_Secret Passages_ provides a theoretical and clinical exploration of the field of psychoanalysis. It looks at the pivotal relationship between analyst and client and its importance to the psychoanalytic process. Offering a uniquely global perspective, Bolognini considers the different trends in contemporary psychoanalysis, charting a course between the innovative and traditional. Divided into three parts, areas of discussion include: plurality and complexity in the internal world the complex nature of psychoanalytic empathy from the transpsychic to the interpsychic. Drawing on (...) vivid clinical examples throughout, _Secret Passages_ will be of great interest to all psychoanalysts, in particular those with an interest in gaining a more global theoretical perspective. (shrink)

Amnesia is a frequent claim in major crimes, and it is estimated that the complete or partial absence of memory following a crime ranges from 25% to 50% of total cases. Although some cases may constitute a genuine form of amnesia, due to organic-neurological defects or psychological causes, and possibly combined with a dissociative or repressive coping style after an extreme experience, malingering is still fairly common in offenders. Therefore, one of the main goals in medico-legal proceedings is to find (...) methods to determine the credibility of crime-related amnesia. At present, a number of lie and memory detection techniques can assist the forensic assessment of the reliability of declarative proof, and have been devised and improved over the past century: for example, modern polygraphs, event-related potentials, thermal imaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging, kinematic, and facial analysis. Other ad hoc psychological tests, such as the so-called Symptom Validity Test (SVT) and Performance Validity Test (PVT), as well as the autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT), can also be used. To date, however, there is little evidence or case reports that document their real usefulness in forensic practice. Here, we report two cases of crime-related amnesia, whereby both defendants, who were found guilty of homicide, appeared to exhibit dissociative amnesia but where the application of SVTs, PVTs, and aIAT detected a malingered amnesia. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study aimed at standardizing and providing preliminary evidence on the clinical usability of the Italian telephone-based Verbal Fluency Battery, which includes phonemic, semantic and alternate verbal fluency tasks.MethodsThree-hundred and thirty-five Italian healthy participants and 27 individuals with neurodegenerative or cerebrovascular diseases were administered the t-VFB. Switch number and cluster size were computed via latent semantic analyses. HPs underwent the telephone-based Mental State Examination and Backward Digit Span. Construct validity, factorial structure, internal consistency, test-retest and inter-rater reliability and equivalence with (...) the in-person Verbal Fluency tasks were assessed. Norms were derived via Equivalent Scores. Diagnostic accuracy against clinical populations was assessed.ResultsThe majority of t-VFB scores correlated among each other and with the BDS, but not with the MMSE. Switch number correlated with t-PVF, t-SVF, t-AVF scores, whilst cluster size with the t-SVF and t-AVF scores only. The t-VFB was underpinned by a mono-component structure and was internally consistent. Test-retest and inter-rater reliability were optimal. Each t-VFB test was statistically equivalent to its in-person version. Education predicted all t-VFB scores, whereas age t-SVF and t-AVF scores and sex only some t-SVF scores. Diagnostic accuracy against clinical samples was optimal.DiscussionThe t-VFB is a valid, reliable and normed telephone-based assessment tool for language and executive functioning, equivalent to the in-person version; results show promising evidence of its diagnostic accuracy in neurological populations. (shrink)

We explore relationships between phenomenology and developmental psychology through an in-depth analysis of a particular problem in social cognition: the most fundamental access to other minds. In the first part of the paper, we examine how developmental science can benefit phenomenology. We explicate the connection between cognitive psychology and developmental phenomenology as a form of constructive phenomenological psychology. Nativism in contemporary science constitutes a strong impulse to conceive of the possibility of an innate ability to perceive others’ mental states, an (...) idea which also has a transcendental implication. In the second part, we consider how phenomenology can contribute to developmental science. Phenomenology can go beyond the necessary evaluation and reinterpretation of experimental results. Some phenomenological notions and theories can be put forward on a par with alternative cognitive-psychological models and compete with them on grounds of empirical adequacy. For example, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty’s notion of pairing can constitute a viable account of how infants access other minds. We outline a number of ways in which this account can be tested and can thus contribute to generating empirical knowledge. (shrink)

Self-reflexive videogames are videogames designed to materialize critical and/or satirical perspectives on the ways in which videogames themselves are designed, played, sold, manipulated, experienced, and understood as social objects. This essay focuses on the use of virtual worlds as mediators, and in particular on the use of videogames to guide and encourage reflections on technical, interactive, and thematic conventions in videogame design and development. Structurally, it is composed of two interconnected parts: -/- 1) In the first part of this essay, (...) I will discuss NECESSARY EVIL (Gualeni et al., 2013), an experimental videogame that I designed as a self-reflexive virtual artifact. With the objective of clarifying the philosophical aspirations of self-reflexive videogames – and in order to understand how those aspirations can be practically pursued – I will dissect and examine the design decisions that contributed to the qualities of NECESSARY EVIL as an example of “playable philosophy”. -/- 2) Taking off from the perspectives on self-reflexive videogames offered in the first part of the essay, the second half will focus on virtual worlds as viable mediators of philosophical thought more in general. In this section, I will argue that, both through the practice of game design and through the interactive experiences of virtual worlds, twenty-first century philosophers have the possibility to challenge the often-unquestioned understanding of written discourse as the only context in which philosophical thought can emerge and be developed. (shrink)

In this essay, I challenge the use of Conceptual Metaphor Theory in the premodern Chinese setting. The dominant, implicit assumption in the literature is that conclusions reached by CMT on the ways in which cognition operates can be applied in toto and without qualification onto the makers of classical Chinese texts. I want to challenge this assumption and argue that textual evidence from premodern Chinese points to a different cognitive process. Differences in the use and conceptualization of image-based thinking as (...) well as differences in the understanding of the relationship between words, images, and the world reveal a different cognitive process. However, I do not wish to argue for a total abandonment of the insights of CMT. Rather, I call for the need to properly qualify its findings in light of premodern Chinese use and conceptions of image-based language. (shrink)

The 14 essays collected in this volume explore the various aspects of Augustine’s philosophy and its medieval reception: by considering his education and the development of his thought as conveyed by a series of philosophical images and styles, the volume reconstructs the recurring motifs of his intellectual journey (the anti-Manichean polemic, his political vision, the role of reason, and the theory of war) and their fortune in authors such as Thomas Aquinas, Nicole Oresme, Gregory of Rimini, and Robert Grosseteste.

Problems and questions originally raised by Robert Nozick in his famous thought experiment ‘The Experience Machine’ are frequently invoked in the current discourse concerning virtual worlds. Having conceptualized his Gedankenexperiment in the early seventies, Nozick could not fully anticipate the numerous and profound ways in which the diffusion of computer simulations and video games came to affect the Western world. -/- This article does not articulate whether or not the virtual worlds of video games, digital simulations, and virtual technologies currently (...) actualize (or will actualize) Nozick’s thought experiment. Instead, it proposes a philosophical reflection that focuses on human experiences in the upcoming age of their ‘technical reproducibility’. -/- In pursuing that objective, this article integrates and supplements some of the interrogatives proposed in Robert Nozick’s thought experiment. More specifically, through the lenses of existentialism and philosophy of technology, this article tackles the technical and cultural heritage of virtual reality, and unpacks its potential to function as a tool for self-discovery and self-construction. Ultimately, it provides an interpretation of virtual technologies as novel existential domains. Virtual worlds will not be understood as the contexts where human beings can find completion and satisfaction, but rather as instruments that enable us to embrace ourselves and negotiate with various aspects of our (individual as well as collective) existence in previously-unexperienced guises. (shrink)

Cyberbullying is associated with the expansion of digital devices and the Internet. In Italy and other European and non-European countries, the phenomenon is growing. Young people who suffer from cyberbullying develop psychopathological symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social phobia that can lead to extreme acts, such as suicide. The pressure, the sense of isolation, and helplessness experienced by cyber-victims also affect their family and the school context. Cyberbullying is acted through digital tools, it is often anonymous, and aims to destroy (...) and psychologically humiliate the victim. There are various forms of cyberbullying that involve different reactions and consequences. However, few studies have focused on adolescents’ perception of cyberbullying. Youths often engage in aggressive behaviors, ignoring the feelings and reactions of the victims. Based on these considerations, our article aims to provide a general overview of the spread of the phenomenon and to understand the various types of cyberbullying and its consequences on victims. We will also illustrate a brief evaluation conducted in Italian schools investigating the perception of cyberbullying in a sample of 600 Italian adolescents. Our work aims to investigate the cognition and the personal perception of youths about cyberbullying and its consequences and to promote educational interventions within and outside the context of school. (shrink)

We extend de Finetti's No-Dutch-Book Criterion to Gödel infinite-valued propositional logic.

In this paper, I will explore Rorty’s recommendation to shift from a philosophical to a literary culture by addressing this theme through a philosophical-educational lens and in reference to the question of what kind of education we need in order to foster democratic ethos. In this perspective, I will establish a comparison/contrast between Rorty’s idea of sentimental education and Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children understood as two (alternative?) ways of recontextualizing Dewey’s heritage. After discussing Rorty’s understanding of a need for (...) an end (instead of a “Deweyan” recovery) of philosophy starting from his dialogue with Castoriadis and by reconstructing his appeal to a poeticized culture, I will present Lipman’s case for education for philosophical inquiry in order to cultivate a democratic ethos in primary and secondary schools. I will contrast it with Rorty’s education as socialization and, contextually, I will illustrate their different stances towards Hirsch’s cultural literacy and his core curriculum approach to civic education. Finally, after problematizing Rorty’s views on the use of literature for a democratic culture, I will indicate the need to combine the Rortyan and Lipmanian thrusts and will claim that an aspect of the novel-driven education advocated by Rorty maintains a constitutive Socratic-inquiring dimension. (shrink)

Skepticism toward the existence of neonatal differential imitation is fostered by views that assign it an excessive significance, making it foundational for social cognition. Moreover, a misleading theoretical framework may generate unwarranted expectations about the kinds of findings experimentalists are supposed to look for. Hence we propose a theoretical analysis that may help experimentalists address the empirical question of whether early differential imitation really exists. We distinguish three models of early imitation. The first posits automatic visuo-motor links evolved for sociocognitive (...) functions and we call it Genetically Programmed Direct Matching. The second is Meltzoff and Moore’s Active Intermodal Matching, which postulates a comparison between the acts of self and other. The third is the alternative we propose and we call it “Association by Similarity Theory”, as it relies on the tacit functioning of this domain-general process. AST describes early imitation merely as the differential induction or elicitation of behaviors that already tend to occur spontaneously. We focus on the contrast between AIM and AST, and argue that AST is preferable to AIM for two reasons. First, AST is more parsimonious and more plausible, especially because it does not require infants to be able to recognize self-other similarities. Second, whereas the extant findings tend to disqualify AIM, AST can account for them adequately. Furthermore, we suggest that AST has the potential to give new impulse to empirical research because it discriminates promising lines of inquiry from unproductive ones. (shrink)

Antonio Signorini’s contribution to the constitutive theory of non-linear elasticity is reconstructed and analyzed. Some uninformed opinions suggesting he had a minor role, lacking of significant results, are discussed and refuted. It is shown that Signorini should be rightly credited for being among the first scholars aware of the central problem of non-linear elasticity: the determination of the general form of the elastic potential.

BackgroundThe psychological condition of university students has been the focus of research since several years. In this population, prevalence rates of depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety disorders and substance abuse are higher than those of the general population, and medical students are more likely to have mental health issues than other students.AimsThis study deals with the psychological condition of medical students, with a focus on correlations between depression, suicidal ideation and the quality of the perceived parenting style. Gender differences were also (...) considered.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted on a population of medical students, with an online questionnaire consisting of a personal data sheet for demographic and anamnestic data, and of three self-rating scales: the Beck Depression Inventory II, for the screening of depressive symptoms; the Beck Hopelessness Scale, to assess suicidal ideation; the Parental Bonding Instrument, to investigate the memory of the attitude of one’s parents in the first 16 years of life. Two main affective dimensions were considered by PBI: “care” and “protection”. Four different patterns of parenting styles are so evidenced: Neglectful Parenting, Affectionless Control, Optimal Parenting, and Affectionate Constraint.ResultsOverall, 671 students participated. Females, compared to males, experienced more distress and self-injurious behaviors, while males experienced more drugs or alcohol abuse. The BHS and BDI-II scores correlated positively with the PBI score for “protection” and negatively with that for “care.” Affectionless Control and Neglectful Parenting were associated with higher medians of BHS and BDI-II scores.ConclusionThe study confirms that the undergraduate medical student population has higher prevalence of depression and suicidal ideation than those detectable in the general population and that some specific parenting styles correlate with these two clinical variables. The impact of Affectionless Control and Neglectful Parenting on suicidal ideation and depressive symptomatology was more pronounced in females than in males. For males, the role of the father seemed to have less impact on the affective roots of suicidal thoughts and depression. (shrink)

Il testo analizza alcune interpretazioni fornite alla filosofia di Giordano Bruno da alcuni interpreti dell'800 e primo '900.

Il testo analizza le principali proposte interpretative dedicate alla filosofia di Giordano Bruno da parte di alcuni storiografi del '900, per proporre una propria visione dell'autore nolano.

Il volume raccoglie il lavoro di ricerca, di analisi e di commento, dedicati ai "Dialoghi Italiani" di Giordano Bruno, che è stato presentato quale tesi di dottorato in filosofia presso l'Università degli studi di Padova, nel febbraio del 2002. Il testo comprende un confronto fra la tradizione dei testi aristotelici della "Metafisica", "Fisica" e "Il cielo" ed i testi in volgare di Giordano Bruno, analizza i testi bruniani giungendo alla scoperta del principio dell'infinito creativo e doppiamente dialettico e presenta una (...) panoramica delle principali interpretazioni fornite al pensiero bruniano durante l'800 ed il '900. (shrink)

In the opening sentences of Book 2 of Posterior Analytics, Aristotle defines the four types of question that one can pose within the demonstrative science. In the edition by William D. Ross, the text reads as follows : τὰ ζητούμενά ἐστιν ἴσα τὸν ἀριθμὸν ὅσαπερ ἐπιστάμεθα. ζητοῦμεν δὲ τέτταρα, τὸ ὅτι, τὸ διότι, εἰ ἔστι, τί ἐστιν. ὅταν μὲν γὰρ πότερον τόδε ἢ τόδε ζητῶμεν, εἰς ἀριθμὸν θέντες, οἷον πότερον ἐκλείπει ὁ ἥλιος ἢ οὔ, τὸ ὅτι ζητοῦμεν. σημεῖον δὲ τούτου· (...) εὑρόντες γὰρ ὅτι ἐκλείπει πεπαύμεθα· καὶ ἐὰν ἐξ ἀρχῆς εἰδῶμεν ὅτι ἐκλείπει, οὐ ζητοῦμεν πότερον. ὅταν δὲ εἰδῶμεν τὸ ὅτι, τὸ διότι ζητοῦμεν, οἷον εἰδότες ὅτι ἐκλείπει καὶ ὅτι κινεῖται ἡ γῆ, τὸ διότι ἐκλείπει ἢ διότι κινεῖται ζητοῦμεν.The things we seek are equal in number to those we understand. We seek four things: the fact, the reason why, if it is, what it is. For when we seek whether it is this or this, putting it into a number, we seek the fact. Evidence for this: on finding that it is eclipsed we stop; and if from the start we know that it is eclipsed, we do not seek whether it is. When we know the fact we seek the reason why. (shrink)

Die Epitome physica des Nikephoros Blemmydes (1197 – nach 1269) gilt als eines der meistverbreiteten Lehrbücher aristotelischer Naturphilosophie in der byzantinischen und nachbyzantinischen Welt. Dennoch blieb die handschriftliche Überlieferung bisher gänzlich unerforscht und der Text wurde nie in Form einer kritischen Edition zugänglich gemacht. Die Epitome physica stellt das zweite Buch der Εἰσαγωγικὴ ἐπιτομή (Einführendes Kompendium) dar, deren erstes Buch der Logik gewidmet ist. Als Grundlage dienten Blemmydes im Wesentlichen Aristoteles und seine Kommentatoren (sowie für den astronomischen Teil den Stoiker (...) Kleomedes), wobei er versuchte, eine Synthese der antiken Naturphilosophie mit der christlichen Weltanschauung zu erreichen. Von den über 120 erhaltenen Manuskripten der Epitome, die vom 13. bis ins 19 Jh. datieren, werden im vorliegenden Buch die Handschriften aus der Palaiologenzeit sowie die Mehrheit derjenigen aus der Renaissance manuskriptologisch und philologisch untersucht sowie ihre textgeschichtlichen Beziehungen rekonstruiert. Daneben kommen auch die Verbreitung und der kulturelle Stellenwert der Epitome physica in der byzantinischen Welt und in der europäischen Renaissance zur Darstellung. (shrink)

Realist ontologies about history stress that entities such as documents, their sources, and events whom they are talking about are objectively given in the ontological reality of social history, beyond our skills to recognize them. Thus, how is it possible to understand the extension of the ontological independence of historical findings and where does our (mis)interpretations of those findings begin? As every realist ontological commitment must provide us with a suitable tool to solve the age-old problem of findings’ reliability, in (...) this paper we analyze how such realist views, like Searle’s Collective Intentionality, cannot be a solution, meanwhile, on the other hand, other realist purposes could represent valid alternatives. In fact, Searle’s theory surely accounts for the constitution of such social objects as false historical acts, but its definition of function of status (FS) as “X count as Y in C” permits, even only in principle, that the same entity X, which has counted as Y, in the far-off times historical context C0, could “re-count” as Y  Y in a more recent context Ct  C0, after an involuntary forgery too. Being by definition iterative, FS could iterate clamorous twists, also ad libitum, making future historians’ shared intentionality lose the contact with the reality of original status’ functions. On the contrary, Ferraris’ Documentality satisfies this historical reliability test, because its definition of a social object as inscription of an act distinguishes between what a fact/event/object X of the past has been, and what characteristics this same X must possess to become a document, discerning, this way, voluntary from unintentional effects of the creation of an object/event/fact, to instantiate a social fact, or to cause an historical event, and their different taxa of historicity. (shrink)

The topic of this article is to develop an alternative, ontologically settled, problematic intuition about how to establish theoretical criteria of (non) conceptuality of an intentional content which kind of properties must an object possess to be able to furnish a full formal satisfaction to a conceptualization process? Are there any objects upon which our concepts can only go in vain in a sort of non conceptual short circuit’s breakdown in the very same act, in order to be caught in (...) a perceptual process? To give one or more answers to these questions, the article analyzes some examples of thing which are very difficult to conceive immediate y by means of predicative concept, the so -called Odradek object (O/o),taking inspiration by the case of a Kafka’ s famous tale character.It is possible to show the existence of almost a odd phenomenon of optical illusion in which the behaviour of perceptual structure of certain objects is very clear y similar to an O/o s one (Frisby’s effect in the Waterfall illusion, for example). Nevertheless, conclusions of the article will show how the reasons to believe in the plausibility of this hypothesis are more a priori and conceptually based than psychologically and experimentally inspired. (shrink)

Ogni volta che leggo uno scritto di Danto resto colpito dalla cultura, dai piaceri dell’intelligenza e dai sentimenti che vi circolano. Ogni volta imparo qualcosa di vitale, nel senso di qualcosa che fa venire in mente altre idee. Danto è incapace di annoiare. Ha una mente pirotecnica e avventurosa, e una scrittura inconfondibile. Forse, proprio per questo tradurre il suo libro, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, non è stato facile: si è trattato, sì, di tradurre un libro di filosofia, a...

Definire l’arte? Danto è un filosofo pirotecnico, acuto e colto, e da quasi trent’anni è anche l’influente critico d’arte del settimanale radical newyorkese «The Nation». Per quanto Danto lamenti una certa disattenzione nei suoi confronti da parte dei critici e degli storici dell’arte, è invece persuaso — a ragione, anche se forse limitatamente al mondo anglo-americano — che il suo famoso articolo del 1964, The Artworld, — poi sostanzialmente rielaborato in forme diverse — «really did become...

Through a comparison between Arthur Danto’s philosophy of art and Kantian aesthetic reflection, this article identifies the place from which Danto can underestimate the aesthetic experience and its alleged irrelevance in relation to art. I argue, first, that this position of Danto is crossed by some internal contradictions in his thought. Furthermore, based on the comparison with Kant, I examine the thesis of the “end of the history of art” advanced by Danto, considering in particular two aspects. I argue: (a) (...) that Danto surreptitiously or parasitically uses in his critical activity a notion of aesthetic experience which his philosophical argument, and in particular his “aesthetic of meanings”, cannot legitimize; (b) that his thesis relating to the end of art history is symptomatic of a wider problem, which involves our forms of life, and which finds a particularly significant statement in Friedrich von Hayek’s neoliberal thought. The attempt at a neoliberal anthropology of homo œconomicus implies the tendency to absorb within it the very meaning of the experience that has long been at the center of aesthetic and artistic experience. This totalizing colonization of human forms of life appropriates some exemplary characteristics of aesthetic and artistic experience, perverting them, starting with the presumed generation of spontaneous orders, which we know are framed in an ideological horizon that is anything but obvious or natural. My thesis is that Danto’s idea of a post-historical art is one of the symptoms of this condition. (shrink)

_Abstract_: In philosophy and cognitive science, the tension between cognitivism and the 4E-Cognition approach is both deep and polarizing. A lack of serious engagement with the theoretical and empirical work generated by the opposing framework seems problematic on both sides. In this paper, we closely discuss data on early socio-cognitive development produced by an influential nativist current of thought in the cognitivist paradigm. We consider these data from the point of view of a 4E-Cognition perspective called “the pairing hypothesis”, which (...) originates in phenomenological philosophy. We show that a close examination of these cognitivist-nativist data strengthens the phenomenological 4E-Cognition perspective by significantly expanding the range of findings it can account for. By addressing the debate between rich and lean explanations in early social cognition, we corroborate the idea that careful interaction between cognitivism and the 4E-Cognition approach can lead to progress in cognitive science. _Keywords_: Development of Social Cognition; Cognitivist Nativism; Direct Social Perception; Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences; Action Production and Perception _Spiegazioni ricche o parsimoniose? Un’alternativa fenomenologica per lo sviluppo della prima cognizione sociale_ _Riassunto_: Un’accesa e radicale tensione nelle scienze cognitive è quella tra il cognitivismo e il cosiddetto approccio delle quattro E (_Embodied, Enactive, Embedded_ e _Extended_). La mancanza di una riflessione aperta e sostanziale sul lavoro teorico ed empirico proposto dall’approccio opposto appare problematica da entrambe le parti. Il presente contributo analizza a fondo le evidenze empiriche presentate da una delle maggiori correnti innatiste del paradigma cognitivista nello studio dello sviluppo socio-cognitivo. Queste evidenze sperimentali vengono esaminate dal punto di vista della “ipotesi dell’appaiamento”, ipotesi inserita nel quadro della prospettiva teorica 4E e che proviene dalla filosofia fenomenologica. Il presente contributo mostra come una considerazione approfondita dei dati generati dal cognitivismo innatista può rafforzare il potere esplicativo della prospettiva fenomenologica 4E, ampliandone in misura significativa la gamma di evidenze scientifiche che essa può contribuire a spiegare. Affrontando il dibattito sullo sviluppo della prima cognizione sociale tra spiegazioni ricche e parsimoniose, viene corroborata l’idea che un’attenta interazione tra cognitivismo e approccio 4E può essere un modo per far progredire le scienze cognitive. _Parole chiave_: Sviluppo della cognizione sociale; Innatismo cognitivo; Percezione sociale diretta; Fenomenologia e scienze cognitive; Produzione e percezione di azioni. (shrink)

In order to appreciate the rich implications of the transcendental reduction, one has to distinguish the different contexts where it acquires different meanings. The present paper focuses on a particular epistemological context and clarifies the contribution of the reduction within this context. The contribution consists in the formulation and solution of the problem of exhibiting the evidence supporting the belief in the world’s existence. In a nutshell, world-experience grounds the world-belief and world-experience entails a bedrock of experience legitimizing the positing (...) of others. I argue that this contribution is possibly an enduring achievement of Husserl’s transcendental philosophy against common objections that are raised against it. I show that both the necessity and the viability of the transcendental reduction are a consequence of the general structure of critical examination. Overall, a picture of Husserl’s philosophy emerges that emphasizes embodiment, intersubjectivity, and facticity without giving up the rigor of radical epistemological analysis, aiming at overcoming both naïve pseudo-problems and subtle forms of dogmatism. (shrink)

O texto busca reconstituir alguns momentos fundamentais da leitura negriana de Espinosa, mostrando como ela se presta a uma releitura da modernidade filosófica bem como abre-se para a reflexão política contemporânea. Por fim, são apontados certos aspectos problemáticos da interpretação de Negri.

During the period from Benjamin Constants's discourse on The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns to Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty a reconstruction of the modern concept of liberty has been developed, based upon three theoretical pillars: individualism, commercial society, representative government. This concept has dominated the historiographical debate for a long time, as only in the last years the emergence of a neo-republican idea of liberty has questioned it; however, not even this neo-republican version has really (...) undermined the conceptual frame of liberalism, thus becoming an internal variant of the “liberty of Moderns”. Therefore it is a very important task to address directly to some early-modern thinkers and theoretical contexts, in order to reopen the debate on the genesis of modern liberties, and more in general to consider political modernity as a non-pacified space, within which different visions confront and conflict with each other. (shrink)

The article takes into account the exceptionality of Étienne de La Boétie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude sur la servitude volontaire within its historical context, when compared to other anti-tyrannical essays published in Sixteenth-Century France. The Discourse can be read as a sort of anachronistic criticism of the modern theory of sovereignty, since it connects the birth of a monar-chical power with the presence in every man of a desire to be identified with “the name of the One”. However, this process (...) of hallucinatory identification with a “master”, to whom the individual sacrifices his own singularity, can be fought by the capacity of human language to build a net of co-operation among men, which overthrows any close and static identity between individuals and power. Thus freedom appears to be not a natural and stable possess, but rather an uninterrupted and risky process of collective emancipation. (shrink)

In this article I take into examination Hannah Arendt’s original and influential “appropriation” of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, providing both a reconstruction and a critical interpretation of it. In the first section I basically contextualize Arendt’s interest in this topic by showing that it is connected to her more general concern with the wider and more comprehensive question of the crisis of Western civilization. Then, in the second and third sections of my article, I offer an (...) overview of Arendt’s conception of the crisis in culture and politics in the present age, and explain how this gradually led her to develop an original interpretation of Kant’s concept of Aesthetic Judgment in terms of a new and somehow unprecedented form of Political Judgment. The fourth section is dedicated to a brief excursus on Kant’s own treatment of the concept of Urteilskraft in some of his main works and some of his letters, in order to show that this concept for Kant has a broader and more complex meaning than one is sometimes used to think. Finally, in the fifth section I first focus on a few problematic aspects of Arendt’s “creative”, i.e. sometimes philologically inadequate, use of Kant’s concept of Aesthetic Judgment understood as a kind of Political Judgment, but then add that from a strictly philosophical point of view this interpretation has proved to be a very stimulating and enriching one, as testified by the fact that in the last decades it has produced a veritable Wirkungsgeschichte and has helped to develop the so-called “Paradigm of Judgment” in ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)