteenth-century sculptures by Antonio Canova and paintings by Fragonard. This engaging work weaves with skill and subtlety philosophical, theological, and artistic ideas into a stimulating tapestry. (shrink)

Developments in fields as diverse as biotechnology, animal cognition, and computer science have cast serious doubt on the common belief that human beings are unique and that only they should have dignity and basic rights. A movement referred to as ‘new dignitarianism’ has recently reclaimed human dignity to fend off the threats to human uniqueness that it perceives to arise from these developments. This ‘new’ dignitarianism, however, is not new at all. Drawing on a debate between two Enlightenment philosophers, this (...) article shows that dignitarianism has already surfaced in the eighteenth century as the negative image of another movement: naturalism. Building on this historical account, I propose to understand dignitarianism and naturalism as opposing ideal-types on a normative spectrum. Doing so allows us to see a thus-far neglected problem, which I call the Zero-Sum Problem: any gains a concrete theory makes by approximating one ideal-type, it loses by moving away from the other. I end by showing how accepting this fact is a first step to more practically viable theories that attempt to find a middle ground between the two ideal-types. (shrink)

We are delighted by the broad, intense, and fruitful discussion in reaction to our target article. A major point we take from the many comments is a prevailing feeling in the research community that we need significantly and urgently to advance resilience research, both by sharpening concepts and theories and by conducting empirical studies at a much larger scale and with a much more extended and sophisticated methodological arsenal than is the case currently. This advancement can be achieved only in (...) a concerted international collaborative effort. In our response, we try to argue that an explicitly atheoretical, purely observational definition of resilience and a transdiagnostic, quantitative study framework can provide a suitable basis for empirically testing different competing resilience theories (sects. R1, R2, R6, R7). We are confident that it should be possible to unite resilience researchers from different schools, including from sociology and social psychology, behind such a pragmatic and theoretically neutral research strategy. In sections R3 to R5, we further specify and explain the positive appraisal style theory of resilience (PASTOR). We defend PASTOR as a comparatively parsimonious and translational theory that makes sufficiently concrete predictions to be evaluated empirically. (shrink)

Philosophers concerned with the question of personal identity have typically been asking the so-called re-identification question: what are the conditions under which a person at one point in time is properly re-identified at another point in time? This is a rather technical question. In our everyday interactions, however, we do raise a number of personal identity questions that are quite distinct from it. In order to explore the variety of ways in which the Internet may affect personal identity, I propose (...) in this study to broaden the typical philosophical horizon to other more mundane senses of the question. In Section 2, I describe a number of possible meanings of personal identity observed in everyday contexts and more philosophical ones. With some caveats, I argue that it is the specific context in which the question arises that disambiguates the meaning of the question. Online contexts are novel and peculiar insofar as they afford prolonged disembodied and anonymous interaction with others. In line with our previous conclusion, then, there is reason to suspect that such contexts generate new and sui generis answers to the personal identity question. In Section 3, I examine this question and, contrary to expectations, largely dispel this suspicion. Finally, in Section 4, I discuss the often-heard claim to the effect that disembodiment and anonymity foster the creation of distinct and incompatible online and offline identities. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 1 Seiten: 223-282.

El presente ensayo trata la doctrina teológico-jurídica de la wilāyat al-faqih, expresión que puede traducirse con ‘tutela del jurisperito islámico’ –y, en la rendición de la doctrina por parte del gran ayatola Jomeiní, hasta con ‘gobierno del jurisperito islámico’– y su desarrollo e institucionalización en la República islámica de Irán después de la Revolución de 1979. En este marco, el ensayo analiza la función del vali-ye faqih, el jurisperito islámico encargado del gobierno de la R.I. de Irán, en la Constitución (...) y el ordenamiento del país. El término vali-ye faiqh, por su reiterado uso y prestigio, tiende a alternarse con sinónimos como rahbar, rahbar-e enqelāb, maqām-e rahbari o maqām-e mo’azzam-e rahbari. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzscheforschung Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 149-168.

Computers have become omnipresent in recent decades, affecting all aspects of modern life and influencing creative pursuits in art, architecture, music, and film. One consequence of this seemingly irreversible trend is its effect on the perception of the aesthetic object, and indeed of nature itself. Dawn of a New Feeling acknowledges that computers have become a formidable tool for creating new and entertaining art forms, while contending that virtual reality is not conducive to meditations on the aesthetic object. Virtual or (...) augmented reality, Raffaele Milani argues, is illusory and blunts the viewer’s capacity for feeling a genuine connection with a work of art. First describing how modernity and post-modernity are entangled with virtual reality, engendering linguistic and anthropological confusion in which art seems to have lost its meaning, Milani then contrasts these developments with classical art forms and reflects on the ways in which traditional art objects stimulate an appreciation of nature, which, upon contemplation, appears as an aesthetic object itself. The saturation of our culture by mass media, he argues, can give rise to a renewed desire to experience a more intimate communication with nature. By identifying reading, contemplation, and care for nature as activities that help us to escape the mental atrophy of a web-dominated world and find refuge from the chaos of virtual mediation, Dawn of a New Feeling offers a reinterpretation of contemplative approaches to appreciating aesthetics and to understanding the profound nature of artistic vision. (shrink)