What are the main learning difficulties or advantages encountered by students with learning disabilities within e-environments? As a result of the Covid-19 emergency, e-learning is being increasingly used to support students’ learning processes. A number of countries closed their schools altogether, so face-to-face lessons were and have been replaced by distance lessons. A search of current literature via Scopus, Eric and Google Scholar electronic databases was conducted according to Prisma Guidelines. Other sources of literature were also considered, starting from the (...) references in the full text of the articles consulted. We used the following search keywords: “LDs” combined with the “AND/OR” Boolean operator and “e-learning platforms,” “well-being,” “psychological factors,” “emotional distress,” and “self-regulation.” One body of literature highlights the lack of inclusive accessibility standards and a lack of attention to specific tools for addressing LDs, which causes students to develop high levels of stress/anxiety and emotional distress, in addition to low levels of well-being, self-esteem and self-efficacy. Another area of literature looks at how students can develop high levels of self-regulation and emotional awareness, as well as high levels of inclusion. Results are discussed in terms of the promotion of e-learning that focuses on the psychological well-being of students and teachers use of technological tools. (shrink)

One way to conceptualize human life is to describe it as a process through which the biological body is progressively transformed into a psychological one through its mentalization and symbolization. This process occurs through the relational field, which begins with caregiver-infant proto-conversations and develops through adolescence into the ongoing complex interpersonal relational network we call society and culture. The essence and the problems of adolescents are intricately tied to the social and cultural contexts in which they experience life. Therefore, adolescence (...) cannot be understood if all the levels that it expresses are not taken into consideration. We identify three psycho-historical phases through which adolescence has changed in the past century: Oedipal; Narcissistic; and Post-narcissistic. In this last phase due to the psychological and historical failure of the narcissistic ideals, the ideal is mingling with the real in a wholly new way. This process has overturned Erikson's paradigm: identity, opposed and defined by a dichotomic otherness, must be transformed into a fluid integration of similarities and differences negotiated and developed through empirical interpersonal intersubjective experiences. This, in our perspective, is a possible key to understand the rapid change in the nature of consciousness, selfhood, and gendering in today's western world, together with some important psychopathological disorders which describe the new creative challenges of today's adolescents. (shrink)

Stefania Tutino shows that post-Reformation Catholic culture was a rich laboratory for our current moral and hermeneutical anxieties.

This article approaches the paradigm shift of datafication from the perspective of civil society. Looking at how individuals and groups engage with datafication, it complements the notion of “data politics” by exploring what we call the “contentious politics of data”. By contentious politics of data we indicate the bottom-up, transformative initiatives interfering with and/or hijacking dominant processes of datafication, contesting existing power relations or re-appropriating data practices and infrastructure for purposes distinct from the intended. Said contentious politics of data is (...) articulated in an array of practices of data activism taking a critical stance towards datafication. In data activism, data as mediators take a central role, both as part of an action repertoire or as objects of struggle in their own right. Leveraging social movement studies and science and technology studies, this theoretical essay argues that data activism can be mapped along two analytical dimensions: “data as stakes” vs. “data as repertoires”, and “individual practice vs. collective action”. Mapping action repertoires and tactics along these axes allows us to chart the potential emergence of a political data subject at the intersection of these two dimensions. This furthers our understanding of people’s engagement with data in relation to other forms of activism and existing work in social movement studies. It also helps us interpreting potential trajectories of contemporary social movements, as they increasingly interface with data, devices and platforms. (shrink)

The paper discusses inappropriate (futile) treatment by analyzing the casuistics of palliative patients in the terminal stage of illness who are hospitalized at the Department of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics of the Faculty hospital with policlinic (FNsP). Our research applies the principles of palliative care in the context of bioethics. The existing clinical conditions of healthcare in Slovakia are characteristic of making a taboo of the issues of inappropriate treatment of palliative patients. Inductive-deductive and normative clinical bioethics methods of palliative (...) care and ethical strategy are applied for defining issues found in inappropriate hemodialysis treatment. An algorithm of hemodialysis treatment requires the definition of those lege artis criteria which, in the context of a patient’s autonomy and his/her decision, precondition the avoidance of the situation in which hemodialysis treatment is inappropriate (futile). Futile treatment in a terminal condition is ethically inappropriate medical treatment that extends the suffering of patients and their relatives. Its definition is determined by the relevant legislation and the methods of bioethics. An active palliative strategy is aimed at managing the process of incurable diseases in the patient’s bio-psycho-socio-spiritual continuity in the process of special bioethics. The global bioethical objective of general bioethics for palliative care is based on the paradigm of social harmony and solidarity in the context of an authentic modus of the patient’s existence as a constitutive principle for the phenomenon of the patient’s being to finite being (death). (shrink)

In management literature, intellectual capital is considered the key driver of the competitive advantage of the third millennium enterprise firm; consequently, measuring, managing and reporting IC has become a critical issue. Frameworks addressed to measure and report IC have proliferated, nevertheless the adoption of these frameworks is not so widespread in practice. The strong call for critically investigating IC practices has been raised by several leading authors in the area. Doing a critical and performative IC research means empirically researching IC (...) organisational practices in specific contexts, in order to increase the understanding of the IC dynamics. By critically analysing the IC practices of ANPAS Piemonte, an Italian non-profit organisation chosen for its long-standing experience in issuing audited IC reports, the article contributes to the knowledge of how and why IC is measured and reported in a specific, outstanding NPO disclosing IC. Moreover, the case study analysis contributes to shed lights on the levers and barriers that should be faced by other managers intending to implement and effectively use an IC measurement, management and reporting system within organisation. (shrink)

Four studies show that observers and readers imagine different alternatives to reality. When participants read a story about a protagonist who chose the more difficult of two tasks and failed, their counterfactual thoughts focused on the easier, unchosen task. But when they observed the performance of an individual who chose and failed the more difficult task, participants' counterfactual thoughts focused on alternative ways to solve the chosen task, as did the thoughts of individuals who acted out the event. We conclude (...) that these role effects may occur because participants' attention is engaged when they experience or observe an event more than when they read about it. (shrink)

The notion of 'symbol' in Eriugena's writing is far from clear. It has an ambiguous semantic connection with other terms such as 'signification', 'figure', 'allegory', 'veil', 'agalma', 'form', 'shadow', 'mystery' and so on. This paper aims to explore into the origins of such a semantic ambiguity, already present in the texts of the pseudo-Dionysian corpus which Eriugena translated and commented upon. In the probable Neoplatonic sources of this corpus, the Greek term symbolon shares some aspects of its meaning with other (...) words inherited from the ancient tradition, such as synthēma , eikōn , homoiotēs. Some of them, such as eikōn and homoiotēs, belong to the field of images and are associated with linguistic semantics in the Neoplatonic commentaries not only to Plato but also to Aristotle's logical works. Among the late ancient Neoplatonists, particular attention is paid to Proclus and to his use of the term agalma. In fact, the textual history of this word seems to be a privileged perspective from which to reconstruct the Neoplatonic semantic blending of symbol and image, as well as the main role played by linguistic issues in this conflation. (shrink)

Da alcuni anni si registra una crescita di interesse per Gorgia di Leontini e le sue opere, testimoniata dal buon numero di studi e pubblicazioni che con una certa continuità si offrono sia nell’ambito della filosofia che della cultura classica in generale; questo è senz’altro di buon auspicio per un avanzamento della compren­sione del pensiero di questo intellettuale siceliota. Il panorama italiano non è estraneo a questa tendenza, anzi si può dire che esso presenti un quadro ricchissimo di...

Hannah Arendt und ihre Schriften werden seit jeher als unkonventionell wahrgenommen, als disziplinär schwer einzuordnen. Sie haben breite Anerkennung in vielen verschiedenen Ländern erlangt und scheinen sämtliche fach- wie kulturspezifischen Grenzen zu überschreiten. Diese Studie reflektiert die materiellen Bedingungen jener Wahrnehmungen, ihre performativen Funktionen sowie ihre historischen Transformationen, die sie zwischen Deutschland und den USA von den 1940er-Jahren bis heute durchlaufen haben. Im Zentrum der Rekonstruktion stehen Arendts Begriff des Politischen und damit korrelierend sie selbst als öffentliche Figur. Beide Ideen (...) werden als Subjekte und Ergebnisse der Interaktionsverhältnisse zwischen der Akteurin, ihren sozialen und epistemischen Kontexten sowie der Gemeinschaft ihrer Leserinnen und Lesern wie auch Konkurrentinnen und Konkurrenten betrachtet. (shrink)

Quantification is particularly seductive in times of global uncertainty. Not surprisingly, numbers, indicators, categorizations, and comparisons are central to governmental and popular response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay draws insights from critical data studies, sociology of quantification and decolonial thinking, with occasional excursion into the biomedical domain, to investigate the role and social consequences of counting broadly defined as a way of knowing about the virus. It takes a critical look at two domains of human activity that play a (...) central role in the fight against the virus outbreak, namely medical sciences and technological innovation. It analyzes their efforts to craft solutions for their user base and explores the unwanted social costs of these operations. The essay argues that the over-reliance of biomedical research on “whiteness” for lab testing and the techno-solutionism of the consumer infrastructure devised to curb the social costs of the pandemic are rooted in a distorted idea of a “standard human” based on a partial and exclusive vision of society and its components, which tends to overlook alterity and inequality. It contends that to design our way out of the pandemic, we ought to make space for distinct ways of being and knowing, acknowledging plurality and thinking in terms of social relations, alterity, and interdependence. (shrink)

This volume will be of particular interest to researchers working in the history, and in the philosophy, of logic and mathematics, and more generally, to ...

The chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi was one of the first twentieth-century scientists to propose a program to resolve the internal conflict of the modern Enlightenment: scientific detachment and moral nihilism with humanist values. Stefania Jha’s intellectual biography places Polanyi in the context of his time and culture, analyzes his key philosophical ideas, and explicates the application—and at times misappropriation—of his work. Polanyi’s method was not laid out in his published works, and his vocabulary tends to make his writings (...) difficult to understand. By exposing the structure of his theory of tacit knowing, and by tracing the growth of his thinking, Jha shows how the various elements of his thought are integrated. Through examination of his philosophical roots in Kant and the complexity of his evolving thought, she counteracts the popular notion that Polanyi’s philosophy stands apart from the western philosophic tradition. Jha’s deep analysis makes Polanyi’s shift of focus from science to philosophy more intelligible, his philosophy more approachable, and the causes he championed—such as the freedom of science and cultural freedom—more understandable. Applying his notion of tacit knowing in practical directions, Jha seeks to bring the study of Polanyi’s philosophy out of the specialists’ enclave and into such fields as ethics and clinical medicine. (shrink)

Two versions of Peri tou mē ontos ptmo by Gorgias, related by an Anonymous Author MXG and by Sextus Empiricus SE, have been alternatively accredited by scholars according to their disposition to seek a doctrine or a rhetorical- communicational dimension respectively with the first tendency prevailing. Comparing the ptmo to the rest of Gorgiasʼ works, we verify and clearly demonstrate how SE manages to convey a precise modus argumentandi. In effect, SE shows Gorgias’ demonstrative reasoning as employing: 1 the application (...) of demonstrandum and quod erat demonstrandum typical of Gorgiasʼ speeches, reinforced by a substantial and abundant use of verbs of explanation and demonstration, especially in comparison to the rest of the same Against the Logicians’ section. Otherwise, MXG reduces this lexicon to the more generic phēmi; 2 the continuous employment of the reductio ad absurdum, like in all of Gorgias’ works; 3 a very refined formulation of the principle of non-contradiction §67, similar to the one seen in Pal. 25. In addition, MXG is accurate in the discussion of some arguments as in the third kephalaion, however, presents as an overcorrected interpreter, more interested in questioning Gorgias than reporting his original text, also directly referring to Zeno, Melissus, and Leucippus. The context of the ptmo in SE’s work the structure presented leads us to believe that SE had the text or at least an accurate summary of the ptmo different from MXG. The aims of this paper are: 1 to demonstrate that SE shows well the Gorgianic demonstrative reasoning and, for this specific reason, he is reliable and valuable resource for us; 2 to hypothesise that SE’s version is based on and independent as yet unknown source. (shrink)

PASCAL’S SCEPTICISM Some of Pascal’s statements, like le „pyrronisme est le vrai”, suggest that he should be counted among sceptics, even though this claim seems to contradict the general appeal of his thought. Indeed, Pascal is known as a philosopher who desperately sought truth to finally find certainty in mystical experience. He did not deny that the human reason may have a chance to attain wisdom knowledge, provided that reason would not try to reach beyond its natural limits. Nevertheless, a (...) kind of skepticism is certainly present in his philosophy. Its nature needs clarification, which is the aim of this paper. Drawing on a distinction made by I. Dąmbska between theoretical and normative scepticism, the author introduces the notion of existential skepticism, which most adequately renders Pascal’s view on the inability of reason to grasp by its own power the very nature of human condition. Keywords: PASCAL, SKEPTICISM, NATURE OF HUMAN CONDITION. (shrink)

Il saggio intende indagare le radici di ermeneutica politica del termine orexis così come Aristotele lo utilizza a partire dall’argomento biologico e antropologico, fino a quello sociologico e narrativo nei confronti del rapporto individuo-Città. Una teoria del desiderio come perfezione antropologica a partire da una concezione di Città democratica e dinamica, nei termini contestuali della polis greca. In quest’ambito lo scritto sviluppa il confronto con la concezione di eros di origine platonica inteso come mancanza, e la dimensione di socialità individuale (...) in Aristotele come pienezza. (shrink)

Yinshun is regarded as one of the most eminent monks in twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. Previous research has argued that Yinshun especially undertook the mission of writing new commentaries on Madhyamaka texts. His efforts provoked a revival of interest towards the Madhyamaka school among contemporary Chinese Buddhists, and a re-assessment of the position of the writings of N?g?rjuna within the history of Chinese Buddhism. This article focuses on Yinshun’s restatement of the nature of the M?lamadhyamakak?rik?, a text that has always been (...) regarded as fundamental in the Madhyamaka/San-lun tradition in China. The first part analyzes Yinshun’s textual study of the M?lamadhyamakak?rik?, examining his approach to the text, and how he came to terms with previous Chinese traditional textual scholarship and canonical scriptures. The second part discusses Yinshun’s interpretation of the text by moving away from the micro-context of Chinese San-lun scholarship, and addressing the macro-context of the modern Chinese understanding of the Mah?y?na. (shrink)

In two experiments, we investigated whether 13-month-old infants expect agents to behave in a way consistent with information to which they have been exposed. Infants watched animations in which an animal was either provided information or prevented from gathering information about the actual location of an object. The animal then searched successfully or failed to retrieve it. Infants’ looking times suggest that they expected searches to be effective when—and only when—the agent had had access to the relevant information. This result (...) supports the view that infants’ possess an incipient metarepresentational ability that permits them to attribute beliefs to agents. We discuss the viability of more conservative explanations and the relationship between this early ability and later forms of ‘theory of mind’ that appear only after children have become experienced verbal communicators. (shrink)

We examined how people think about how things could have turned out differently after they made a decision to cooperate or not in three social interactions: the Prisoner’s dilemma (Experiment 1), the Stag Hunt dilemma (Experiment 2), and the Chicken game (Experiment 3). We found that participants who took part in the game imagined the outcome would have been different if a different decision had been made by the other player, not themselves; they did so whether the outcome was good (...) or bad for them, their own choice had been to cooperate or not, and the other player’s choice had been to cooperate or not. Participants who only read about a fictional protagonist’s game imagined changes outside the protagonist’s control (such as the other player’s decision) after a good outcome but within the protagonist’s control (such as the protagonist’s decision) after a bad outcome. The implications for theories of counterfactual thinking and moral decision-making are discussed. (shrink)

From the thirteenth century to early modern times, Venetian church interiors gleamed with brilliant gold and silver altarpieces and frontals, enlivening dim naves and providing awe-inspiring backdrops for the celebration of the liturgy. Grand in scale and materially sumptuous, these artworks were ingenious viewing machines. Many could be opened and closed horizontally to reveal and conceal multiple layers of imagery. When closed, they were further screened behind purpose-made panel paintings, called contropale or pale feriali. These multimedia ensembles - the best (...) known of which is formed by San Marco’s Pala d’Oro and Pala Feriale - played a vital role as intermediaries between architecture and rite, and they represented the radiant core of rich religious rituals that dramatized Christian notions of divine revelation. Yet, despite their attraction, Venetian gold and silver pale remain insufficiently studied. This article brings an initial analysis of these artifacts into dialogue with broader art historical debates about the materiality and the performativity of medieval artworks. By doing so, it demonstrates the significance of gold and silver pale in defining Venice’s religious and aesthetic cityscape, and it lays the methodological groundwork for future research into these complex artifacts and their environment. (shrink)

Yinshun (1906–2005) is regarded as one of the eminent monks of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. In the mission of reinventing Chinese Buddhism Yinshun engaged particularly in the revival and restatement of Madhyamaka. His interpretation of Nāgārjuna's texts, the reassessment of the links between pre-Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Prajn˜āpāramitā tradition, and the critical analysis of the Chinese San-lun became the core of the new Mahāyāna that he planned for the twentieth-century China. Yinshun also adopted Madhyamaka criteria to reconsider the Mahāyāna schools that (...) were popular in China, and theorized a Madhyamaka-framed Pure Land based on his reading of the Shizhu piposha lun [T26 n1521]. This article discusses Yinshun's views on the Easy Path (yixing dao) and Difficult Path (nanxing dao) in the Pure Land practice, and contextualizes Yinshun's interpretation within the past history of the Chinese Pure Land School, as well as within the new debates on Pure Land that emerged in twentieth-century China. (shrink)

At a time when they had largely fallen into disrepute Bolzano reactivated the distinctions between ‚clear‘ and ‚obscure‘, ‚distinct‘ and ‚confused‘ ideas. In the central sections of this paper I offer a critical reconstruction of the explanations of these pairs of opposita which are to be found in vol. III of Bolzano's monumental Wissenschaftslehre . I then provide a detailed account of its Leibnizian counterparts that were well-known to the ‚Bohemian Leibniz‘, and finally I evaluate Bolzano's criticism thereof.

In the present paper, we discuss Husserl's deep account of the notions of ?calculation? and of arithmetical ?operation? which is found in the final chapter of the Philosophy of Arithmetic, arguing that Husserl is as far as we know the first scholar to reflect seriously on and to investigate the problem of circumscribing the totality of computable numerical operations. We pursue two complementary goals, namely: (i) to provide a formal reconstruction of Husserl's intuitions, and (ii) to demonstrate on the basis (...) of our reconstruction that the class of operations that Husserl has in mind turns out to be extensionally equivalent to the one that, in contemporary logic, is known as the class of partial recursive functions. (shrink)

RASP is a recent extension to Answer Set Programming (ASP) that permits declarative specification and reasoning on the consumption and production of resources. ASP can be seen as a particular case of RASP. In this paper, we study the relationship between linear logic and RASP problem specification. We prove that RASP programs can be translated into (a fragment of) linear logic, and vice versa. In doing so, we introduce a linear logic representation of default negation as understood in ASP. We (...) are also able to establish a link between linear logic and here-and-there (HT) logic. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a conceptualization of ‘posthumous social status’ as a performative reality accomplished through collective actions that are materially and symbolically legitimated. We question the classical definitions of social status that lead to oversocialized theoretical models, and we argue for the necessity to reconsider the relation between social status and social roles in order to gain insight into the reality of a social presence after death. On this account, we claim that the prestige attached to one's position (...) in society is a social phenomenon produced through autopoietic systems of social influence rather than a pre-existent and stable feature embedded in hierarchical structures and actions. Therefore, we clarify the link between social status and systems of influence through a case study in which we discuss how the Christian-Orthodox tradition is socially organized as a powerful realm of doing posthumous social status. (shrink)

The essay aims to retrace the thematic issues of Alessandro Pandolfi's research through his original reinterpretation of the work of Michel Foucault. From issues of the historiographical method of the social sciences to the problematizations of disciplinary discourses up to the postmodern outcomes of neoliberal devices, a path is outlined that marks innovative hypotheses and new research perspectives on the relationship between biopolitics and antagonisms.