La rigorización de Buroni a la metafísica de Rosmini

Hobbes and Hume in relation to Kant

The author of the article proves that M. Kurochkin in his drama “Kitchen” creates an interesting effect of the “kitchen in the castle” chronotope with the help of fantasy. In that play, the locus of the German medieval castle of the 5th century, which arose under the influence of the Nibelungenlied, is clear: here the epic heroes speak in a high style and follow the storyline of the source. The second locus is the kitchen in a Russian restaurant stylized as a castle: it is inhabited by restaurant employees (from its owner to a cleaning lady), whose language is distinguished by humor and everyday expressions. However, the high verse discourse of the locus of the German castle gradually flows into the locus of the kitchen. Locus of the medieval castle of the 5th century. and the locus of the kitchen. in a Russian restaurant of the late 1990s, stylized as a castle, flowing over each other, gradually reveal Kurochkin’s special metaphysics. In the play, the “kitchen in the castle” chronotope is present from the very beginning as a special metaphysical and fantastic world, but it does not appear immediately, but only when two loci are superimposed on each other.

This paper focuses on the role played by Philippe Pinel’s Traite medico-philosophique sur l’alienation mentale (1800), a fundamental text in 19th century European psychiatry, in Antonio Rosmini’s discussion of mental alienation, as it is developed in Antropologia in servizio della scienza morale (1844). As a secondary objective, our analysis aims at understanding whether Rosmini’s use of the Traite can help modify the critics’ assessment of Pinel’s figure and work, with particular regard to Michel Foucault’s well-known thesis in Histoire de la folie a l’âge classique (1961).

This article deals with the perception of the German academic model in 19th and early 20th century Italy. The high popularity of the model up to the first world war was based upon a selective perception of its constituent parts: the freedom of teaching and learning, the idealized role of the Privatdozent, the competition in and among the universities, the prevalence of scientific aims over educational ones. The debate in the press, in parliament, university journals and the academic world shows that the German model, altough generally well known, was often exploited. In fact, even if many authors warned of superficial comparisons and the difficulty of an application to the Italian situation, the model supplied arguments for nearly each participant in the Italian university reform debate since the middle of the 19th century.

Tian Yu Cao has written a serious and scholarly book covering a great deal of physics. He ranges from classical relativity theory, both special and general, to relativistic quantum field theory, including non-Abelian gauge theory, renormalization theory, and symmetry-breaking, presenting a detailed and very rich picture of the mainstream developments in quantum physics; a remarkable feat. It has, moreover, a philosophical message: according to Cao, the development of these theories is inconsistent with a Kuhnian view of theory change, and supports better a qualified realism. Covering so much ground, it would be churlish to criticize the book on points of detail; the remarkable thing is that it was written at all. I should give warning of some general deficiencies, however. The style of writing can be off-putting; a great deal of background is presupposed; and the ideas are treated historically, without the clarity of hindsight. The last may be appropriate for a work in the history of science, and sometimes it is a good idea when doing philosophy of science, or when studying the foundations of modern physics; but it is not I think in this case. The ideas are too difficult; one loses sight of the wood for the trees. Cao surveys an immense number of trees, especially in the second and third part of the book, devoted to quantum field theory and gauge theory respectively (the first is concerned with general relativity); as a guide and bibliography for historians and philosophers of physics it will, I think, prove invaluable; but as a philosophical and historical review of these theories it is much less satisfactory. All the same, Cao has something important to say. I shall read him as making two principal claims. The first is what he says it is: these theories are intertwined, and provide clear evidence of continuity of development, preserving what he calls “structural” aspects of phenomena (or theories of phenomena). He speaks of this in terms of “ontological synthesis”; he supposes that this is at odds with Kuhn’s views on the nature of scientific change. The second claim is largely tacit. It is that the conceptual problems and foundational questions of quantum physics, including questions of ontology, realism, and truth, have nothing to do with the problem of measurement in quantum mechanics. In fact Cao completely ignores the problem of measurement, dismissing out of hand its modern treatment by physicists and philosophers of physics. In Cao’s words: We shall leave aside metaphysical speculations and unsuccessful physical attempts (such as the hidden-variable hypothesis, or hydrodynamic and stochastic interpretations) and concentrate on the interpretations that acted as guides in the historical development of quantum physics.

Gerhard Rudolph : Haller's physiological method. The work of Albrecht von Haller, in the middle of the 18th Century, constitutes a turning-point in the study of vital phenomena. His method, expounded in numerous publications, helped by his didactic gifts, became the basis for modern biomedical research. On the one hand it is made up of critically analysed historical components (exhaustive bibliographies), and on the other it emphasizes methodical observation and highly rigorous experimentation. By adopting chemical and physical principles, he eliminated the prejudices and metaphysical speculation which still marred physiology, in order to achieve as great a degree of scientific certainty as possible. Thus the Swiss scientist, who was close to the Encyclopedists, can be seen as a defender of the Enlightenment, which he helped to spread beyond its historical limits.

The significance of A. N. Whitehead's contribution to 20th century metaphysics has become widely recognized. The focus on the novelty of his process ontology, however, has led to a view that isolates him from the mainstream of the tradition of Western philosophy. Hence, it is often overlooked that on the methodological level Whitehead is a pragmatist, whose much quoted indebtedness to William James is reflected in the project of his speculative metaphysics. A detailed analysis of the respective theories of truth and knowledge in James and Whitehead illustrates their common methodological approach and allows us to assess the role of Whiteheadian thinking within the pragmatist tradition. James advances a form of epistemic conservatism that supplements the pragmatic idea of a concept's cash-value with the demand for internal consistency. New beliefs have to fit in the totality of all previously accepted convictions in order to become accepted as true. James argues his case on three levels – a psychological, an epistemological and a pragmatic one – and develops a theory of truth that comprises an empirical and a rational dimension. Whitehead takes up this two-sided approach, but modifies the idea of genetic consistency into that of systematic coherence. The fundamental concepts of an ontological theory must not be isolated from each other to allow for a cosmology which is both rational and satisfies the pragmatic test of applicability. With the close relation of James and Whitehead in mind, the latter can be identified as the 'missing link' that bridges the gap between the so-called classical pragmatism and its more analytic versions as advanced by Quine, Lewis and Rescher.

Abstract. In the first quarter of the 20th century, Thorstein Veblen ranked with John Dewey, George H. Mead, and Charles Sanders Peirce among the topmost American original and creative thinkers. In Italy he was the subject of much debate and dialogue but the perception of his scholarly work evolved through several phases. He was seen first as a forerunner of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Then as a leading figure in institutional economics. Finally as a social scientist pioneering in the interdisciplinary approach to analysis and to the formulation of public policy, as well as an early Futurologist But his considerable influence in America contrasts with his lack of influence in Italy, probably because cultural differences hamper understanding.

The present work aims to remember and celebrate Professor Sergio Cotta, who died in May 2007. This philosopher was one of the most important 20th century scholars of natural law doctrine. His ontological-phenomenological path in the field of law, as developed in Il diritto nell'esistenza, is characterized by some fundamental questions: What is the law like? , Why law? and, eventually, Why law instead of the lack of law? In addition to these, the Author poses another question: Why is the law the way it is today, in post-modern age?” Cotta believes that the onto-phenomenological structure of human being, a being in relation, gives a whole understanding of law, of its both synchronic and diachronic presence. Among his most important contributions in favour of the often disputed 20th century natural law doctrine, we can mention, first of all, his convincing rebutting of the charge of naturalistic fallacy (David Hume) to natural law, by means of an innovative elaboration of the onto-phenomenological perspective of the human being considered as the basis of law. We can also mention his overcoming of the narrow-minded reductionist views about law, like policy-and-state-oriented law and economy oriented law. Keeping close to Antonio Rosmini, even if from a different philosophical background, Cotta believes that the just law origins from the onto-phenomenological and co-existential structure of the human being. In the second paragraph, referring to Gunther Anders, the Author highlights the signs of contemporary decadence, related to post-modern age, where the unique and powerful subject of worldwide history is pluto-tecnocracy. Essential symbols of this new and decayed existential condition may be considered Auschwitz and Hiroshima. The most evident outcomes of post-modern age on social and normative (legal and moral) order are both the dissolution of an authentic co-existence within a common world and the spread of forms of colonization and submission of human being, defined by Anders as mass-hermit. The Jew-German philosopher describes the profound transformations of traditional law and morality in terms of moral agnosticism (which is not ethical indifferentism) and normative scepticism. His philosophical anthropology in the age of technology is irreversibly directed from the already obsolete not-yet, as getting ready and waiting for a possible change, towards the apocalyptic no-longer. The Author's question: Why is the law the way it is in post-modern age? refers to the research of a concrete re-orientation towards the not-yet, in order to redeem Anders' pure apocalyptical perspective. Indeed, we cannot deny that today the just law is being replaced by another kind of law, which may have contents, forms and aims diametrically opposed to those of the just law. This different kind of law is a shadow of the former one. The Author refers to Paul Ricoeur's attempt to combine a though difficult dialectic (mediation) between love, in the sense of beyond-measure, and justice, in the sense of procedural form aimed at the application of the rule-measure. In this path, coming back to Sergio Cotta and his opus maius, the Author views charity and love in their highest axiological projection which, even if with difficulties and effort, might involve and positively contaminate justice itself. In the end, the waiting for a change, that is the not-yet, fills and overwhelms with the contents of charity, a theological virtue, poured off into justice, a cardinal virtue.

A painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “Tower of Babel,” depicts a strange minaret-like structure, ramshackle, unfinished, and already decaying. The project has miscarried, according to the Biblical tale on which the painting is based, due to the confusion of languages imposed by a wrathful divinity on vain humankind. In the distant background is a noble and placid succession of mountains, providing an effective foil to the frenzied but ultimately pointless activities of the linguistically confused builders, assembled together from the surrounding depopulated plain and swarming around their structure like so many droning insects. This strikes me as an apt image for the predominant attitudes underlying the vast majority of readings of the tradition of German Idealism, beginning already early in the 19th century and continuing unbroken to today. Like the majestic peaks rising in the distance of Bruegel’s work, the great systems of German Idealism have generally been regarded as pinnacles of modern metaphysical speculation, proceeding with their sublime business admirably unconcerned by and oblivious to the mindless hordes, both historically preceding and succeeding them, who have fallen into the trap of focusing upon language and its never plumb resources rather than “the eternal truths” themselves.

François Thurot’s Discours préliminaire (1796), a first attempt at a historiography of grammar, sums up the language theories of the philosophes, while prefiguring the 19th century in both his concept of language and his attitude towards the science of language. He accepts, for instance, the theory that the perfection of a language reflects the progress of the mind but rejects the metaphysical speculation on the origin of language that characteristically accompanied such a theory. And although Thurot, like his contemporaries, still preoccupies himself with the method of logico-linguistic analysis which would lead to a langue bien faite, his study opens up to a new variety of linguistic phenomena in the vernacular. Thus, his view of language embraces both the mechanical reductionism aimed at scientific language with its pretention to universality as well as the creative dynamism of discursive language with its recognition of cultural relativity. Furthermore, Thurot assimilates the interest in the genetic relationship among languages, that was already in the air, to the historicism of the philosophes, whose historical tableaux unfolded within their theories of language. Thurot’s interest in natural language is an outgrowth of the prevailing ‘climate of opinion’. The data-oriented approach to language had begun with the invention of the printing press, from which time there was an ever increasing accumulation and distribution of material on non-European languages. The French Revolution was to dramatize the importance of discursive language, since the unification of the nation depended, in part, on the democratization and standardization of daily language. Such a climate proved favorable for subsequent work on genetic classification and on Indo-European in the 19th century.

Petrilli, E., & Beccaria, F. (2015). The Italian “alcohol question” from 1860 to 1930: Two opposing scientific interpretations. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4(1), 37-43. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.193Background: In recent years, English-speaking and Northern European alcohol researchers have turned a historical gaze towards their subject, and in particular have explored how a medical view attempted to describe and explain phenomena such as alcohol abuse and addiction. Although there was a heated and prolific debate in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there are few historical studies of the first scholars’ thoughts on alcohol-related problems.Aims: The article depicts how the Italian scientific community interpreted and explained alcohol-related concerns following the emergence of the alcohol issue in the late 19th century. Specifically, the stances of the two main groups of scientists who dealt with the issue, the Positive School of Criminology and Legal Socialism, are examined.Method: The article is based on the materials collected by the Italian research group during a comparative study carried out as part of the ALICE RAP project. More than 40 books and five scientific journals were consulted.Results: Medical-related concerns were never predominant in the late 19th-century Italian debate on the alcohol question, but were addressed in the broader discussion of criminality, where positivists’ and legal socialists’ perspectives both focused mainly on social consequences, albeit with differing interpretations of causalities and remedies.

Petrilli, E., & Beccaria, F. (2015). The Italian “alcohol question” from 1860 to 1930: Two opposing scientific interpretations. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4(1), 37-43. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.193Background: In recent years, English-speaking and Northern European alcohol researchers have turned a historical gaze towards their subject, and in particular have explored how a medical view attempted to describe and explain phenomena such as alcohol abuse and addiction. Although there was a heated and prolific debate in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there are few historical studies of the first scholars’ thoughts on alcohol-related problems.Aims: The article depicts how the Italian scientific community interpreted and explained alcohol-related concerns following the emergence of the alcohol issue in the late 19th century. Specifically, the stances of the two main groups of scientists who dealt with the issue, the Positive School of Criminology and Legal Socialism, are examined.Method: The article is based on the materials collected by the Italian research group during a comparative study carried out as part of the ALICE RAP project. More than 40 books and five scientific journals were consulted.Results: Medical-related concerns were never predominant in the late 19th-century Italian debate on the alcohol question, but were addressed in the broader discussion of criminality, where positivists’ and legal socialists’ perspectives both focused mainly on social consequences, albeit with differing interpretations of causalities and remedies.

The multi-author Essays in Later Mediaeval Metaphysics focuses primarily on 13th and 14th century Latin treatments of some of the most important metaphysical issues as conceived by many of the most important thinkers of the day. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, John Buridan, Dietrich of Freiburg, Robert Holcot, Walter Burley, and the 11th century Islamic philosopher Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) are among the figures examined here. The work begins with standard ontological topics—e.g., the nature of existence, and of metaphysics generally; the status of universals, form, and accidents. Here, a number of questions are considered. What is the proper subject matter of metaphysical speculation? Are essence and existence really distinct in bodies? Furthermore, does the body lose its unifying form at death? Can an accident of a substance exist in separation from that substance? Are universals real, and if so, are they anything more than general concepts? There is also an emphasis on metaphysics broadly conceived. Thus, discussions of theories of mediaeval logic, epistemology, and language are added to provide a fuller account of the range of ideas included in the later mediaeval worldview. Many questions are raised in this context as well. What are the objects of propositional attitudes? How does Aristotelian logic stand up against modern predicate calculus? Are infinite regress arguments defensible in metaphysical contexts? How are the notions of analogy and equivocation related to the concept of being? Contributors include scholars of mediaeval philosophy from across North America: Rega Wood (Indiana), Gyula Klima (Fordham), Brian Francis Conolly (Bard College at Simon’s Rock ), Charles Bolyard (James Madison), Martin Tweedale (emeritus, Alberta), Jack Zupko (Winnipeg), Susan Brower-Toland (St. Louis), Rondo Keele (Louisiana Scholars’ College), Terence Parsons (UC-Irvine), and E. J. Ashworth (emeritus, Waterloo).

First of all let me wholeheartedly thank all those who have responded for their helpful comments and careful readings. In this reply I would like first to discuss points dealing with the history of concepts related to ‘hunter-gatherers’, before pursuing the implications for contemporary prehistories. One preliminary note: van de Velde and Bogucki both point to the many advantages of Enlightenment thought (or reason). There are many political and scientific reasons to concur. I certainly have no desire to throw out the baby with the bathwater and return to metaphysical speculation as a substitute for archaeological and historical practice. I would also like to respond directly to van de Velde's comments about Adam Kuper (1988). Kuper's book, though also a work of critical anthropological history, is concerned with the later nineteenth century onwards and the idea of ‘primitive society’ characterised by certain forms of social and religious organisation, rather than subsistence (Kuper 1988, 5–7). I have argued elsewhere (Pluciennik 2001, 744–746) that this is typical of certain nineteenth-century European anthropologists and highlights a moment of divergence between ethnologists and archaeologists. Van de Velde also queries the omission of the ‘noble savage’ strand of Enlightenment thought from the paper. Certainly the recognition that there could be markedly different societies was sometimes used to critique the perceived excesses and artifices of the writer's society or of ‘civilisation’ more generally (Berkhofer 1978, 72–80; Carey 1998). However I would argue generally that the ‘noble savage’ has tended to be a minority construct adopted for strategic rhetorical and literary purposes (even if there was a revival from the 1960s with the ecologically noble savage: Buege 1996). Indeed Ellingson (2001) has recently proposed that even the trope of the noble savage was largely a 19th century invention, a myth constructed by racists to provide a stick with which to beat ‘liberals’. I disagree, in that the image of ‘Others’ supposedly without the corruption and vices of modern civilisation has long been utilised to construct alternatives to contemporary conditions and to progressive social evolutionary scenarios, with foragers supplying ‘evidence’ of an Edenic place, a Golden Age past, or degenerative human histories.