This paper deals with the interpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone as developed by Jacques Lacan in the Book VII of the Seminar. In contrast with traditional ethical analyses from Aristotle to Kant, the author emphasizes the absolute and radical desire of Antigone, whose fulfillment leads to the ultimate limit of life. In spite of her extreme rigidity, Antigone represents the possibility of assuming ethically one’s own desire, accepting its paradoxical dimension. Therefore, the psychoanalytic interpretation of the tragedy Antigone leads to accept desire’s destabilizing force. From this point of view, the practice of analysis finds an effective contribution in the experience of tragedy: in this sense, it is possible to highlight the relationship between an action and the desire that inhabits it. Through the contrasting readings given by Slavoj Žižek and Massimo Recalcati, this paper is aimed to show how the ethical dimension of Sophocles’ Antigone does not match with the ideals of traditional ethics, but allows us to explore the limit of human desire.

With his 1997 TV adaptation of Franz Kafka’s Das Schlos (The Castle), the Austrian director Michael Haneke explores what he calls «Kafka’s fragmentary, ambiguous perception of reality». Defying TV audience expectations, The Castle develops a specific strategy contrasting with the rapid and overwhelming deluge of information transmission that Haneke points out to be the standard for «electronic media». But more specifically, The Castle’s fragmented style appears to put into question a metaphysical construal of ‘Truth’ and ‘Values’ as self-sufficient dimensions existing, unaffected, behind the sensible world of appearances. This must not lead to a relativistic stance. Rather, such a style brings to light the essential perspectival structure of our experience, calling for an approach to reality that forestalls the dichotomies of true vs. false, essence vs. appearance, or fact vs. interpretation.

While it may at first sight seem strange that Kant decides to spend seven pages of the third Critique discussing jokes and laughter, it would be a mistake to conclude that these considerations are irrelevant to his aesthetic theory and general philosophical goals. Laughter at humour is an important and meaningful human experience, worthy of attention and philosophical analysis. In particular, then, I maintain that laughter in response to humour does not, on Kant’s view, count as a pure aesthetic judgment. But, I argue, if one grants that laughter at humour can lead to a pure aesthetic judgment, the judging in response t​o a humorous joke would be analogous, but not identical, to the experiences of the sublime and the beautiful. Finally, I argue that humour-elicited laughter, as a play with aesthetic ideas and thoughts, is of interest to reason since offers a hint of reason’s activity in the sensible world.

Research relating to the definition of man is an activity that has engaged Kant since the beginning of his philosophy and, in this regard, an important contribution can be drawn from the theory of the sublime. The sublime is one of the undisputed protagonists of the Critique of the power of judgement, but its role is not limited to the completion of aesthetic theory, as it also stands out for its ability to render an exhaustive portrait of man in Kant's philosophy.

The application of financial market criteria to the art world has profoundly changed the reception of works of art. It is channelled through a private circuit of auction houses, galleries and collections, which monopolise the modalities of exhibition to the public and arbitrarily select works and artists, often conforming the taste of the spectators essentially to market criteria. This phenomenon is particularly important in the case of photography, which still remains, especially in some countries, on the fringes of the cultural system of museums and large exhibition spaces.

The quality of working conditions have a direct impact on the individuals’ quality of life and level of well-being. Attention to well-being in work environments has become a matter of great interest for legislators. However, the well-being concept has not yet found a legal definition. The first commitment to achieve a global well-being strategy was made by the World Health Organisation. The European Union claims that a positive relationship between work and well-being is a necessary factor to reach greater economic and social progress, since full and quality employment is one of the main elements of economic stability and social cohesion in a country. The Italian regulatory framework consists of various legislative provisions: the importance of the workers’ good health and quality of life has generated a complex regulatory system. In the digital society the potential health risks associated with the use of IT tools and the risk of an increased overlapping between work and personal life should not be overlooked.

In this paper, I consider the relationship that obtains between disgust and the idea of a just society. Contra Martha C. Nussbaum, who argues that disgust poses dangers to a just society, I contend that disgust can either damage or promote the construction of a just society. In fact, I largely agree with Nussbaum’s perspective on disgust, except for this point: disgust, I think, is not necessarily dangerous for a just society, but can also be useful and constitute an important element for its development. In order to justify my claim, first, I will comment on Nussbaum’s criticism of disgust. Second, I will analyse Paul Rozin and April E. Fallon’s seminal study on disgust, which Nussbaum’s own research fully presupposes. Third, I will outline a slightly different, indeed “holistic” view on disgust, and bring forward some arguments for the use of disgust in order to construct a just society.

A neo-phenomenological and atmospherological approach, mainly based on a first-person perspective, seems perfectly entitled to consider subjective and collective well-being as the starting point for a (non-quantitative) philosophical reflection. The question is, however, whether and how well-being, also as an atmosphere, can be really investigated and verified. The paper examines many traditional roblems hindering the research (difficulty in investigating it directly, degree of extent, intensity, comparison-dependence, temporal development, consistency, and continuity) and suggests to analyze well-being from a pathic-atmospheric point of view. It therefore focuses especially on the idea of “flow”, wonders how much our well-being depends on the felt-bodily resonances triggered by atmospheric situations, considers the probable parallels between the aesthetic-phenomenologic notion of “atmosphere” and the sociological one of “climate”, finally, underlines the (also political) need of an atmospheric competence that is able to partly immunize against today’s widespread manipulative atmospherization.

The concept of well-being is correlated with social indicators linked in turn with the classical notion of “the good life”. The paper, instead, emphasizes the importance of relational aspects. It develops a reflection on the dialectic of interpersonal and systemic trust and mistrust, and it analyzes different semantic nuances of the notion of trust. A society characterized by well-being evidences strong type agency, a society with low levels of well being evidences weak type agency. Trust is a social resource indispensable for sustaining agency, society’s self-transformation and well-being. While trust is traditionally thought to contribute to social cohesion, mistrusting the rulers can also be considered a positive countervailing force in contemporary democracies. At the same time, the distrust sedimented in time creates, on the one hand, a saving expectation and on the other, paternalisation as a search for a substitute trust.

Two rival conceptions of well-being are reconstructed and contrasted, which have contended for philosophical pre-eminence throughout the Western conversation of philosophy. One view understands well-being as a life course in which as many as possible of a subject’s preferences are satisfied. The other view understands well-being as a life course in which some unique project of the subject comes to be realized. In the second part of the paper the aggregative view of well-being, championed by Hobbes and Locke is shown to correlate with a radically or moderately understanding of freedom, and the holistic view of well-being with a positive notion of freedom, championed by Rousseau, Kierkegaard and Kohut. After showing how some of the conceptual difficulties of the radically negative view of freedom reverberate on the aggregative notion of well-being, in the final section some constitutive dimensions of the holistic view are discussed.