Seasonal School on the Ethics of Climate Change. Registration is now open!
Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, 21-25 febbraio 2022

Two keynote speakers: Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia University) and Mathias Cormann (OECD Secretary-General)

International lecturers: Axel Gosseries (UCLouvain); Matthias Fritsch (Concordia University); Francesca Pongiglione (Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele); Franco Flandoli (Scuola Normale Superiore); Tiziana Andina (University of Turin)

Lecturers from Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies: Alberto Pirni (coordinator); Roberto Buizza, Francesca Capone; Barbara Henry; David Natali; Fausto Corvino; Edoardo Chiti.

Three interdisciplinary roundtables on “The Ethics of the Ecological Transition”, “Giving VoiceClimate Change and Young Generations”, “Climate Finance and the Global South”. Among those who will participate in these round tables: Sanne Akerboom (Utrecht University); Daniele Guadagnolo (Youth4Climate); Léa Weimann (Climate activist); Alex Lenferna (South African climate justice campaigner).

A description of the course can be found here. 40 hours of lectures, workshops and round tables, and simulations, in 5 days. The deadline to register is the 23rd of January 2022. There are fee reductions based on income, and three scholarships to be assigned to the three best students (based on the final exam). Consider also that the fee includes attendance costs, tutorship, reference material, accommodation, lunch/dinner for the entire length of the course. See here. For all information regarding the application, costs and all administrative aspects, please contact: seasonalschools@santannapisa.it (some of the lecturers may decide to participate online for covid-related reasons that we are not yet able to predict). For any information about the structure and the program of the course, please write to a.pirni@santannapisa.it or f.corvino@santannapisa.it

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ISOS 2021-2022 round of small grants for workshops in social ontology has been awarded!
 

The aim of the grants is to support the social ontology community globally, to foster work in underserved regions and topics, and to build networks and relationships among scholars in the field globally. Please check out the ISOS website as information on these workshops is posted.Among this year’s grant recipients there are:
Francesco Camboni and Valeria Martino, Unpacking the Social World: Groups and Solidarity, University of Turin
Gloria Sansò, Barry Smith, Ontology of Finance, University at Buffalo, USA
Webpage

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"No vax e pro vax sbagliano entrambi: la scienza non sa tutto"
Davide D'Alessandro intervista Maurizio Ferraris - Huffington Post (5/01/2022)

Metti una sera a cena con Maurizio Ferraris, mentre Torino è assopita dopo la sbornia d’inizio anno. A pochi metri da qui Nietzsche abbracciò il famoso cavallo, lasciandoci in eredità un fatto e innumerevoli interpretazioni. Il filosofo del “New Realism”, e di tanto altro, sospira. Dietro il vetro, la tristezza di un anziano claudicante, imbacuccato, con doppia mascherina, ruba la scena. Siamo su Aristotele, ma quella doppia mascherina ci riconduce al presente, all’ospite inquietante che non se ne va.

Sarebbe sciocco ridurre la filosofia ai pensieri un po’ bizzarri di alcuni filosofi, ma non pensi che la disciplina ne sia stata danneggiata?
“Penso proprio di no. O meglio, la disciplina è stata danneggiata solo agli occhi di coloro che la consideravano già poco, e che hanno visto confermare i loro pregiudizi. Come nell’articolo ‘Le sciocchezze dei filosofi’ di Tito Boeri e Roberto Perotti uscito su ‘Repubblica’. Il titolo, peraltro, riflette lo spirito dell’articolo, ma non la lettera, dal momento che gli autori precisano che le sciocchezze non le dicono solo i filosofi. [Continua a leggere]
 

 

This Week

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Publications

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Enrico Terrone, Vera Tripodi (eds.), Being and Value in Technology
Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2022
 

Despite numerous publications on the philosophy of technology, little attention has been paid to the relationship between being and value in technology, two aspects which are usually treated separately. This volume addresses this issue by drawing connections between the ontology of technology on the one hand and technology’s ethical and aesthetic significance on the other. The book first considers what technology is and what kind of entities it produces. Then it examines the moral implications of technology. Finally, it explores the connections between technology and the arts.

Table of contents

Ontology
Wybo Houkes, What Are Technical Artefacts in Patent Practice? A Practice-Based Ontology
Enrico Terrone,The Cyberspace Strikes Back: An Ontological Account of Social Networks
Marco Fasoli, Cognitive Artifacts Between Cognitive Sciences and the Philosophy of Technology

Submission deadline: March 31, 2022
 

Description: Time seems to be a pervasive aspect of our experience of reality. We see the things around us changing over time or persisting unchanged. We hear sounds succeeding one another, with varying duration and frequency. We think of events as present, past, or future and, depending on how we think of them, we find different emotional reactions appropriate, and different courses of action fitting. This conference aims to investigate the character of our experience of time, broadly construed to include any time-sensitive or time-directed aspect of perception, thinking, agency, and emotions. Relevant questions include, but are not limited to, the following:

Submission guidelines: Please email a 500-word abstract, prepared for blind-refereering, to temporalexperience2022@gmail.com by March 31, 2022. A limited number of travel grants will be available for doctoral students and early-stage researchers. All questions should be directed to giovanni.merlo@unige.ch

The conference is part of the SNSF funded project ‘The Privileged Present: from Phenomenology to Metaphysics’ (Project number: PZ00P1_186148). We strongly encourage underrepresented minorities in philosophy to apply.

Organizing committee: Christoph Hoerl (Warwick), Giovanni Merlo (Geneva), Fabrice Teroni (Geneva), Giuliano Torrengo (Milan)
Confirmed speakers (to be updated): Holly Andersen (Simon Fraser), Adrian Bardon (Wake Forest), Natalja Deng (Yonsei), Yuval Dolev (Bar-Ilan), Berislav Marušić (Edinburgh)

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 NEW!  International Graduate Conference in the History of Philosophy: From a ‘Philosophical’ Point of View: ‘True’ and ‘False’ Philosophers from Antiquity to Late Modernity
Pavia, Collegio Giasone del Maino, 12-13 September, 2022

Description: The History of Philosophy Curriculum of the North-Western Italian Philosophy PhD Consortium (FINO), together with Collegio Giasone del Maino in Pavia, is pleased to announce the 5th edition of the International Graduate Conference in the History of Philosophy: From a ‘Philosophical’ Point of View: ‘True’ and ‘False’ Philosophers from Antiquity to Late Modernity, Pavia, Collegio Giasone del Maino, Sept. 12-13, 2022.From its very beginnings, philosophy has striven to define its own boundaries and distinctiveness with the aim of distinguishing itself from other forms of knowledge such as science, art, and religion. At the same time, determining what genuinely constitutes a ‘philosophical’ point of view has often meant contrasting ‘true’ philosophy with its allegedly false or unacceptable aliases. In fact, philosophers themselves throughout a long process of self-comprehension and self-definition have variously worked out the image of the ‘true’ philosopher in opposition to quasi-, pseudo- or anti-philosophers, as well as school “philosophers,” religious “philosophers,” and anyone else who could be viewed as failing to understand the authentic remit of philosophy, the specificity of its approach, sources, and methodology.
Presentations will discuss salient instances of 'false’ philosophers as discussed across the different phases of the history of philosophy, from antiquity through the nineteenth century, with special attention to understudied or particularly emblematic cases.

Invited speakers include: Dimitri El Murr (ENS – Paris), Mogens Laerke (CNRS - Maison Française d'Oxford), Catherine König-Pralong (EHESS – Paris)

Istructions: Submissions are encouraged from PhD students and early career scholars with a PhD earned no earlier than 2018. Presentations may be delivered in either English or French. Time allowance is 30 minutes for presentations, followed by 20 minutes for discussion. Successful applicants will be notified by June 30, 2022. Participants will be hosted in Collegio Giasone del Maino, Pavia, and they may wish to inquire about funding for travel costs from their home institutions as no reimbursement is available. No registration fees apply.  Please submit your application to Paola Rumore no later than April 15, 2022, at paola.rumore@unito.it as .doc(x), .rtf, or .pdf enclosing: (i) a cover letter with the applicant’s full name, institutional affiliation, contact information, and title of the proposed paper; (ii) an abstract of 250 words in either English or French carrying the title of the paper and, for the purpose of blind review, no information identifying the author or his/her affiliation. Submissions that are not prepared for blind review will not be considered.

Series editors: Phillip Sidney Horky (Durham University - phillip.horky@durham.ac.uk), Irmgard Männlein-Robert (University of Tübingen - irmgard.maennlein-robert@uni-tuebingen.de), Federico M. Petrucci (University of Turin - federicomaria.petrucci@unito.it)

Cambridge Texts and Studies in Platonism has a twofold goal. First, it seeks to produce new editions with commentary and translations into English of texts within the Platonist tradition in antiquity. Plato’s philosophy generated a wide range of philosophical debates, ranging from critical engagement with issues raised in his dialogues to exegetical interpretation of his works. From its establishment around 387 BCE until the purported closure of the philosophical schools in Athens in 529 CE, Plato’s Academy stimulated debates which extended well beyond its physical limits in Athens to the wider Mediterranean and Near East, including ‘schools’ and circles in Alexandria and Syria. The results of these debates are often difficult for modern readers to grasp, as the many works which demonstrate the development of Platonism are not generally accessible and thus remain obscured to the history of philosophy. This series seeks to breathe new life into the texts of the ancient Platonists by providing textual editions, commentaries, and translations of the major and minor figures who shaped the history of Platonism.
Second, it aims to publish innovative and original research on the history of Platonism, understood as the reception and transformation of Plato’s philosophical views across time and space. The philosophy of Plato is considered foundational for the development of later metaphysics, logic, epistemology, cosmology, natural science, biology, ethics, and political theory. Philosophers and other intellectuals from the mid-fourth century BCE until the sixth century CE demonstrated a wide range of assessments, appropriations, and reformulations of the ideas exhibited in Plato’s dialogues. This series seeks to provide a forum for critical engagement in the history of Platonism over a millennium and across a range of cultures and communities, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of Platonism throughout its development.
The series will be published by Cambridge University Press in volumes initially appearing in hardback and electronic editions, but with a subsequent paperback usually after a year or so. All proposals and manuscripts considered will need to be approved by the Series Editors as well as at least one independent referee as part of the peer-review system, with final approval coming from the Syndics of the Press. Edited collections can be considered in addition to monographs and editions as long as they are of uniformly high quality and display a high degree of coherence. The normal length for monographs and edited collections would fall into the range of 80,000-130,000 words.
The Series Editors would be delighted to hear from you if you have a proposal or even a full or partial manuscript ready to submit.
Webpage

Editors: Francesco Camera (Università di Genova) and Gian Luigi Paltrinieri (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia)

Description: What does it mean to translate and in what sense is translating constitutively interpreting? This issue is aimed to address these and many other related questions. Clearly, translating cannot be reduced to moving a meaning from a remote linguistic vehicle to a more familiar one: «the purpose of translation by no means is that of bringing what has been said closer» (M. Heidegger, GA 51, p. 96), but, rather, that of allowing distance and strangeness to emerge within our target language. The relationship with distant or untimely texts is neither peaceful nor reassuring, and therefore (!) it opens up possibilities, it discloses different futures to the present. We can say, furthermore, that the first crucial consequence the work of the translator-interpreter produces is a disruption of the inertial absolutization of that present which is settled in our usual saying and, thus, appears to us immediately decipherable or as the only possible one.
On the other hand, it was some grandiose translating interpretations that led to powerful historical effects, decisively marking the cultural, philosophical and theological path of Europe and of the Mediterranean basin. Just to mention a few of them: the translation of the Bible into Latin by St. Jerome or that of the Seventy into Greek, the translation into Latin of Aristotle’s logical works by Boethius, the German translations of the Bible by Luther or the Sophoclean Antigone by Hölderlin, the first English translations of Plato by Thomas Taylor and Benjamin Jowett. All these have been interpretations that, even when they have forced or misunderstood the original, they have in any case broadened and put back in motion the significance of the target language, whose linguisticity has opened up different, fruitful ways of experiencing the world.
Another set of questions arises if we look at the everyday. Today all over the planet people speak the English language or translate their own into English. What happens to native English speakers if they get used to believing that they have no need to translate their mother tongue? And what does it mean for non-native English speakers if they get used to translating all their own thoughts and experiences? Of course, translating also has powerful ethical and political implications, as well as existential ones. And, by the way, it is a fact that we constantly need to translate and interpret within our own language: as Quine puts it, we must be aware that «radical translation begins at home» (W.V.O. Quine, Ontological Relativity, p. 46).
With the purpose of addressing these and other problems raised by translation and interpretation, in this issue we would like to collect essays on the following topics:

Instructions: Articles must be written in English and should not exceed 6,500 words. The instructions for authors can be consulted in the journal’s website: ‘Editorial Guidelines’. Submissions must be suitable for blind review. Each submission should also include a brief abstract of no more than 650 words and five keywords for indexing purposes. Notification of intent to submit, including both a title and a brief summary of the content, will be greatly appreciated, as it will assist with the coordination and planning of the issue. For any question, please use the following addresses: Francesco Camera camera@nous.unige.it, Gian Luigi Paltrinieri gpaltri@unive.it
Please submit your proposals to the email jolma_editor@unive.it or using the section ‘Submit’ of the journal’s website.
Notification of acceptance: July 15th, 2022 Articles must be written in English and should not exceed 6,500 words. The instructions for authors can be consulted in the journal’s website: ‘Editorial Guidelines
 

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Jolma
Greek and Contemporary Philosophies of Language Face to Face
Submission deadline: 28 February 2022

Guest editor: Begoña Ramón Cámara

Description: In the last hundred years, language has been at the centre of interest in philosophy, so much so that we have come to speak, with reference above all to the philosophy that developed between the 1920s and the end of the century, of a “linguistic turn”. Nor should it be forgotten that this interest in language, which certainly distinguished analytic philosophy, also involved much “continental” philosophy (it is enough to mention Heidegger, philosophical hermeneutics, or Derrida). The same decades also saw a great development of the investigation of the conception of language in ancient Greek, Roman and late ancient philosophy. The works on the theme of language in the sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Hellenistic philosophies, Neo-Platonism, Augustine and the Patristic, etc., are increasingly numerous. In this panorama there are two points that deserve more attention than has been devoted to them so far. The first point concerns contemporary philosophy of language. With a few, albeit notable, exceptions, one feels the lack in contemporary philosophy of language of a systematic study of the previous history of philosophical reflection on language. This is true of the Modern Age (16th–18th centuries) and the Middle Ages; but it is perhaps more true of the Greek, Roman and Late Antiquity. Obviously, all this can be explained by the explicit theoretical orientation of contemporary philosophy of language, especially analytical philosophy; however, this does not exclude that a critical comparison with one’s own history could contribute to enriching and also making more perceptive the current philosophical research on language. The second point concerns research into ancient conceptions of language. Perhaps in order not to fall into anachronisms or an undue updating of ancient thought, many scholars have avoided using contemporary theoretical acquisitions on language in their approach to Greek, Roman or Late Antiquity conceptions. This is an entirely understandable caution. However, this does not exclude that, read in the light of the current philosophy of language, many ancient pages may reveal new aspects to us, and that the historical reconstruction may come out richer and more percipient. In this issue we would like to bring together (a) essays that, from the contemporary philosophy of language, want to reflect on the Greek past of language research, without renouncing the theoretical motivation of the research; (b) essays that, committed to the research on Greek conceptions of language, want to confront what has happened in the last century in the reflection on language. One of the aims of this issue is also to collect essays that investigate (c) the way in which some contemporary philosophers of language (Austin, Wittgenstein, Davidson, etc.) have confronted Greek thought; (d) the cases in which Greek texts on language have been read and interpreted in the light of this or that contemporary theory of language (for example, the Cratylus and contemporary theories of reference).
Invited Contributors: Juan José Acero, James C. Klagge, Marcello La Matina, Lidia Palumbo, Luigi Perissinotto, Francesca Piazza, Mauro Serra.

Istructions: Papers will be subject to double-blind peer review by at least two referees, following international standard practices. Articles must be written in English and should not exceed 6,500 words. Submissions must be suitable for blind review. Each submission should also include a brief abstract of no more than 650 words and five keywords for indexing purposes. The instructions for authors can be consulted in the journal’s website: ‘Editorial Guidelines’. Notification of intent to submit, including both a title and a brief summary of the content, will be greatly appreciated, as it will assist with the coordination and planning of the issue. Please submit your proposals to the email jolma_editor@unive.it or using the section ‘Contacts’ of the ‘Journal info’ page.
Journal’s website

For any question, please use the following address: begonia.ramon@gmail.com

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 NEW!  Rivista di Estetica (3/2023)
Ontology of Finance
Submission deadline: 30 June 2022

Guest editors: Gloria Sansò (University at Buffalo) and Barry Smith (University at Buffalo)

One famous scene in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) is the dialogue between the young Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the expert trader Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey). Hanna is complaining that the stock market is unpredictable; it’s “fugazi … it’s fairy dust. It doesn’t exist. It’s never landed. It is not matter. It’s not on the element chart. It’s not real”. But the fact that something is unpredictable and non-physical does not imply that it does not exist. On the other hand, its unpredictability, non-physicality, and the fact that the stock market trend is largely determined by investors’ beliefs, do make its nature difficult to grasp.

This special issue of Rivista di Estetica aims to explore the financial sector from an ontological point of view. While the ontology of money has been extensively studied, few scholars have focused on the stock market and, more generally, on those entities belonging to the investment landscape. Matters are made more complicated by the fact that the financial sector is characterized by an ever-increasing use of digital technology, including software elements that trade in the market themselves. We believe that a careful study of this phenomenon may help us better to understand the role of artificial agents in the social world.

Topics and research questions include (but are not limited to):

• The nature of financial instruments, financial risk, financial markets
• The nature of buying, selling and investing
• The problem of performativity in the financial world
• What is the difference between price and value?
• Are the orders placed by an automated trading system social acts?
• What is the role of documents in finance?
• Can the financial market be fair?

Instructions: Articles must be written in English and should not exceed 40.000 characters, notes and blank-spaces included.

In order to submit your paper, please register and login to: http://labont.it/estetica/index.php/rivistadiestetica/login.

Please notice: when asked “What kind of file is this”, select the relevant CFP.

For further information, mail to: gsanso@buffalo.edu 

Webpages: https://labont.it/labont/rivista-di-estetica/
https://journals.openedition.org/estetica/

 

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Rivista di Estetica (2/2023)
The Philosophy of Television Series
Submission deadline: 1 April 2022

Guest editors: Mario Slugan (Queen Mary University of London) and Enrico Terrone (Università di Genova)
 

• Is TV series a self-standing form of art or is it to be traced back to the cinema?
• What is the relationship between television series and films?
• What is the relationship between television series and other forms of television (e.g. talk shows, reality shows, news)?
• What sets the Golden Age of Television (Peak Television) apart from the preceding era?
• Is there a narrative specificity of television series?
• What is the effect of seriality/seasonality on television series?
• How are television series related to other serial narratives such as comics?
• How do television series deal with the system of film genres?
• The fiction/nonfiction divide in television series.
• The antihero and the antiheroine as outstanding characters in television series
• Philosophical themes in television series

Istructions: Articles must be written in English and should not exceed 30.000 characters. In order to submit your paper, please register and login to: http://labont.it/estetica/index.php/rivistadiestetica/login When asked “What kind of file is this?”, please select the relevant CFP.

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Journal of Transcendental Philosophy
Kant and the Role(s) of Doctrines of Method
Submission deadline: 1 April 2022

Guest editors: Andrew Chignell (Princeton University), Gabriele Gava (University of Turin)

Description: Each of Kant’s three Critiques includes a ‘doctrine of method’. There is a ‘Transcendental Doctrine of Method’ in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787), a ‘Doctrine of Method of Pure Practical Reason’ in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and a ‘Doctrine of Method of the Teleological Power of Judgment’ in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790). Additionally, there is an ‘Ethical Doctrine of Method’ in the Doctrine of Virtue, which is the second book of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). These doctrines of method have been comparatively neglected by Kant scholars. In part this is no doubt because these chapters come at the end of very long and complicated books. In part, this is due to the false assumption that Kant only included these sections to adhere to a traditional architectonic division of philosophical works (see Kemp Smith 1918: 563).
Recently, however, there has been a wave of studies thatshow that Kant’s doctrines of method contain materials that were important to Kant and relevant to debates among Kant scholars as well as to some contemporary discussions. For example, consider the distinction between the methods of philosophy and of mathematics that Kant discusses in the ‘Discipline of Pure Reason’ chapter in the Doctrine of Method of the first Critique. The past thirty years has witnessed a series of important interpretations that appreciate the relevance of this distinction (see Wolff-Metternich 1995; De Jong 1995; Carson 1999; Shabel 2003; Sutherland 2004; Dunlop 2014), especially in relation to Kant’s philosophy of mathematics. Another group of scholars have highlighted the significance of the ‘Architectonic of Pure Reason’ chapter (also in the first Critique) to understanding Kant’s effort to generate a scientific metaphysics (see La Rocca 2003; Manchester 2003 and 2006; Sturm 2009; Gava 2014; Ferrarin 2015). More recently, the ‘Canon of Pure Reason’ chapter has attracted the most attention -- in particular the last section, wherein Kant develops a sophisticated account of different types of ‘taking-to-be-true’ (Fürwahrhalten). Among these are ‘opinion’ (Meinung), ‘belief’ (Glaube), ‘conviction’ (Überzeugung), persuasion (Überredung), and ‘knowledge’ (Wissen) (see Stevenson 2003; Chignell 2007a, 2007b, forthcoming 2022; Pasternack 2011 and 2014; Höwing 2016; Willaschek 2016; Gava 2019). Still other works have investigated what is peculiar to the ‘practical’ doctrines of method contained in Kant’s practical works (see Bacin 2002 and 2010). Despite this recent and growing interest in Kant’s doctrines of method, there is much about them that remains unclear. For one thing, in addition to ongoing debates and remaining questions regarding the issues that have already attracted scholarly attention, large sections of Kant’s doctrines of method are comparatively neglected. We welcome contributions that seek to refine our understanding of the familiar issues as well as those that explore new territory. Second, there are outstanding questions about what a doctrine of method is exactly, and what unifies the various doctrines of method found in Kant’s works. While the first and third Critiques connect their doctrines of method to the issue of whether a body of cognition can be considered a science, Kant explicitly denies that the ‘practical’ doctrines of method play this role (see 5:151). Therefore, one question that urgently needs discussion is just: what do ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ doctrines of method’ have in common that justifies their sharing a name? But even focus just on the ‘theoretical’ doctrines of method: how do their different components belong to a common project and contribute to showing that a body of cognition is a science (Wissenschaft)? We welcome contributions that seek to answer these unifying questions, as well as those that connect Kant’s doctrines of method to previous or subsequent methodological discussions (e.g. in the German rationalist, German idealist or pragmatist traditions).
We will organize and fund a workshop with the authors of the accepted papers at Princeton University in October 2022. The workshop will give authors the opportunity to receive additional feedback from other authors and various distinguished auditors before they submit final versions of their contributions. Participation in the workshop is mandatory for inclusion in the volume.

Instructions: Papers should be submitted by April 1st 2022, using the journal’s submission site. Upon submitting your manuscript, please specify in your cover letter that the manuscript is meant for this special issue, so that it can be assigned to the appropriate guest editors. Papers must be no longer than 10.000 words, including notes and references, and be prepared for blind review, removing all self-identifying references. The formatting of the submission is up to the author; accepted papers will be asked to adhere to journal style (see the journal’s website for further information: https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/jtph/jtph- overview.xml). No more than one submission per author is accepted.

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Bollettino Filosofico
Rethinking empathy between ethics and aesthetics
Submission deadline: 30th April 2022

Description: The concept of empathy was born in the field of aesthetics thanks to the historian and philosopher of art Robert Vischer: in 1873, he used the term Einfühlung for the first time, in order to indicate the tendency of an observer to project his own emotional states onto the observed object. The first author to transfer the concept of “empathy” to the level of intersubjective relationship was Theodor Lipps, who replaced the concept of projection with that of “emotional participation” made possible by a sort of “internal imitation” (innere Nachahmung) of the movements of the other. Among the first to grasp the ambiguity of the concept of empathy was Husserl, who, despite calling it “obscure, and a downright tormenting enigma”, paid great attention to it, as can be seen above all from the manuscripts of his work. Subsequently, the concept of empathy was extensively investigated in the phenomenological field, especially by Moritz Geiger, Edith Stein or Max Scheler. They always maintained the need of recognizing the radical otherness of the other in the relationship, avoiding the risks associated with the confusion of experiences, which can become indistinction or even “unipathy”. But Einfühlung, which has become a central concept in explaining the paradoxical relationship with the alter, still risks to remain suspended between the problems associated with emotional contagion and those of a cognitive and intellectual process, such as that required by the analogy theories. It is, therefore, a long tour that, passing through analogical inference, reduces the impact with otherness, resulting in an introspective thrust, only to be bent subsequently outwardly. This also opens up a further problematic area concerning the constellation of concepts of empathic experience, along the theoretical axis that goes from the proto-phenomenological analyses of the young Jaspers to the existential anthropoanalysis of Ludwig Binswanger. During the twentieth century, philosophical thought has variously taken up and modulated Lipps’ fruitful intuition and the debate on empathy has developed to produce a real “empathic turn” which, also thanks to the discovery of “mirror neurons”, has largely influenced contemporary aesthetic reflection. The concept of “embodied simulation”, one of the cornerstones of these researches, radicalizing Lipps’ intuition, in fact, presents itself as a further critique of analogical inference, in favor of immediate involvement. Today, the debate on empathy and on the relationship between empathy and aesthetic experience, on the one hand, and between empathy and ethics, on the other, is one of the most heated, also thanks to its involving different but contiguous areas of reflection (cf. for example the relation identity- diversity, individual-community, subjectivation-otherness, art-emotion, reality and fiction, aesthetic creation and enjoyment, expressiveness and technique). Thus, two theoretical lines can be identified. The first, which we could define as “naturalistic-reductionist”, believes that the totality of empathic experience can be explained through neurological mechanisms, which would thus become the foundation of both aesthetic and ethical experience. The second, on the other hand, more exquisitely “philosophical”, while recognizing the importance of a scientific investigation that allows us to understand our immediate relationship with the object (also understood as the other self), claims the role of philosophical reflection in understanding of the pathic, cognitive and reflexive processes that allow us to enter into a relationship with the other.

“Bollettino Filosofico” indicates as possible themes:

• History of the concept of empathy
• Empathy and the world of aisthesis
• Empathy and emotional contagion
• Naturalistic approach and transcendental approach to empathy • Empathy and phenomenology
• Empathy, psychoanalysis and neurosciences
• Affective and cognitive paths of empathy
• Empathy and theory of arts
• Empathy and anthropoanalysis of existence
• Empathy in the face of ethics

Istructions: The journal publishes articles in several languages – Italian, English, Spanish, German and French – and submits them to a procedure of peer review. The papers must be no longer than 50.000 characters, including spaces and notes, they must include a list of 5 keywords and an abstract in English (no longer than 900 characters, including spaces), and they must respect the following Authors’ Guidelines: http://www.bollettinofilosofico.unina.it/index.php/bolfilos/about/submissions

The submissions must be addressed to the Director (pio.colonnello@unical.it) and to the Editorial staff (bollettinofilosofico@gmail.com).

Since all articles will be double-blind peer reviewed, they must be submitted in two copies, one of which must be anonymous, with no personal references, followed by a separate file containing the personal data of the authors, a short bio-bibliographical note and the affiliation.

The deadline for the submission is 30th April 2022. The issue XXXVII/2022 of the journal will be published by December 2022.

For further information, please consult the internet page: www.bollettinofilosofico.unina.it

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Discipline Filosofiche
The Forms of Pseudos, XXXII, 2, 2022
Deadline for submissions: June 30, 2022
Editor: Venanzio Raspa (Università degli Studi di Urbino)
 

Description: In Truth and Politics Hannah Arendt observes that pseudos means, according to the context, “fiction”, “error” or “lie”. These three terms are not synonymous – giving a wrong answer during an exam does not mean lying, just as anyone telling a joke does not lie – and yet they have similarities. They are forms of pseudos. And forms of the pseudos are, along with falsehood, fiction and the lie, also illusion, hallucination, semblance, and dreaming. In recent times, there has been a lot of talk about post-truth and fake news, two concepts that seem to enrich the ways in which to decline pseudos analytically. Why examine the forms of pseudos? We do so not only because they are part of our world, but because, when we look at them, we are forced to revise or refine our conceptions of the world. Even the word “false” itself does not have a unique meaning. A false friend is false in a way that differs from a fake Modigliani or a fake diamond, and even more so from a false proposition, which continues to be a proposition, unlike the fake diamond, which is not a diamond. The same holds for the word “fictional”. Are all fictions mere semblance? Semblance is also something, but are all fictions ontologically the same? Is Leopold Bloom a man, or does he pretend to be? Is Afghanistan described in The Kite Runner the real Afghanistan or just a semblance of it? If it can be said of Leopold Bloom that he is not a real man, the same cannot be said of the Afghanistan recounted by Khaled Hosseini, for the Western reader of The Kite Runner learns many things about Afghanistan, and learns them through a fiction tale. A betrayal – as Arthur Schnitzler and Stanley Kubrik taught us – can also be committed in a dream.

In addition, a false friend behaves as if he were a true friend, a fake diamond is sold as if it were genuine, and a fake banknote used as if it were authentic. In daily life, “fake” objects can be used by subjects as if they were authentic, but, from an ontological point of view, they are something else: the fake Modigliani was not painted by Modigliani, the fake banknote was not printed by the state mint, the fake diamond was not extracted from any diamond mine. Fake objects are something, they are part of our world, but they are not what they appear to be.

Everyone is aware of the fact that today we are surrounded by the productions of the media, film, and television industries. Entire legions of experts work on the manufacturing of fictions. Exercising power requires exercising control over the collective imagination through fiction. However, a glance at history leads us to recognize that the production of fakes is not a characteristic feature peculiar to modernity: each epoch has produced them and has elaborated reflections on the topic. In the philosophical tradition, from the Greeks onwards, reflections on the pseudos developed in parallel to those on truth and on telling the truth.

This volume of “Discipline filosofiche” aims at taking the forms of pseudos as its primary focus in order to elicit, through both historical and systematic contributions, connections between not only logical-semantic, ontological, aesthetic, ethical, political elements, but also to engage with the theme in terms of its reflexes in literary, psychological and pedagogical works/contexts.

Suitable topics for submission of manuscripts include but are not limited to:

1) art as fiction and deception, as producer of semblances;
2) self-deception;
3) the role of stories in education;
4) the use of lies in politics;
5) false speech;
6) boasting, dissimulation and imposture; 7) “fake” objects;
8) fictions and mass media.

Istructions: Submissions should not exceed 9,000 words including abstract, references and footnotes. Manuscripts may be submitted in Italian, English, French, German, or Spanish. They must be sent as an email attachment in .doc or .docx format, along with a .pdf version, toVenanzio Raspa (venanzio.raspa@uniurb.it). Submitted manuscripts will be sent to two independent reviewers, following a double-blind peer review process. The reviewers may ask authors to make changes or improvements to their contributions in view of publication. Authors are kindly requested to attach both an anonymous version of their contribution entitled “Manuscript” and a separate “Cover Page” stating their name, academic affiliation and contact details. Manuscripts must include an English abstract of less than 150 words and 5 keywords. Any property of the file that might identify the author must be removed to ensure anonymity during the review process. A notification of receipt will be issued for each submission. In drafting their text, authors can adopt any clear and coherent style, but should the text be accepted for publication, they will be required to send a final version in keeping with the style guidelines of the journal (please refer to the style guidelines at http://www.disciplinefilosofiche.it/en/norme-redazionali/). Submission of a manuscript is understood to imply that the paper has not been published before and that it is not being considered for publication by any other journal.Should the manuscript be accepted for publication, the author will be required to transfer copyrights to the University of Bologna. Requests to republish the article may be made to the Editorial Board of the Journal.

Deadline for the submission of manuscripts: June 30, 2022
Notification of acceptance, conditional acceptance, or rejection: August 31, 2022
Deadline for the submission of the final draft: October 15, 2022

 

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