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)

We study smoking-cessation apps in order to formulate a framework for ethical evaluation, analyzing apps as ‘medium’, ‘market’, and ‘genre’. We center on the value of user autonomy through truthfulness and self-understanding. Smoking-cessation apps usually communicate in an anonymous ‘app voice’, with little presence of professional or other identified voices. Because of the fast-and-frugal communication, truthfulness is problematic. Messages in the ‘quantification’ modules may be read as deceitfully accurate. The app voice frames smoking as a useless, damaging habit indicative of (...) weakness of will, in a ‘cold-turkey’ frame of individual mind-over-body heroism. Thus apps contribute to a stigmatization of smokers and culpabilization of relapses. The potential to support user autonomy through diverse meaningful voices and personalized communication remains yet unused. (shrink)

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

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...

Romania was the first country in the Eastern bloc to initiate diplo­matic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany. On January 31, 1967, the Embassy of the FRG was opened in Bucharest, Romania. In this context, which marked the intensification of the cultural exchange between the two countries, with special attention paid to the exchange of students and researchers, in this article I aim to tackle the situation of the Humboldt fellows from Romania during 1965-1989, as agents of knowledge transfer (...) and actors of soft-power strategies between the two blocks. (shrink)

In an experiment on markets for services, we find that consumers are likely to stick to default tariffs and achieve suboptimal outcomes. We find that inattention to the task of choosing a better tariff is likely to be a substantial problem in addition to any task and tariff complexity effect. The institutional setup on which we primarily model our experiment is the UK electricity and gas markets, and our conclusion is that the new measures by the UK regulator Ofgem to (...) improve consumer outcomes are likely to be of limited impact. (shrink)

This article examines influential recent arguments in science studies which stress the interactive and mutually transformative nature of human-animal relations in scientific research, as part of a broader ontological proposal for science as material engagement with the world, rather than epistemic detachment from it. Such arguments are examined in the light of ethnography and interviews with field biologists who work with meerkats under conditions of habituation. Where philosophers of science stress the mutually modifying aspect of scientific interspecies relationality, these researchers (...) present habituation as a way to study meerkats ‘in the wild’, and to access their putatively natural, undisturbed, behaviour. Building on this contrast, I will argue that the logic of scientific habituation remains difficult to grasp as long as we think of it exclusively in terms of human-animal relations. The seeming ‘paradox’ of habituation – the idea that it transforms precisely that which it aims to hold stable, namely the ‘wildness’ of animals – is an artefact of a frame of analysis which takes animals to be the object of the science of animal behaviour. Habituation ceases to look paradoxical, however, if we remain faithful to these researchers’ own interests, for whom the scientific object does not coincide with the animal as a whole, but is rather only a selected subset of its behaviour. In conclusion I suggest that this account of habituation sheds a new light on the articulations and disjunctions between diverse practices and commitments in social anthropology, philosophy and biological science. (shrink)

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)

This comment on Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's article, “Zeno and the Art of Anthropology,” considers his definition of what it means to “take seriously” the world of the other, which he regards as the quintessential anthropological move. It means leaving the other's world in a state of suspended possibility, avoiding either belief or disbelief, assent or dissent. Candea's piece draws out the logic of the complementary and inverse move that grounds Viveiros de Castro's stance: “not taking seriously” the world of (...) the “same,” in this case, that of Western intellectuals such as Richard Rorty or Gilles Deleuze. Here “not taking seriously” involves (somewhat counterintuitively) argument, agreement and disagreement, rejection or adoption, of different visions. Candea identifies this controlled asymmetry between treatments of “us” and “them” as the major distinction between Viveiros de Castro's position and an older relativism, a difference that shields the former from the classic “self-refutation charge.” But this controlled asymmetry in turn raises the question of how we are to identify which visions we as anthropologists ought to take seriously and which we ought not to: where, in other words, do we draw the line, procedurally, between “us” and “them”? Candea argues that keeping this problematic and perhaps irresolvable question in view is the specific role of an “endo-anthropology” (the impossible figure of an “anthropology at home”), which is the necessary counterpart of Viveiros de Castro's “exo-anthropology.”. (shrink)

Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712) devoted more than 10 years of his life to developing a science of plants and vegetation, a project in which observation (often at the microscopic level) and experimentation played a prominent role. Grew started by composing a natural history of plants that was concerned with their anatomical structure and functioning, but, as I suggest, he also aimed to use observations and experiments to develop an experimental science that investigated the causes and principles of vegetation. Apart from studying (...) the structure of plants, Grew also treated them as instruments in which different chemical operations took place (such as filtration, digestion, fermentation, and the separation of particles of matter). At a methodological level, the science of plants and vegetation is a project based on experimental comparisons, variations, and extensions that, in some cases, led Grew to revise his explicative hypothesis. (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)

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)

This edited work presents contemporary mathematical practice in the foundational mathematical theories, in particular set theory and the univalent foundations. It shares the work of significant scholars across the disciplines of mathematics, philosophy and computer science. Readers will discover systematic thought on criteria for a suitable foundation in mathematics and philosophical reflections around the mathematical perspectives. The first two sections focus on the two most prominent candidate theories for a foundation of mathematics. Readers may trace current research in set theory, (...) which has widely been assumed to serve as a framework for foundational issues, as well as new material elaborating on the univalent foundations, considering an approach based on homotopy type theory (HoTT). The further sections then build on this and are centred on philosophical questions connected to the foundations of mathematics. Here, the authors contribute to discussions on foundational criteria with more general thoughts on the foundations of mathematics which are not connected to particular theories. This book shares the work of some of the most important scholars in the fields of set theory (S. Friedman), non-classical logic (G. Priest) and the philosophy of mathematics (P. Maddy). The reader will become aware of the advantages of each theory and objections to it as a foundation, following the latest and best work across the disciplines and it is therefore a valuable read for anyone working on the foundations of mathematics or in the philosophy of mathematics. (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)

During the sixteenth century Galen's De constitutione artis medicae enjoyed a great success: in about fifty years it received four different Latin translations and three commentaries. Certainly this is also true of other medical classical texts, but such success is surprising for a treatise which did not have a wide circulation either in the Middle Ages or in the seventeenth century and later. In fact it is preserved in its entirety in only one Greek manuscript and in a Latin translation (...) by Niccolò of Reggio, who worked mainly for King Robert I in Naples in the first half of the fourteenth century. Furthermore, in his edition of 1679 René Chartier made a mistake, which the humanistic editors of the Greek Galen had avoided. The last part of the De const, art. med. itself enjoyed a considerable fortuna as an independent tract on prognosis in the Greek and Latin manuscript tradition. The editors of the Aldine and the Basle editions knew such an excerptum, at least in the manuscript Par. gr. 2165 of the sixteenth century, and rightly decided not to print it. Chartier found it in the manuscript Par. gr. 2269 of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and published it in the wrong belief that it was a new treatise of Galen's . He was followed by Carl Gottlob Kühn in his edition of 1821, who printed the De const, art. med. in the first volume and the De praesagitura in vol. xix.497–511. The error was not publicly detected until Kalbfleisch in 1896. (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)

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.