Higgs boson discovery is now a reality, after fifty years of hard hunting. It has been a great success along the road toward comprehension of nature at its fundamental level. Here briefly depicted is the story of an impressive international effort along two parallel lines, theoretical ideas and experimental research, a battle never seen until now in science. Deep principles, like...
This article investigates Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concept of vision and his philosophical link with the painting of the artist Paul Cézanne. Through the works “Cézanne’s Doubt” and "Eye and Mind", this article shows that this link is not occasional, but it assumes an important philosophical role. Cézanne’s painting could be described using crucial concepts of both...
In a controversial article two philosophers argue about so-called “after-birth abortion”. By showing that both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, and the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant, they argue that “after-birth abortion” should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the...
The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva is the world biggest physics laboratory. But CERN is a communication laboratory, too. At CERN twenty years ago it was created the web. Today in CERN physicists are testing science communication in original situation: both in cases of successful researches (as the recent discovery of “Higgs boson”) both in case of...
“The scene of the woman who is the clarity of death. The theatre of the maid who is the mistery of life”: this is the axis the article focuses on. Through the analysis of two dance performances – Praeparatio mortis by Jan Fabris and Kore by Virgilio Sieni – the article examines the nature of knowledge conceived as ideal vision of the truth. The reflection on life and death’s...
This essay considers synthetically forms and nature of philosophia naturalis in the Late Medieval Age, analyzing specifically the last work by Joël Biard focused on the philosophical and epistemological thinking of Jean Buridan. Magister artium at Paris, the French philosopher represents one of the most clear statement of the debate about science and logic in the university...
After the publication of the paper by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, two Italian researchers currently active in Australia, entitled After birth abortion: Why Should the baby live?, published in 2012, there was a great debate among scholars and journalists that induced many people to rethink the current conditions of life and death. The mass media have reported a strong...
In this paper, some considerations, born directly from the field of the technologist community engaged in the research and development of largest machine built by mankind, the particle accelerator Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, are presented. By this measuring machine, the technology played a crucial role for science, bringing it to new horizons. Conversely, at CERN, the...
Through the analysis of some proposals called “New Realism”, this paper tries to ask questions about its theoretical system. Because of the inner opacity, the rediscovery of realism drags into the argument the Philosophy, once again. Will we be able to answer?
Ernst Mach’s economic theory, simply categorized as “principle of economy”, reveals, instead, to a greater extent its complex theoretical nature, that could be summarized in three different concepts: the “economy of thought”, applied to every scientific mind, the “economy of nature”, valid without exception in the whole nature, and the “biological economy”, an original mixture of...
The problem of technology cannot be separated from the problem of man, his nature and his determination. This essay surveys the nexus man-technology in the philosophical perspective of G. Anders, hybridized with André Leroi-Gourhan’s empiric anthropology. Anders philosophical concepts such as promethean gap and Weltfremdheit are investigated following the line of human evolution...
As we have written and read in every newspaper, 2012 was the year of the discovery of the “God particle”, but what has often failed to add is that the exceptional experiment is likely to raise more questions than it has answered. The ideas that have been put forward so far on dark matter, dark energy, asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and additional space-time dimensions...
High-energy physics is posing a long series of questions, relating elementary particles to the symmetries that govern fundamental forces and to the intimate fabric of our universe. The recent discovery at CERN of the Higgs boson is just the first goal of the rich LHC physics program.
This paper deals with the important topic of human enhancement and tries to focus the question under a new perspective. The international debate is focused around two main theoretical positions: bio-conservatorism and techno-enthusiasm. We seem to be forced to choose one or another conception in order to understand the relationship between human beings and technology. The first...
This article starts from the question if art still exists and what function it can still have. In front of contemporary artworks there is a disorientation which is a measure of the detachment between their language and the reality in which they are immersed. Starting from this observation, the theoretical position of Danto builds art’s autonomy, even compared to the aesthetic...
Transability is a body project aimed at acquiring a disability. By regarding disability as an object of desire, the transabled community reverses the dominant characterization of disability. Apart from medical and psychological considerations, transability is an interesting phenomenon also from a philosophical point of view, because it shows the post-modern conflict between body...
This work focuses on Karl Löwith’s anthropology. Despite the great number of anthropological studies carried out at the beginning of 20th Century and aimed at describing human nature by means of natural science (biology, ethology, zoology), Löwith elaborates an anthropology based on the concept of biographical life. Man is not a simple living being, he is also an unnatural being...
The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the role played by persuasion in the therapeutic practice of Paul Watzlawick. This analysis will deal with the two different ways of thinking described by the author: the analytical one and the imaginative one. They are referable to the activity of the left and the right cerebral hemisphere, respectively. Based on this...
“Catastrophe” happens and grows not only when “natural” disasters and hurricanes turn our lives upside down, but also when we live life as a fake play. Nowadays, human beings are cheating: they deny and remove the catastrophe, trying to survive. This is the reason why, the risk of human extinction is progressively increasing. Will “the pedagogy of catastrophes” save us?
Within our society consumption appears to be more and more the main carrier of the identity construction of individuals, and is gradually replacing the role played by work in the past. Therefore in contrast with classical economy theory – consumption becomes eminently productive. At the same time (and in contrast with the classical theory of marketing) the consumer can no longer...
The aim of this article is to show how important is the idea of “apocalypse” in the present age and discuss if it is possible to develop any strategies of “survival”. After discussing some elements of de Martino’s thought about the temporal, psychopathological and political meaning of “apocalypse”, we’ll analyze the sense of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia as a symptom of the...
The Writing of disaster is composed of fragments, that are the only possible form to describe it; but what is really meant by “disaster”? There are several possible interpretations: it can be an unfavourable event, such as destruction or consumption, but it can also mean “separation from the star”, a distance from any kind of measure and especially from what we consider our order...
Though a chorus of voices has risen to deny the alarm about climate changes during last years, the great majority of the scientific community believe that without further commitment and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, due to human activities the world will have to face a series of climate changes dangerous both for people and the Earth ecosystems. Climate change is...
This paper intends to show the constant interest of Ernesto de Martino in the problem of the apocalypses. In any historical time any presence in the world, any Dasein, seems to be exposed to the risk of a crisis. By crisis de Martino means the danger that constantly threatens man, that is the danger of not being part of any possible history, and therefore not being able to create...
In their works Jünger and Céline – a part from their meetings in Paris – have always dealt with the theme of the catastrophe, even in terms of apocalypse. This catastrophe has been considered both as an historical fact – in the experience of the First and Second World War – and a cultural phenomenon represented by nihilism – the philosophy through which the twentieth century...