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In the late 1950's, Merleau-Ponty shifted his research focus from phenomenology to ontology. Such a transition involves the articulation of his previous studies of perception and corporeity with the philosophical unfolding of the postulates of physics and biology from the first half of the century. By reformulating the concept of nature, fostered not only by the sciences mentioned above but also by Whitehead's metaphysics, Merleau-Ponty proposes the admission of nature as a temporal flux of self-producing meaningful expressiveness, incorporating temporality and negativity into the core of being, something that before was exclusive of the being-for-it-self. Merleau-Ponty's flesh, as we shall see, is in harmony with Whitehead's notion of process, pointing to a certain pre-socratic hylozoism in the ontology of both. That being said, the purpose of the paper is to examine Merleau-Ponty's indirect ontology, indicating its convergence with Whitehead's philosophy, so we can finally introduce an incipient critique based on the work of Francisco Varela. It is argued here that the concept of autopoiesis may indicate an alternative to Merleau-Ponty's notion of nature.

In his book Mind and World, John McDowell intends to overcome the oscillation between two approaches that seek to mediate the relationship between the minds and the world, on the one hand we have the myth of the giving saying that thoughts need coercion from the outside world, and on the other side we have the coherentism that presents the idea that only one belief can justify another belief. To defend its approach and naturalize conceptual capabilities, situating spontaneity in nature without reducing it within the realm of law. Human nature would then be a second nature which is not only formed from the abilities acquired at birth but which are also formed from the Bildung. In taking these notions, McDowell brings the discussion of Han-Georg Gadamer's ideas about the experience of openness to the world through language. In this way, the intention of the present article is to discuss about the implications of the notions of Bildung and second nature in the work of McDowell seeking a greater clarification from the influence and the interpretations of Gadamer.

In 2015 the European Commission published the report Towards an EU Research and Innovation policy agenda for Nature-Based Solutions and Re-Naturing Cities. The document standardised the many research and innovation opportunities linked to the new designing, realisation and management procedures which utilise the natural component as an important tool to support urban regeneration processes capable of building resilience and developing a green economy. This essay analyses critically the new technical elements of architectural and urban design that make use of nature-based solutions. The aim is to examine their actual capability to generate/regenerate ecosystem services and circular economy processes at various levels.

Dennett's theory of personal identity argues that the "self" is no more than a center of narrative gravity. One of the main hurdles to assessing this proposal lies in the fact that it is difficult to understand what the nature of Dennett's concept of "self" is; specifically, what are the ontological and epistemological commitments that can be attributed to the phenomenon in question. In this article we claim that the best way to make an interpretative reconstruction of his notion of "self" is appealing to the distinction elaborated by Reichenbach between three classes of entities, Concreta, Abstracta, and Illata, and understanding the narrative centers of gravity as a case of Reichenbachian Abstracta. We defend that understanding the narrative centers of gravity as Abstracta in the sense of Reichenbach is pertinent and illuminating given that: i) although he does not apply it directly to the problem of the nature of the "self", Dennett does use Reichenbach's distinction in other parts of his work; ii) Dennett explicitly draws an analogy of the "self" with the centers of gravity that are, precisely, one of his examples of Abstracta; iii) this way of understanding the "self" allows us to give sense and better understand certain aspects of Dennett's narrative theory. Besides allowing us to clarify the metaphors used by Dennett in the elaboration of his narrative theory, such conceptual elucidation allows us to better understand the distinction between the three classes of intentional psychology drawn by Dennett (1987) and is useful in suggesting to which of these three types the concept of "self" belongs.