The public intellectual has been the subject of a lively scholarly debate for over two decades, especially in the US. There, it is often said that intellectuals have increasingly lost interest in speaking to a broad public and engaging with important real-world issues. Advocates of this view condemn academics’ distance from reality and their propensity for abstract theorizing – something that it is said has been primarily inspired by Rawls’s normative political theory. Supporters of ‘engaged’ philosophy argue that this abstract (...) and ostensibly sophisticated framework is highly obscure to the public. In addition, its implicit moralism is at odds with the actual needs of the political realm towards which it is directed. This paper suggests that Rawls’s normative theory had a unique impact on Italian philosophy. Here, what I call the ‘public intellectual’ refers to a new approach to both political philosophy and intellectual activity, which was developed in Italy as a theoretical alternative to a more traditional ‘engaged’ model. (shrink)

In societies like Bosnia or Rwanda, deep divisions along ethnic and religious lines and the legacy of years of atrocities and violence pose serious challenges to liberal forms of consensus. People do not recognise themselves asmembers of a political community, and identity politics is pursued at the expense of liberal democratic projects and reconciliation programmes. This book explores the nature and role of civil society in deeply divided societies. Civil society is presented here as the spherewhere a shared 'culture of (...) civility' emerges. The 'culture of civility' enables individuals to become part of a community of citizens and accept to reciprocate on the basis of some basic universal values, such as the protection of human dignity. The last chapter on Bosnia shows that relevance of civil society crucially depends on its capacity to represent the sphere where individuals are able to recognize and deal with transitional issues by appealing to the Bosnian 'culture of civility' and developing a sense of justice based on a shared understanding of the idea of human dignity. (shrink)

Il est connu que le séjour à Paris a joué un rôle déterminant dans l’élaboration des pensées leibniziennes. Pendant cette période, Leibniz rencontre de nombreux savants, s’initie aux mathématiques et s’avère être particulièrement prolifique. Il semblerait que ce soit à cette période également que commencent à se développer les concepts centraux de sa philosophie. Les textes De la méthode de l’universalité I et II en sont un formidable exemple. Ils nous offrent un jeune projet leibnizien, surprenant, ingénieux et très ambitieux. (...) On y voit Leibniz proposer un nouveau système de notation, permettant de traiter la généralité, qu’il fait dialoguer avec des concepts comme l’harmonie ou la caractéristique qui le suivront toute sa vie. Le texte (II) est une introduction à cette nouvelle méthode, ses concepts et sa philosophie. Dans le texte (I), Leibniz détaille son système ambigu et pousse les considérations mathématiques assez loin pour être en mesure d’exhiber une équation générale capable d’engendrer toutes les sections coniques. Cet article propose une présentation des concepts, qu’ils soient mathématiques ou philosophiques, utilisés par Leibniz pour parvenir à ses fins. (shrink)

Giving Voice To Values (GVV) serves as a framework to teach individuals methods to speak up when they witness actions that are contrary to their professional and personal values. This essay illustrates how GVV serves as a catalyst to advance both research and teaching activities.

Contemporary political theory is characterised by a realistic critique of liberalism. Realist theorising is seen as avoiding foundational disagreements about justice mutating into second-order disputes concerning the justifiability of legitimate political institutions. In this sense, the realist critique challenges a key aspect of Rawls’ liberal project – that is, its justificatory constituency. McCabe’s Modus Vivendi Liberalism presents an interesting case of such a critique. Given the condition of deep pluralism that characterizes contemporary democracies, the liberal Justificatory Requirement (JR) should be (...) recast so to include those, illiberal or sceptical, who are excluded by Rawls’ justificatory constituency. This paper confronts McCabe’s modus vivendi justificatory project with Rawls view. It suggests that both views seem to endorse a practice-dependent account of political justice in which “politics is prior to morality”; yet the ways in which reasons are endorsed to justify the shared conception of political authority are significantly different in these two schemes. The paper shows that the most problematic aspect of McCabe contingent model is that it disconnects the idea of legitimacy from a conception of liberal political morality. On this account, political legitimacy that reflects the uncoercive character of extant institutions seems to be sufficient to meet the MVL JR. Yet, from a normative point of view, this might be not enough to ensure morally acceptable outcomes. In conclusion, the paper considers McCabe’s model as a version of ‘practice-independent’ moral theorizing committed to a transcendent view of ‘threshold morality’. This move, however, comes at the cost of sacrificing the theory’s premises of anti-perfectionism and realism. (shrink)

In his Democratic justice and the social contract, Weale presents a distinctive contingent practice-dependent model of ‘democratic justice’ that relies heavily on a condition of just social and political relations among equals. Several issues arise from this account. Under which conditions might such just social and political relations be realised? What ideal of equality is required for ‘democratic justice’? What are its implications for the political ideal of citizenship? This paper focuses on these questions as a way to critically reconsider (...) Weale’s model. After presenting Weale’s procedural constructivism, I distinguish his model from an institutional practicedependent model, one salient example of which is Rawls’s political constructivism. This distinction allows for a formulation of the social and political equality required for justice in each case. The contingent model assumes that an equality of ‘status’ will generate just social practices, yet it fails to recognise that an equality of ‘role’ is also important to ensure citizens’ compliance. The paper ultimately seeks to show that the contingent model is insufficient to ensure that just social practices will become stable. (shrink)

Giving Voice To Values (GVV) serves as a framework to teach individuals methods to speak up when they witness actions that are contrary to their professional and personal values. This essay illustrates how GVV serves as a catalyst to advance both research and teaching activities.

Negli ultimi anni di vita Giovanni Gentile aveva in progetto una Storia della Filosofia che abbracciasse tutta la materia dalle origini ai giorni nostri. La morte tragica nel 1944 non gli permise di portare a compimento l'opera, che si ferma a Platone: ritrovata tra le sue carte, è stata ricostruita e pubblicata postuma. Pur incompleta, rappresenta un'accurata panoramica del pensiero greco antico, a partire dai filosofi naturalisti fino ai presocratici e ai capisaldi Socrate e Platone, tramite una scrittura appassionata, al (...) tempo stesso accessibile e ricca di dettagli. (shrink)

The article focuses on the unifying and explanatory power of the selective realism defended by Anjan Chakravartty. Our main aim is twofold. First, we critically analyse the purported synthesis between entity realism and structural realism offered by the author. We give reasons to think that this unification is an inconvenient marriage. In the second step, we deal with certain controversial aspects of the intended unification among three metaphysical concepts: causation, laws of nature and natural kinds. After pointing out that Chakravartty’s (...) conception of laws is a plausible view that a scientific realist might endorse, we contend, on the contrary, that the concept of natural kind is dispensable in the framework of Chakravartty’s realism. (shrink)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we conduct daily life, as well as sports training and sports competitions. Given the stress produced by COVID-19, and the “bubble” safety measures for the World Sambo Championship, held in Novi Sad, from the 6th to the 8th of November, 2020, athletes might have experienced more stress than athletes normally would in non-pandemic conditions. Therefore, the current study aimed to create a psychological profile of sambo athletes participating in the Sambo World Championship (...) and living in this condition.Methods: One-hundred-fifteen participants took part in the study, completing the Profile of Mood Scale, the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Fear of COVID-19 Scale. A mediation model with Fear of COVID-19 predicting both stress level directly and stress level through mood disturbance was hypothesized. Gender differences were evaluated through t-test.Results: The results showed that the sample presented higher levels of stress but no problems in sleeping. In particular, data analysis confirmed an indirect effect of Fear of COVID on Perceived stress through mood disturbance, but did not have a significant impact on the direct effect. Gender differences emerged in the perceived stress level and daytime dysfunction where females scored higher than males for both aspects.Conclusion: The athletes participating to the World Sambo Championship experienced stress levels determined by the mood disturbance produced by the fear of the COVID-19 pandemic. Female athletes were more stressed and showed higher daytime dysfunction. The findings of the current study are useful to understand the psychological profile of the athletes competing in the “bubble” conditions during COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

In his attempt to put forward an empiricist version of structuralism, van Fraassen develops an approach to scientific representation and models which has been the object of several critiques. Here we cover the “Loss of Reality Objection”, namely, that reality itself would play no role in science if science could only refer to mathematical models. We examine and dismiss the solution offered by van Fraassen. Finally, we offer an alternative solution path.

The power, wealth and impact of multinational corporations now exceed that of many national govern ments, and this fact has created an expectation that corporations have a responsibility to manage their impacts on the wider social context. Although these observations are increasingly cited as 'truisms' in the business press and in policy debates, few business schools have given attention to the management of social impacts into their core curriculum. In this article the author raises the question that, if business leaders, (...) pol icy makers, NGOs and even the media agree there is a need, why is there so little expressed demand from business who recruit at business schools? The work done at the Aspen Institute has been presented in this regard. The Aspen Institute's Initiative for Social Innovation through Business has taken a system atic look at both the 'demand' for and the 'supply' of business education that addresses the interdependence between business needs and wider societal concerns. By means of global dialogues among CEOs and lead ers of the public, NGOs and academic sectors, as well as through surveys, focus groups and traditional research, Aspen ISIB has gathered data that illuminates this question of supply and demand, and also sug gests powerful levers for influencing what business scholars research and what business educators teach about the management of social impacts. (shrink)

In deeply divided societies (DDS) – those having experienced episodes of ethnic or religious mass violence – thousands of survivors must confront the challenge of reconstructing their public identity, split between their tragic human experience as victims and their political obligations as citizens. They are required to cooperate precisely with those who are, in their eyes, responsible for the crimes perpetrated against them. Is liberal democratic theory able to respond to such deep divisions? Is democracy, even, compatible with the reconciliation (...) that in these societies is a priority? Building on the idea that certain cultural conditions are important for securing the stability of liberal democracy, this paper presents an account of deliberative reconciliation appropriate to the context of DDS and which provides guidance in such circumstances of unmitigated pluralism. Deliberative reconciliation works with those elements of background culture that disclose some forms of civility within society. This is the culture of civility: a deliberative consensus, which enables former enemies to become part of a community of equals and to reciprocate on the basis of some shared political values, thus displaying support for liberal democratic institutions. (shrink)

Across almost a decade, Desmond Tutu, Anglican cleric and chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, supported a model of civil resistance against the apartheid regime based solely on religious argument. Tutu is one of what Appleby (2000) calls the “religious militants for peace”: people of faith who use religious arguments to buttress resistance against unjust regimes and to support vital political change with regard to rights and justice. Yet the employment of religious arguments to justify political action seems (...) to contradict the liberal democratic requirements of public reason, particularly the duty of liberal citizens to provide reasons that others could reasonably endorse. If “religious militants” violate their duty of civility by appealing to their comprehensive doctrines, should liberal democracy exclude this form of religiously founded dissent as being unreasonable? Or, rather, should liberal democracy embrace and support the efforts of “religious militants” to enhance and/or restore political justice? (shrink)

The Giving Voice to Values pedagogy and curriculum is described as an example of a powerful leverage point in the integration of business ethics and values-driven leadership across the business curriculum. GVV is post-decision-making in that it identifies an ethical course of action and asks practitioners to identify who are the parties involved and what’s at stake for them; what are the main arguments to be countered; and what levers that can be used to influence those who are in disagreement. (...) The internalization of GVV’s constructs allows faculty to comfortably raise and endorse ethics as part of the natural order of business decision-making because the stakes of doing so have been normalized. Methods for introducing and using GVV in undergraduate through MBA courses are given. An illustration is given for economics courses. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine whether Wenar's Bloody Oil ( 2016) succeeds in providing a theory able to accommodate the statist commitment to peoples’ sovereignty without dismissing the cosmopolitan concern regarding a just global market. Contextualising Blood Oil within the broader debate on global justice and resource ownership, I focus on some specific aspects of Wenar’s Clean Trade scheme and explain why it comes to quite radical conclusions. Yet, if these conclusions are taken seriously, Clean Trade seems too demanding from (...) the point of view of a statist account of justice. For cosmopolitans, too, the lack of normative justification for any alleged national resource sovereignty might weaken this position, especially for those who might oppose arguments to justify different forms of resource ownership. I will therefore discuss two problems with Wenar’s theory. First, I will show that, in spite of its statist premises, Wenar’s radical conclusions hardly pass the test of anti-paternalism. Is the Clean Trade scheme able to accommodate the demand of pluralism emerging in the Society of Peoples? Second, I focus on an issue that is neglected in Wenar’s book and which refers directly to the normative basis of resources ownership. I argue that this is a crucial issue, especially in contexts where the traditional idea of national sovereignty is contested, which often occurs in resource-cursed societies. (shrink)

Religions and religious actors are increasingly associated with extremism and violence. A mainstream view that sees religions as prone to violence has been affirmed within the West. Yet, to affirm that religions promote anti-democratic projects and are inclined to violence can only partially capture the impact of religious voices in contemporary societies. In fact, religions have often played an important role in promoting democratic transition and religiously inspired doctrines have importantly supported peace and reconciliation processes in divided societies. This paper (...) argues that the mainstream view reproduces and extends a traditional liberal wariness toward the alleged incendiary role of religions in politics, the so-called doctrine of religious restraint. This view, I argue, is based on a misinterpretation of contemporary liberal theory and, especially, of Rawls’s Political Liberalism. The paper shows that Rawls’s framework instead provides an extensive accommodation of religions in political life. Starting from this premise, this paper responds to the mainstream view by focussing on the role of religious actors and sensitivities in reconciling divided societies. (shrink)

Following the book Algebraic Set Theory from André Joyal and leke Moerdijk [8], we give a characterization of the initial ZF-algebra, for Heyting pretoposes equipped with a class of small maps. Then, an application is considered (the effective topos) to show how to recover an already known model (McCarty [9]).

In 1463 Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin at the request of Cosimo de’ Medici, employing a Greek manuscript recently brought to Florence from Macedonia. Yet even earlier, in his youthful writings, Ficino had cited Hermes, drawing on the available late ancient and medieval Latin sources and treating him both as a forerunner of Plato and as a witness to the Trinitarian nature of God. Since the first half of the fifteenth century, other humanists had shown a particular interest (...) in Hermetic sources concerning the nature of God, which was linked to the revived study of the Church Fathers, above all Lactantius. This interpretation of a Platonic Hermes in partial agreement with the Christian religion was based mainly on the similarities between the Timaeus and the Asclepius and was influenced by the School of Chartres; it remained a fixed point in Ficino’s conception of Platonic philosophy. (shrink)

The core of Hegelian idealism is the concept of dialectic, the soul of logic and the fundamental law of reality in all its forms. This dialectic is as vastly different from Platonic dialectic as the categories or pure concepts of the Transcendental Logic in the Critique of Pure Reason are from Plato’s ideas and Aristotle’s universals, and its character cannot be more plainly indicated than by this very contrast of the category with the Platonic idea and the Aristotelian universals.