This paper focuses on Aristotelian phronesis and aims at highlighting its nature as an eye on particulars with general ends in sight. More specifically, it challenges the particularistic interpretation of phronesis and Aristotelian ethics in order to argue for a “qualified generalism.” After sketching a radical Particularistic Reading (PR), the paper defends an interpretation it calls the Priority of Particulars Reading (PPR). First, it shows how PPR effectively accounts for the Aristotelian priority assigned to practical perception while at the same (...) time counterbalancing that priority by means of two interpretive strategies. Then it offers further support to PPR by appealing to its own reading of Aristotle's phronesis. It aims to show that it is possible to defend a legitimate form of PPR without ending in holding PR, and that Aristotle's own theory and work ground the moderate reading. Finally, it draws some implications by analyzing educational practice. (shrink)

In EN II, 1108 9-1108 b10 e più estesamente in EN IV, 1126b 10-1128b 9 Aristotele analizza tre virtù (amichevolezza, sincerità e arguzia) che, coinvolgendo il linguaggio e il senso dell’umorismo, riguardano quell’aspetto fondamentale della natura umana che è la socialità, al punto che pare giustificato l’utilizzo dell’etichetta “virtù sociali” per riferirsi ad esse. Tali virtù, infatti, rappresentano le eccellenze nell’ambito dei rapporti sociali non connotati da affetto e amicizia, ma caratterizzati da un legame ben definito, sufficiente a giustificare l’emergere (...) di virtù peculiari. Questo legame è la cittadinanza: la comune appartenenza a una stessa città genera una frequentazione che, per quanto formale o comunque non sentimentalmente connotata, è opposta all’estraneità. C’è un fine comune che regge la polis, in forza del quale ogni estraneità è vinta, e di cui l’amichevolezza reciproca, l’esigenza di una veridicità nei rapporti, e persino la moderazione ironica nello scherzare e nel fare battute sono segno inequivocabile. Aristotele pertanto tematizza una sfera ben precisa dei rapporti sociali, e ne stabilisce le eccellenze: ciò significa che questa sfera ha una sua specificità e consistenza e di conseguenza anche che questo gruppo di virtù ha una sua autonomia. (shrink)

The idea of an unchanging human nature has always had a special place in Western philosophical thought. Far from being uncontested, this idea has received criticism from different traditions of thought, which have seen it even as an obstacle to the understanding of ourselves. Now it appears in the shape of a renewed naturalism and the opposing forces are the same as in the past. This volume shows some lines of the current debate about human nature: the revival of Herodotus (...) and Protagoras's humanistic relativism and tolerance; Darwinian ethics; the critical relationship between neo-Aristotelian and neo-Kantian moral theories and the results of empirical science; the assumption about the existence of a “moral mind” based on an innate moral grammar; the multicultural political debate which considers the idea of human nature as a product and a tool of Western hegemony; and, finally, the reflection on sex and gender in the theory of difference and on the idea of "living" nature in the contemporary biopolitics. (shrink)

A ocorrência de comorbidade psiquiátrica concomitante à dependência química é frequente, indicando um prognóstico desfavorável para o tratamento desse transtorno. O objetivo do presente estudo foi investigar a ocorrência de comorbidade psiquiátrica em 31 pacientes dependentes de álcool (51,6%) e de ..

_A resolute defense of philosophy and hermeneutics against the threats of dogmatism and relativism._.

This paper describes a project that consisted of translation conception in the theoretical vision and the available advent in the Internet, the automatic translation. In the establishment of a practical methodology of exercises translated with the dictionary and the automatic translator. Finishing, it diagnosised the necessary requirements with the Letters Course students in the Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia, as previous structure knowledge of the English language and the time and author context. These resources, automatic translators added the previous (...) knowledge made possible the optimization of the time in the process of the English texts translation. (shrink)

The relevance of preschool children's understanding of nature, its elements, how it affects the behavior of human beings and how human being influences it, it helps to the identification of the necessary elements for the design of programs that have a significant impact in the development of environmental identity and the implementation of environmental education in the school curriculum in Mexico, in order to achieve the derivation of attitudes to preserve the environment from an early age. Under this logic, the (...) objective of the present study was to identify the components of the concept Nature, from drawings made by preschool children in a desert environment, this through a visual discursive analysis. It was made by 118 preschool students, whose ages range between 5 and 6 years; enrolled in four different schools in Hermosillo, Mexico, three located in the urban area and one on the coast of the State of Sonora. Participants were asked to draw the first thought that came to their minds when they heard the word nature. As a result, it was obtained with the representations of the images, that all the drawings present categories such as plants, animals, water bodies, celestial bodies, abiotic factors, natural locations, locations made by man and others. Finally, it was discovered that the analyzes showed a generalized idea of what nature represents by including elements of known flora and fauna, however, they did not capture elements of the desert region in which they live. (shrink)

This essay argues that despite of the feminist critique of Merleau-Ponty his phenomenology can be positively appropriated to the theory of sexual difference. It focuses on three issues: the first one is closely linked to the Phenomenology of Perception and introduces a concept of "difference as differentiation". The second one is concerned with the intersubjective dimension of sexuality and will be called a "sexual syncretism". Finally, I’m referring to Merleau-Ponty's notion of "chiasm" in his late work The Visible and the (...) Invisible in order to apply it to the theory of sexual difference. At this point, the difference between sexual beings will be conceptualized as "chiasmatic intertwining". In doing so, I hope to show that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology is a helpful resource for philosophical research that is mainly concerned with the questions of sexuality and sexual difference. (shrink)

Dieses Buch untersucht, was in den jeweiligen Theorieansätzen mit Bildhandeln‹ gemeint ist, indem eine Reihe von philosophischen und kunstwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen zum Verhältnis von Bild und Handlung vorgestellt und systematisiert werden. Vier paradigmatische Handlungstypen werden voneinander differenziert, die spezifische Verwendungsmöglichkeiten von Bildern umfassen. Die ersten zwei – Bildspiele‹ und Bildakte‹ – beruhen auf der sprachphilosophisch motivierten Prämisse, dass die Verwendung von Bildern der Struktur eines Sprachspieles oder eines Sprechaktes entspricht. Diese Prämisse bezieht sich auf Verwendungsweisen, durch die materiellen Gegenständen der Bildstatus (...) zugeschrieben wird. Demgegenüber werden zwei weitere Bildhandlungstypen vorgestellt, wonach Bilder nur dann verwendet werden können, wenn ihr Bildstatus bereits feststeht. Diese Bildhandlungstypen werden mit einem Vergleich von Bildern und Werkzeugen sowie der Kategorie Probehandlungen‹ thematisiert. (shrink)

The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was there (...) a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress. (shrink)

Qual è il limite etico e deontologico degli studi medici sperimentali? Quando il principio di beneficialità, che vincola il medico a perseguire il massimo bene per il paziente, è finalmente diventato l’essenza della medicina? Questo volume si propone di rispondere a queste e a molte altre domande, effettuando un’analisi critica e approfondita della medicina, quale scienza della morte, praticata durante il periodo nazista al fine di raggiungere la purificazione della razza; la cosiddetta eugenica nazista, fulcro dello sterminio dei disabili e (...) delle sperimentazioni selvagge condotte sui detenuti nei lager. La struttura del volume, articolato su più saggi scritti da esperti, unitamente alla scelta di uno stile ampiamente divulgativo, ne aumenta la fruibilità. Presentazione di Eugenio Gaudio, rettore magnifico della Sapienza università di Roma. Saggi di Emmanuel Betta, Marina Caffiero, Francesco Cassata, Marco Cilione, Gilberto Corbellini, Silvia Cutrera, Serena Di Nepi, Francesca Di Palma, Fabio Gaj, Damiano Garofalo, Valentina Gazzaniga, Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, Enrica Marchionni, Silvia Marinozzi, Livia Ottolenghi, Libera Picchianti, Antonio Pizzuti. (shrink)

Utopia and political science are not sharply antithetical models of approach to politics. As Hans Blumenberg points out, they were born at the same time as alternatives to the model of the Platonic philosophical inquiry, and have continued to develop in parallel. Their diversity will be illustrated by examining the role of fiction in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan and James Harrington's Commonwealth of Oceana. Describing the different role it plays in these works, the essay shows how they both use this concept (...) to solve the problem of the uncertainty of knowledge and the intransparency of the world. (shrink)

The situation caused by the 2019 coronavirus disease has been representing a great source of concern and a challenge to the psychological well-being of many individuals around the world. For couples in particular, this extraordinary rise in concern, combined with the stress posed by the virus containment measures, such as prolonged cohabitation and lack of support networks, may have increased the likelihood of couple problems. At the same time, however, COVID-19 concerns may have been a stimulus to activate couples’ stress (...) management processes. A couple’s resource, which may have an important role in dealing with COVID-19 concerns and stress, is dyadic coping, i.e., the process through which partners face stress together. Drawing on a sample of 1,823 Italian individuals involved in a couple relationship, the current study tested a serial mediation model in which concerns about COVID-19 predicted psychological well-being, through both explicit stress communication and perceived partner dyadic coping responses. In addition, the study explored whether this dyadic coping process functioned the same way in satisfied and dissatisfied couples. Results showed that concerns about the situation related to COVID-19 significantly threatened individuals’ psychological well-being. However, these concerns positively predicted explicit stress communication, which in turn positively predicted perceived partner’s dyadic coping responses, which finally positively predicted psychological well-being. In addition, in the group of dissatisfied individuals, the association between explicit stress communication and perceived partners’ dyadic coping responses was not significant. The present study adds to the research on couples’ coping by testing for the first time the whole theoretical model of dyadic coping and does so during a global emergency situation. The study also suggests key components of preventive interventions for individuals in couples. (shrink)

Puts leading Italian thinkers into conversation with established Continental philosophers concerning the future of the nature of the human, technology, metaphysical foundations, globalization, and social and political oppression.

In the period of emergence of early modern science, ‘monsters’ or individuals with physical congenital anomalies were considered as rare events which required special explanations entailing assumptions about the laws of nature. This concern with monsters was shared by representatives of the new science and Late Scholastic authors of university textbooks. This paper will reconstruct the main theses of the treatment of monsters in Late Scholastic textbooks, by focusing on the question as to how their accounts conceived nature’s regularity and (...) teleology. It shows that they developed a naturalistic teratology in which, in contrast to the naturalistic explanations usually offered by the new science, finality was at central stage. This general point does not impede our noticing that some authors were closer to the views emerging in the Scientific Revolution insofar as they conceived nature as relatively autonomous from God and gave a relevant place to efficient secondary causation. In this connection, this paper suggests that the concept of the laws of nature developed by the new science –as exception-less regularities—transferred to nature’s regularity the ‘strong’ character that Late Scholasticism attributed to finality and that the decline of the Late Scholastic view of finality played as an important concomitant factor permitting the transformation of the concept of laws of nature. (shrink)

The emerging field of responsible management (RM) studies the integration of sustainability, responsibility, and ethics in managerial practices. Therefore, turning to practice theories for the study of RM appears to hold great promise of conceptual and methodological contribution. We propose a posthumanist practice approach for studying RM-as-practice. Managerial practices are conceived as the agencement of heterogeneous elements (humans, nonhumans, more-than-humans, materials, and discourses) that achieve agency in their being interconnected. Thus, RM is understood as processual, relational, emergent, and sociomaterial. We (...) contribute a framework for the empirical study of RM-as-practice on the basis of three sensitizing concepts: situatedness, sociomateriality, and textures_._ We further discuss the implications of understanding responsibility as response-ability, an engaged practice for relating to the other and the RM researcher’s role as internal to the practice agencement under study, thus, opening the debate on our own response-ability. (shrink)

Silvia Castellazzi shows how companies can implement their corporate responsibility and support employability and access to training in an incentive-compatible manner. The study provides insights into unrealized cooperation and disincentives which prevent companies from investing in a shared pool of employable and skilled people. The research draws on the theoretical framework of the economic ethics and on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in two European countries. Findings show that incentives for investments in training are selective and might reinforce path-dependencies (...) and exclusion, while not supporting cooperation and productive competition. The study also shows the value of conceptualizing employability as a social rather than a psychological contract to facilitate investments and the implementation of corporate responsibility. Contents Trends and Conflicts in Employability and Provision of Training Incentives Structures and Stakeholders' Strategies A Social Contract for Employability Target Groups Researchers in business ethics, employee relations, further education and training HR and training managers; CSR managers The Author Silvia Castellazzi works as account manager in the corporate education division of MIP Graduate School of Business (Politecnico di Milano). Her research interests and activities are focused on professional and executive education, corporate responsibility and decision-making, the future of work and new forms of work organization. (shrink)

Trotz großer Verbesserungen in der Versorgung von Menschen mit Typ-1-Diabetes (MmT1D) werden auch bei hoher Motivation und hohem Wissensstand der T1D-Grundlagen und -Therapie die angestrebten Blutglukose-Werte häufig nicht erreicht. Daher hat sich aus der Gruppe der MmT1D und ihrer Angehörigen eine Gemeinschaft zusammengefunden, die auf Basis kommerzieller Technologien sogenannte Open-Source-Closed-Loop-Systeme (OSCLS) entwickelt, welche eine automatisierte Insulinabgabe ermöglichen. OSCLS haben das Potenzial, das Management der Erkrankung zu erleichtern und normnähere Blutglukose-Werte zu erzielen. Die OSCLS sind jedoch weder offiziell geprüfte noch zugelassene (...) Systeme. Aus dem Blickwinkel der Technikfolgenabschätzung untersucht die vorliegende Arbeit mittels leitfadengestützter qualitativer Interviews mit Nutzenden und Fachkräften vorrangig, warum sich die Nutzenden der OSCLS für die Systeme entscheiden und wie sich diese auf das Leben der Nutzenden sowie auf das Gesundheitswesen auswirken. Zudem ordnet diese Arbeit die OSCLS-Bewegung in vergleichbare aktivistische Bewegungen in Medizin und Gesundheit ein sowie in den Kontext der derzeit immer stärker werdenden Bewegung der Patient Innovation. Die Autorin Silvia Woll war als Geisteswissenschaftlerin seit 2015 als Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS) im Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) tätig. Ihre inhaltlichen Schwerpunkte umfassten dabei Technologien für Gesundheit und Ernährung, Technikethik und partizipative Verfahren wie die Citizen Science. (shrink)

Nous allons analyser le passage de la conception freudienne de l'inconscient à celle de Lacan, mise en place à partir de son dernier enseignement. Dans celle-ci, l'interprétation n'est plus la seule clé de lecture de l'inconscient. Nous allons montrer l'articulation des deux inconscients avec la notion de «temps», et en quoi, ces deux différentes conceptions déterminent la direction de la cure. Dans la première, l'inconscient est plutôt envisagé à partir du temps passé, alors que dans la deuxième à partir du (...) futur: la contingence devient ainsi l'élément fondamental pour penser l'inconscient. La psychanalyse se montre alors comme une discipline qui ne vise pas seulement à déceler les mécanismes déterminés de l'inconscient, mais aussi comme pratique capable d'accueillir l'inattendu et de l'exploiter dans la cure. Vamos a analizar el pasaje de la concepción freudiana del inconsciente a la de Lacan, concebida a partir de su última enseñanza. En esta, la interpretación no es más la sola clave de lectura del inconsciente. Mostraremos la articulación de ambos inconscientes con la noción de "tiempo", y cómo estas dos diferentes concepciones determinan la dirección de la cura. En la primera, el inconsciente es sobre todo contemplado a partir del tiempo pasado, mientras que en la segunda a partir del futuro: la contingencia se hace así el elemento fundamental para pensar en el inconsciente. El psicoanálisis se muestra entonces como una disciplina que no pretende solamente descubrir los mecanismos determinados del inconsciente, sino también como práctica capaz de acoger lo inesperado y explotarlo en la cura. (shrink)