Metabasis N. 14
digital edition
peer review
Each essay of this journal is reviewed by two anonymous referees and their comments are sent to the authors .
Fragments 2
November 2012 - Year VII - Number 14
Philosophical Horizons
On transgender or the post-modern androgynous’ archetype. Reflections and symbolic paradigms for a contemporary body experience interpretation
Alessio Berto
This paper present, under a symbolic interpretation of the transgender’s figure, a short analysis of archetypical elements that contribute the development of this bioethic phenomenon in the contemporary society. Social transformations, as well as cultural disease and a lonely living way of life provided by technology, spread out of the collective inconscious the power of archetypal elements, such as androgynous one, that find their hypostatization on the individual body. The research of the other and a strong need to contact with the outside in order to prove and impose himself will in the community – considering the lonely situation and the impossibility to proceed – leave the subject in a state of confusion that find his signification through the creation of a new human body concept.
The end of Decolonization and the Arab spring
Francesco Caddeo
In front of a wave of riots called “Arab Spring”, that is renovating many regimes of Northern Africa and of Middle East, we can now reconsider the whole process of decolonization: the hopeful season of independence from colonial power is finished and it has produced just some authoritarian brutal political systems. Today, we can find also many roots of the new opened era in the Islamic Iranian revolution of 1978-1979: this will be moreover the occasion to read some writings by Michal Foucault and Jean-Paul Sartre and to be helped by them in analyzing riot’s forces.
Quine and Naturalised Epistemology
Juan Canseco
The foundationalist position in epistemology is unsatisfactory. A coherentist approach seems more promising, but coherentism is often thought to imply that epistemology as traditionally conceived needs to be replaced by a revised or improved version, usually called naturalised epistemology. Quine in particular has argued for this claim. In this article we address the questions of what naturalised epistemology is, whether it is significantly different from traditional epistemology, whether it is indeed implied by coherentism, and analyse some of its merits and weaknesses.
Wolfram or the praise of the scribble
Antimo Cesaro
The essay aims to investigate the new forms of knowledge circulation, in which the paidèia of the TV screen, the ipse-dixit of the Internet and a merely functional management of educational institutions are now playing an increasingly relevant role. Therefore, a critic to value judgments is here proposed, which, taking advantage of statistical and quantitative data (product and consequence of a culture massification process), outline a utopian Republic of Arts, completely self-referential, that does not correspond to the real country. In contrast with a knowledge that, far from being learned, needs certification instead, a necessary return to enkyklios paideia is here envisaged, that is complete, integral, human education.
The eternal question of knowledge
Emanuela Civilini
The human being is not only a curious, intelligent, sophisticated and rebel creature, but he is also a creature willing to interact with other men: as a matter of fact, it is a key issue to the development of knowledge for any human being talking about himself and his thoughts. In fact, human being as a social creature has grown and developed hand in hand with the language, which is – besides a form of communication - also the way for him to get to the awareness of his being by giving voice to his emotions and his representations of the world.
Care as criticism in Jan Patočka and Michel Foucault
Caterina Croce
According to this paper, the notion of the care of the soul developed by Jan Patočka resonates with Foucault’s notion of care of the self. The two views appear to share an ethos, that is the very ethos that Foucault recognizes as the mean feature of modern critical thought. Even though they refer to two different objects – the soul in the case of Patočka, and the self in the case of Foucault – both authors describe a practice of care which encourages a critical attitude towards the present and objectivity. Their aim is to question the “taken for granted” and to shake evidence.
The researches around the theme of the care allow Patočka and Foucault to investigate European history and the genealogy of modern subjectivity. This analysis leads both the authors to problematize the “subject that we are” and redefines ethics as a practice of freedom that has self-transformation at its core.
Analytical codes and symbolical codes. Between Kelsen and Schimitt: legal positivism as an epistemological concept
Giuseppe Limone
It is now possible to represent political, law and justice according to a symbolic and an analytical aspect. What can be discovered is that Kelsen’s legal positivism hides a paradoxical logical status that, while fighting against Schmitt’s existential power in the name of the legal system, fights simultaneously against the natural juridical order in the name the legal order. While calling the power of the positive legal system against the natural law, Kelsen invokes the principle of reason against the existential political power.
The Sacrament of Power: Oath and Modernity. The meta-political justification of power’s sacredness between trascendental desacralization and State resacralization.
Marco Mantovani
Proceeding from Hobbes’ authoritarian sacralization and Kant’s trascendental desacralization up to Schmitt’s state resacralization, inquiring the developement of the istitution of the oath in western society allows to retrieve the cultural changes in the relationship between power and sacred and therefore lets emerge how in this process a conflict between the inner trial of conscience and the public trial of law is displayed, unvealing the meta-political justification of political power as a main issue in modernity.
From Lachesi’s spindle to a chip under skin. The problem of choice in our time.
Emma Palese
Starting from the platonic myth of Er, this paper aims to explain the sense of choice in our contemporary world. If today the smartphone is the most used tool, in the future we will soon benefit from a chip under skin which could delegate our choices. It is a piece of technology that is not only inspired by biology to create robots, but could also change our life. Taking cue from the research of the Institute of Neuroinformatics of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and University of Zürich, this article is meant to highlight that the contemporary individual is gradually abandoning his own freedom of choice: the principle of moral responsibility, and – consequently – sign of humanity.
Thematic paths
The mirror key to observe identity-alterity relationship: dialogue and recognition between reflections and shades.
Stefania Leone
Within social and relational perspectives, identity is mainly related to the experience of Alter. This essay proposes a reinterpretation of the identity-alterity relationship through the mirror key. Particularly, building on the philosophical hermeutics which conceptualizes dialogue and social relationships as a real and transformative experience, it views contact and exchange as conditions for mutual recognition and identity-building.
Frances A. Yates and the Art of Memory between Ancient World and Renaissance
Luca G. Manenti
This paper analyses F. A. Yates's The Art of Memory, first published in 1966. From Greek and Roman antiquity, through the Middle Age, to Renaissance, the art of memory evolved from a technique for remembering into a magic and occult art. With a deep influence in European culture, the art of memory built the bases of the future scientific method, playing an important role in the construction of Modernity.
From Lilliput to d’Annunzio: ways of an ‘Agonist’ academic.
Luigi Mastrangelo
The bibliography of Luciano Russi, professor of the History of Political Thought and rector of the University of Teramo 1994 to 2005 dedicated to the sport, is made up of over seventy titles, from newspaper articles and monographs. The three works in volume represent the most significant moments of his intellectual reflection on the sporting phenomenon, which has been, for many years, also the protagonist, as a player and manager: 1) Lilliput is safe. The Castel di Sangro and the game of professional football, 2) The democracy of competitive, subtitle Sport secularism to globalization; 3) The Agonist. Gabriele d’ Annunzio and sport.
The article analyzes the contents of the three volumes, which highlights the deep values of sport in the political, social and cultural.
Feminine and Initiation at the Origins of the Indo-European Cultures.
Erika Notti
The aim of this study is to investigate various aspects of the “Feminine” status - such as the ambiguity, duplicity, transpersonal and transfunctional status of female characters and their relation to life and death - from the cultural and mythical context of the Aegean to the origins of the Indo-European Cultures. Special attention is attributed to the figure(s) of Erinys.
Valentino Gerratana translator of Rousseau
Carmen Saggiomo
The first translation of The Social Contract done by Valentino Gerratana for Giulio Einaudi Editore dated April 25, 1945. The Social Contract of Rousseau was then published on the same day Italy was liberated from the fascist dictatorship. Valentino Gerratana translating commitment followed in the footsteps of what he had learned, among others, from Antonio Gramsci’s idea and purpose of a literary translation, understood as a political act of transferring a text into a popular culture. It is very instructive today to reconstruct the biographical events within which Gerratana’s inspiration came up, between the reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and that of Antonio Gramsci.
Political reflections
Citizenship and political representation in Putney Debates of 1647
Davide Gianluca Bianchi
Maybe Putney debates are the first discussion on democracy – open to the citizens – in early modern age. Inside Oliver Cromwell’s New model army, for three day long at the end of 1647, officers and soldiers talk about citizenship and political representation: all people could have the right to vote, whatever they are poor or rich, or franchise is only for those who have «a permanent fixed interest in [the] kingdom»? Putney debates are the confirm that Puritanism has been a “school of democracy”, likely able to make British democracy stronger in the present time too.
Sacred wells of Nuragic age – a path of symbolic analysis
Cristina Cattaneo
The well temples of Nuragic age are a good entry point to the symbolic world of ancient civilizations. This paper adresses the symbolic image of the well and the function regenerative and curative of the waters. We can found them as in the most ancient myths, but it is still present in our imaginary psychic. The well is also a journey of descent into the bowels of the earth, which recalls the descent into oneself and the confrontation with the unconscious and the shadows, but it is also symbol of sacredness, fertility and regenerative power of the feminine.
«Correcting» or «Restraining» Mankind? Human Nature and Political Artifice in Machiavelli
Roberto Gatti
Machiavelli is usually considered the founder of political science or of politics as such. He would provide politics with its autonomy, recognizing its distinguishing features as opposed to other activities it has been traditionally confused with. This is a widely hegemonic interpretation, and by now almost removed from any objection. In his contribution, Roberto Gatti suggests that we reconsider this reading, trying to justify a view on Machiavelli as a critic of modernity.
Topical interest of “The New Order”
David Mosseri
In the dark years of undisputed sway of nationalism around the journal L’Ordre nouveau, published in Paris from 1931 to 1938, he formed a group federalist, who continued to be active even after the war, particularly in France, whose leaders were the most representative Robert Aron and Arnaud Dandieu, Alexandre Marc and Denis de Rougemont. They worked out a conception of “integral”, i.e. not only institutional, but also economic, social and philosophical federalism. The integral federalism is presented as a comprehensive response to the problems of our time and is based on an overall judgment on the contemporary world: the global crisis of our civilization. This means that all the institutions that govern our society are outdated and are not adequate to a reality, like the actual world in rapid transformation. We believe that the reflections of these thinkers are very timely in relation to today’s economic, politics and morality crisis of our society.
The young, the most important political offices and ambition: political competition in the Italian republicanism during the early modern age
Paolo C. Pissavino
The essay aims to offering a first analysis focused on the role of the young and the ambition in the political competition illustrated by several republican authors during the XVIth and the XVIIth centuries (Niccolò Machiavelli, Traiano Boccalini, Lodovico Zuccolo, Tommaso Roccabella, psuedo Paolo Sarpi, Ansaldo Cebà). Moreover, this study is meant to reconsider some other conditions (wealth, for instance) required by the statesman in the Italian Republics.
Politics between In–difference of Species and Irrelevance of Alterity
Fiammetta Ricci
Contemporary political and ethical horizon shows the signs of the loss of Difference as anthropological di-mension and basic category of the right/duty to Equality and to recognition of identities. This is leading to a politics of in-difference and in-differentiation. Ethically and politically an indifferent individual will ignore the problem of Difference up to consider irrelevant the matter of Alterity. On the contrary an individual strongly involved in a claim for Equality will often be answered just by bureaucracy and by a massifyng culture that removed the matter of Alterity as a person to face and to live with.
Metabasis N. 14
digital edition
peer review
Each essay of this journal is reviewed by two anonymous referees and their comments are sent to the authors .
