"_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)

Chinese and English. Half title also in Chinese characters: T°ien chu shih i. Bibliography: 473-482. Includes index.

Within Germany, Carl Schmitt's status as a political thinker is on a par with Machiavelli and Hobbes. With the rise in neo-conservatism and authoritarian liberalism in less developed countries such as Chile and Singapore, Renato Christi believes Schmitt's theories will become of considerable importance. Nazi Third Reich. His political theories provide an insight into the nature of Conservatism. well as extrapolate possibilities for the future.

This is the thirty-first volume in Religion and Public Life, formerly This World, a series on religion and public affairs. This ongoing series seeks to provide a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The essays grouped together in Culture and Consumption discuss the phenomenon of consumption, an identifiable and pervasive feature of American culture that distinguishes it from other national cultures. The lead article provides an insight into the long-standing pattern of consumption that has been progressively (...) elevated into social policy in America. This is a balanced analysis of the history of the consumption cultural ethos beginning with the undermining of the Native American Culture and ending with Wilsonian Liberal-Internationalism and the demise of the moral authority of organized labor. This commercialization of culture has always competed with the funding vision of a dispassionate social order in which custom, deferential politics, and continuation of traditional hierarchal values would be the constitutional agenda. Another contributor argues that the emergence of the democratic-consumer state in America was anticipated in de Tocqueville's observation that "in democracies nothing has brighter luster than commercea." Other contributor essays treat issues such as the New Class and the consumer state; technology's triumph at the expense of the social and natural worlds; and argue against the materialist perspective in addiction. Culture and Consumption includes the following major contributions: "The Dialectic of Consumption: Materialism and Social Control" by David Brown; "Religion, Social Science and the Ironies of Parasitic Modernity" by Guy Alchon; The Dilemma of Hypermodernity" by Mark Wegierski; "Toward an Epistemology of Addiction" by Leonard Kaplan and Vince Rinella. Also included are book reviews by Martha Davis and Conrad Kanagy. In a concluding essay, Gabriel Ricci reviews Jerome Bruner's The Culture of Education. Culture and Consumption is part of an annual survey of religion and public life that provides relevant information and ideas about significant issues of the day. (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)

The beginning of Marx’s Capital has references to Hegel’s Logic of Being. From the individual commodity considered in isolation, Marx derives the value form as the germ cell of capitalist society. Marx’s materialist inversion of the Hegelian dialectic posits the value form as a spectral objectivity that constitutes the real abstraction specific to capitalism. As the most abstract expression of capital, it rules unconsciously the totality of social praxis as an absolute fetish. Value arises from a double mystification: the reification (...) of capitalist social relations of production in an objective abstract form, and its representation in concrete objects, as commodities and money in circulation. Value, as the real abstraction of capitalist social relations of production, is the disjunctive synthesis between the despotic command of capital in production and the reciprocity of exchange in circulation. In the final chapter on primitive accumulation, Marx identifies its historical genesis in the dispossession of the commons, which, by separating the subjective from the objective conditions of production, gives rise to the capital-wage labour relation. (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)

Accused to be leading a plot against the Spanish government in Calabria in 1599, supposedly supported by a Turkish fleet, Campanella was almost labeled as a renegade. On the contrary, while in jail, he deepened his prophetic interpretation of the history, and of the future of the world, offered theological and political confutation of Islam, and began shaping a wider idea of the role of this religion in the ‘apocalyptic’ times. Not focusing on the Turkish menace only, he tries to (...) integrate some of the Muslim kingdoms in his appeal to the universal recognition of the Christian revelation as ‘natural reason’. In his main work about this topic, Quod reminiscentur, completed in 1618, but published only in the 20th Century, Campanella presents different strategies of conversion of Islamic peoples, depending on the various historical features of Islam, and adapted to the diverse societies involved. Giovanni Botero’s Relationi universali was a very important source of Campanella’s historical and geographic information about Islam, but the philosopher developed an original prophetic and political vision of Church, conversion and apocalypse, alternative to that dominating in the Counter Reformation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Don't Mute the MessengerNilsa RicciAs a Spanish interpreter, I spend a lot of time talking with patients, family members, and other care team members. Like how an actor reciting from never-before-seen cue cards is talking or how a medium in a trance during a séance is talking. I talk without my voice. This leaves a lot left unsaid.I am also a resident, and I communicate with patients, family members, (...) and other care team members in my own words. Working as both a Spanish interpreter and resident has given me a unique perspective, particularly about the boundaries I am able to set with patients. Both Spanish interpreters and medical providers are expected to maintain a professional distance with patients, which can [End Page 171] provide a certain level of emotional protection. However, the nature of interpreting compromises this distance and protection.In first person I must speak,Which makes my position unique.I was taught to interpret everything in the first person. For example, instead of saying, "The patient's mother is asking if her baby is dead …?" I ask, "Is my baby dead?!" The intent is to facilitate direct communication between patients and providers so they can build rapport. Unnoticed is that I hear a patient's traumatic experience, process it, and then deliver those vivid details in the first person of another language. My sense of self is breached because the first person is no longer innately reserved for my own self. The topic does not even have to be traumatic in the typical sense for it to cause harm. Speaking in the first person erodes the boundaries between self and non-self, exposing me to emotional trauma.One day, I was paged to an intensive care unit to interpret for a doctor and mother in front of an unconscious person on a ventilator. I had to play the role of a doctor who desperately wants to convince a mother that her son has no chance of survival—I must directly challenge any hope for a miracle to spare her a long road of heartbreak and disappointment. I also had to play the role of a mother who strongly questions science—I know faith is essential to my son's recovery, and I will wait for a miracle.In breaking bad news, there is that heavy moment when hopeful eyes beg for anything other than the painful message about to be delivered. The words may not be mine in origin, but the reaction is always to my interpretation. I watch the light of hope dull into despair and observe life leave the mother's essence.Boundaries blur as I play each part:I lend my voice but sacrifice my heart.Suddenly, I am wearing the mother's shoes and we experience grief's abyss together. I am made to recount memories I had with my son and made to long for the ones we will never form. Tears obscure my vision, and I feel my heart break as I realize my son is dead. My world crumbles and my vocal cords quiver then halt. I know the next sound will be incomprehensible. Wailing, the mother's voice is only intermittently understandable. In Spanish, she exclaims, "How many years must I live without you?" The doctor looks at me, inquisitive of my new silence.False memories flood my brainAs if possessed by pain.I hear myself say, "I can't understand her exactly," and then summarize her words in the third person. Instantly, I feel some relief. But with the relief comes shame for showing my weakness—for needing to break the protocol to cling to my sense of self. My pager suddenly beeps, breaking through the confusion like an alarm clock interrupting a nightmare. In a daze, I remember I am the interpreter—not this doctor, not this mother. I do not have a patient with complete loss of brain function. I do not have a son to bury. The doctor says, "Let's give her some privacy," and we excuse ourselves from her grief.Why then are your shadows still in sightEven now that my own script I write... (shrink)

SUMMARYThis paper examines the reception of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, a philosophy quarterly which was founded in conjunction with the International Society of Phenomenology and for which Marvin Farber served as editor until his death in 1980. From its founding in 1940, Farber relied on the editorial support of many of Husserl's enthusiastic students who found themselves intellectual exiles, including Husserl's son. Farber's professional and personal interaction with Husserl's ardent followers reveals a dramatic story of former (...) students who were ever vigilant about maintaining the core values of the Master's unique philosophy, and Farber's personal philosophical transformation from a publicist of Husserl's work to a guarded critic intent on avoiding the promotion of sectarianism. (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 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.

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)

Este trabajo busca contraponer a Lukács y Benjamin para echar luz sobre el vínculo que media entre ellos. Para ello buscamos proceder en tres ejes: describir cómo estos autores entienden el presente, tan ominoso como candente, en el que se ubican y la forma en que esta situación determina la concepción de la historia; luego, especificar la manera en que la crítica a la perniciosa situación actual debe ser planteada; y, finalmente, la conceptualización que cada uno realiza sobre el sujeto (...) de la historia y las formas de su constitución o de su aparición implicada por la forma determinada de su relación con el tiempo histórico. A través de estos puntos creemos que se podría verificar la tan tentativa como incipiente tesis del trabajo: que las acepciones de la crítica que Lukács y Benjamin manejan son disruptivas la una respecto de la otra. (shrink)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)