This paper focuses on the thoughts about the body in Judith Butler's works. It observes how the core theme of corporeality, when merged with Hegelian idealism, can become the driving force of ethics that originate from bodies, cross-domain and active. We will start our analysis from gender-related problems – that is, from a corporeality affected by sexual differentiation; then we extend the range of analysis to political minorities. This drifting from a properly feminist thinking to a political reflection with much wider resonance, has led to a reinterpretation of the scene of acknowledgement in a post-Hegelian view: it becomes purely ek-static, the mark of a process by which the I, immersed naturally in a social consortium, is continually deprived of itself. More so, the ek-static structure becomes a pervasive model, endemic even to the corporeal dimension: in Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly bodies emerge as entities marked by a constitutional vulnerability and, in our opinion, this is nothing but the exstatic datum of the self, moved to the corporeal dimension of existence. ; L'intervento s'incentra sulla corporeità nella riflessione di Judith Butler. Si osserva come tale nucleo tematico possa profilarsi, intersecato con la matrice idealistica hegeliana, divenga il motore propulsivo di un'etica che si dirami dai corpi, trasversale e militante. Dallo svisceramento dei nuclei problematici sul genere - su un corpo attraversata dalla differenziazione sessuale -, si giungerà a estendere il campo d'analisi al versante delle minoranze politiche. Questo slittamento graduale da un pensiero propriamente femminista a una riflessione politica con uno spettro d'incidenza più ampio, comporta una rilettura in chiave post-hegeliana della scena del riconoscimento: quest'ultimo diviene peculiarmente ek-statico, il contrassegno di un processo per cui l'io, immesso naturalmente nel consorzio sociale, è continuamente spossessato da se stesso: la struttura ek-statica risulta infine un modello pervasivo, endemico persino rispetto alla dimensione corporea. I corpi emergono, ne L'alleanza dei corpi, come enti segnati da una vulnerabilità costitutiva e quest'ultima, per chi scrive, non è altro che il dato ek-statico del sé traslato alla dimensione corporea dell'esistenza.
The organisation of a conference on "Virginia Carini Dainotti and library politics post world war II" has acted as a stimulus to re-exam a period of recent history of the library profession often noted in a rather summary way. The viewpoint taken by myself is that of professional ethics, a sort of mirror in which we find clearly reflected the key problems that librarians and Italian libraries tried to face at that time - particularly in the Sixties - and that are still relevant today.Virginia Carini Dainotti entered, via her writings, into the debate on the big themes of democracy and freedom, and in particular the right to information, choosing the best minds of the left, from Norberto Bobbio to Lelio Basso, as her debating opposites and targets. Another theme that reoccurs in the writings of Carini Dainotti and in the professional literature of those years is that of the librarian as educator.In her theoretical skirmishes Virginia Carini Dainotti remembered that in practice the librarian will always, inevitably be measured by three adversaries, the authority on which he depends, the community in which he works and its own temptations. According to Virginia Carini Dainotti the only point of reference could be professional standards, in particular where they define the criteria for materials selection, what is acceptable and what is not, and set the limits of the librarian's independence in respect to the political authority.In one of her essays she also published a draft proposal for an articulated code of ethics, inspired essentially by the declaration of principles of the American Library Association (Library bill of rights), even if she presented it as a simple suggestion to the Italian Library Association (AIB).Carini Dainotti was uncompromisingly faithful to these ideas, at least from when, at the start of the Fifties, she concentrated her activities on the problems of the public library and the creation of a nation-wide network of librarian services, that later became the National Reading Service (Servizio nazionale di lettura).These themes were brought up very often by Carini Dainotti at the AIB congresses and at government conferences but in reality remained dead issues: only in 1994, more than twenty years later, the question was taken up by the Association and only in October 1997, at the Congress in Naples, the first Librarian's code of ethics was carried with unanimous approval.As for the theory, Carini Dainotti collected documentation, mainly but not exclusively from the United States, and also reflections on problems such as how to reconcile the freedom of the reader with the selection of books entrusted to the librarian. Emphasis was placed on the refuse of labelling pratices - a problem we have today as well if one considers the debate on rating Internet resources.One of the many merits of the works of Virginia Carini Dainotti is definitely the fact that she tried with all her might to introduce into Italy not only the concept but also the actual expression public library, to denote a library designed to meet the information needs of all members of the community and not, as was usual in Italy, a learned library formally open to all adults. She often argued against the division of libraries and librarians by the governing administrations rather than by the functions of the institutions.The last point of reference to emphasize is the decidedly supranational dimension of the profession. If sometimes the abrupt Americanism of Virginia Carini Dainotti, for example in the debate at the AIB congresses on the question of cataloguing, may seem irritating, one need only remember and acknowledge that on the relevant issues mentioned here there existed at an international level and in more advanced countries a body of practical accomplishment and an acquisition of principles that in our country barely existed.Her interventions constant calls for Italy to remain attached to Unesco and IFLA statements, and therefore to the need to respect and spread in our country the international principles of library policy and library organisation.However, a break in Italian librarianship in the course of the Sixties lead to a certain isolation from the international professional community, after all the efforts made above all in the years immediately preceding and that are generally associated to the name of Renato Pagetti, president of the Italian Library Association.The accounts of the discussions of these themes, often very lively, that cover the second half of the Sixties and the early Seventies are often despairingly provincial and inaccurate. Another characteristic is the lack of a sense of the quantitative dimensions of the problem of public libraries and more generally the lack of a scientific attitude to facts, as regards both planning and evaluation.In the Seventies there was a strong generational and ideological break between Italian librarians. However, the real turning point in the life of the Italian Library Association is to be seen in 1969, with the election of Renato Pagetti. On the other hand, in the actual development of public libraries in the Seventies, due to a political and social push that also involved the local administrations and a new generation of librarians, it is difficult to see original professional contributions. The weak attempts to elaborate a new conception of the public library or new models of service seemed to dry up in a rather vacuous ideological debate on one side and in traditional practices on the other.
This paper aims at demonstrating that the explication of the existential ethics of capabilities is necessary in order to enhance the quality life of people living in contemporary contexts. In fact, the latter have been characterized by the failure of market economy, thus requiring new economic policies that are not only efficient, but also efficacious. Social and economic development is possible only as the result of insights into human nature and knowledge—the latter, meant as the result of experience and education.This point of view takes also in account the factors involved into the convertibility of resources in different contexts. ; In questo saggio si vuole dimostrare che esplicitare la logica esistenziale dell'etica delle capacità è fondamentale per riuscire a migliorare la qualità della vita delle persone nei contesti attuali, caratterizzati da fallimento di mercato e soprattutto per delineare interventi di politica economica efficaci e non solo efficienti. Lo sviluppo economico e sociale è realizzabile, infatti, solo conoscendo la natura umana, il valore della conoscenza acquisita con l'esperienza e con l'educazione, tenendo conto dei fattori di convertibilità delle risorse dei diversi contesti.
The theoretical contribution illustrated in this article is aimed at highlighting the vast potentialities emerging from the intersection of citizenship studies, ethics of care studies and the sociology of emotions; in other words, emerging from the intersection of the concept of citizenship with the concept of care and the emotional dynamics revolving around them. The analysis is developed within the context of our rapidly changing global societies and in light of some of the most recent developments concerning the so-called European refugee crisis. The overall objective is getting insights in the multiple ways in which new forms of citizenship and social inclusion are creatively performed at the local level, i.e. at the level of micro-interactions, even when forms of exclusion, borders-defence attitudes and racism persist at the institutional and political level.
Among the aristotelian works which have been passed on to posterity there isn't one specifically dedicated to the description of the man of politics : little can be said of the lost dialogue Politikós. In this choice Aristotle is very evidently in contrast with Plato who, in his political and philosophical theory, considered of great importance the doctrine of the man of politics. This research sets out to indicate a solution to this problem by analysing the Protrepticus and the passages of the two Ethics which refer to the man of politics and to the legislator. The analysis demonstrates that Aristotle, already in his early dialogue, favours the legislative function over the political function :this preference for the role of the nomothétês can be explained with reference to the importance Aristotle gives to law with a view to the education to virtue. However, the absence of a clear collocation of the man of politics in the more general field of political science leaves open the question of the addressee of the "architectural politics": this problem can only be solved by drawing on implicit references. The discussion on phrónêsis offers some explanation , even if in a doxographical form, of how Aristotle conceived the different levels of the political activity and the corresponding different types of politicians. Nonetheless these passages are always asides to the more general discussion on virtue.
The "controversy over the Yanomami" has affected central issues, both epistemological and ethical and political, for the discipline and practice of anthropology, particularly concerning the ethics of field research; the way to use research data to support certain theoretical hypotheses; the relationships between popularization and politicization of research and, more generally, the responsibility of anthropologists with respect to both the uses of their studies in the public sphere and towards the human subjects with whom they work. In this article, I examine some key moments of the "controversy". In particular, I try to reconstruct the way in which the image of the Yanomami as the "last primitive society" was initially consolidated, inside and outside anthropology, and, in this sense, I compare the ethnographies of Chagnon and Lizot. In the paper, I also place particular emphasis on the different ways in which ethnographers have textually marked their positioning in the field as "proof" of the "authenticity" of their representations of the Yanomami world. In the last part, I summarize the effects of the "media storm" on American anthropology, which were caused by the accusations of ethically inappropriate, if not completely execrable, behavior addressed to Chagnon and Lizot in Darkness in El Dorado, the book-report by journalist Patrick Tierney.
Politics as a profession constitutes, a hundred years after its first formulation, the most interesting contribution to a definition of the role of politics in society. The structure of the essay allows us to reconnect the threads of a discourse that links the reflection on the nature of the political profession to the broader framework of Weber's sociology of power. In fact, there are several interpretations that can be adopted: 1) the philological reconstruction of the text; 2) framing in the broader Weberian production; 3) the openings that the text makes towards the professionalization of contemporary politics and its relationship with democracy; finally, 4) the relationship between ethics and politics. This last perspective opens up more to the themes that have formed the leitmotif of Weber's work, namely the debate on the process of rationalization of the modern West, addressed by Weber in the Sociology of Religions. It is in this last part of the conference that, through the famous distinction between the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of principles, the Weberian lesson deals with "the ethical irrationality of the world" and the consequent "polythene of values". This confrontation brings politics back to the issue of responsibility for choices and the difficulty faced by anyone claiming ethical superiority who denies reality in the name of a principle superior to it.
'Conventional' models of how the field of international political economy should engage with ethics have proposed or assumed the normative primacy of ethical principles and often sought to add reliable empirical economic analysis so that political perspectives on economic systems, institutions and practices can result. James Brassett and Christopher Holmes (2010) have criticized such approaches for overlooking the potentially violent character of ethics as a constitu- tive discourse like any other. The present article defends the conventional method against Brassett and Holmes's critique. Focusing especially on Thomas Pogge's ethics of world poverty as Brassett and Holmes's main conventionalist target, the article argues that: (i) Brassett and Holme s's understanding of 'ethics' is seriously inadequate; (ii) Pogge's 'negative duty not to harm' principle should be maintained against Brassett and Holmes's troublingly 'political' account and facile relativist critique of Pogge's ethics; (iii) Brassett and Holmes, while conceivably critical of Pogge's global level reformist solution as superficially 'neo liberal', cannot see that their own arguably valuable proposal of radical local forms of 'resistance' can coherently complete Pogge's poverty ethics and thus confirms, rather than undermines, the conventional method. Ultimately, Brassett and Holmes's post structural attempt risks being 'violent' itself for implying a renewed international moral skepticism.
RiassuntoSpesso caratterizzati da povertà estrema, insicurezza e violenza diffusa, i cosiddetti bas quartiers di Antananarivo, la capitale del Madagascar, rappresentano spazi di rinegoziazione costante delle reti sociali su cui si basa la sopravvivenza quotidiana dei loro abitanti, i quali sono spesso sottoposti a gravi forme di marginalizzazione economica e sociale. A partire dall'analisi delle traiettorie di vita di tre anziani di uno di questi quartieri, questo articolo esplora come un passato di militanza politica e una lunga storia di marginalità e stigmatizzazione sociale abbiano strutturato le "etiche ordinarie" della generazione di abitanti dei bas quartiers che è nata poco prima dell'indipendenza e che ha attraversato tutta la storia post-coloniale dell'isola. Su queste "etiche ordinarie" si sono fondate sia reti locali di solidarietà che possono trascendere appartenenze etniche e familiari sia dinamiche di conflitto che impattano profondamente su come il contesto urbano è vissuto quotidianamente.How to Survive in the "Bas Quartiers": Ordinary Ethics of Solidarityand Conflicts in Antananarivo (Madagascar)Often characterised by extreme poverty, insecurity and widespread violence, the so-called bas quartiers of Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, represent spaces for constant renegotiation of the social networks that guarantee daily survival for their inhabitants, who are often severely marginalised both economically and socially. By analysing the life trajectories of three elderly people in one of these neighbourhoods, this article explores how a history of political militancy and long experience of marginality and social stigma have structured the "ordinary ethics" of the generation of residents of the bas quartiers who were born just before independence and whose lives thus spanned the island's whole post-colonial story. On the basis of these "ordinary ethics" people structure both the local networks of solidarity that can transcend ethnic and family belongings, and the dynamics of conflict that profoundly influence the everyday life in urban contexts.
This article intends to analyze the link existing in Apel between ethics of communication, democracy and difference. In the German author, the argumentative reason is not circumventable. The communicative and intersubjective nature of human identity founds democracy as a form of life and just coexistence. Democracy allows the individual to discover himself as tied to a common history. The paradigm of communicative philosophy overcomes both social nihilism and the dogmatism of some versions of liberalism. This rediscovery of philosophy is connected to the possibility of a social ethics and a free, equal and democratic public discourse.The problems facing today's world cannot find an adequate answer in provisional syntheses of the Postmodern, nor in the deflation of the concept of truth.Apel's Philosophy advocates linked to the public dimension, arises from the community affair and from human history. What sustains and normatively guides social interaction is a special solidarity, which springs from the intersubjective dimension and the discursive nature of our "co-world".
Le scienze, come altri campi dell'attività umana, sono spesso vittime di pregiudizi. Tradizionalmente, il discorso stereotipato di certi mass media e generatori d'opinione ha sviluppato e diffuso un'immagine banalizzata e poco realista della ricerca scientifica, contribuendo ad accrescere il divario che separa le scienze umane e sociali (come l'antropologia) dalle scienze esatte e naturali (come le neuroscienze). Eppure, tale divario si è costruito artificialmente e poco ha a che vedere con la realtà oggettiva e con la quotidianità dei ricercatori: si ha spesso la tendenza ad associare gli scienziati sociali ai flâneurs, passeggiatori che attraversano le culture, osservando e sistematizzando -più o meno soggettivamente- strutture e logiche sociali quando invece i "veri" scienziati, quelli in camice bianco, sono tendenzialmente associati ad un immaginario asettico fatto di macchinari, tecnologia e strumenti di precisione atti a garantire l'oggettività del loro lavoro. Una menzogna ben orchestrata, questa, che non rende merito al processo dialogico che ha permesso ad entrambi i versanti della scienza (quella "molle", delle scienze umane e sociali, e quella "dura", delle scienze esatte e naturali) di costruire quel sapere polifonico che costituisce la nostra modernità. Quest'intervento vuole dunque contribuire a mostrare come l'antropologia e le neuroscienze, andrebbero considerate come due discipline "amiche" che, sin dalle origini, si son stimolate a vicenda, dato che condividono temi e metodi di ricerca.
The Author treats the argument of the quality of public ethics starting from norms that regulate it in various Sicilian Constitutions of the 19th century until Constitutional Chart of the Italian Republic.Therefore, he shows how the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, modeled according to the example of political institutions of Great Britain, and that of 1848 both have already had a great interest towards the profile of morality exercised in the political life and how both have prescribed the parliamentary decadence of Deputies who made themselves guilty of having corrupted the electorate in order to be elected or became authors of criminal offences. The question of the quality of public ethics appears, for the Author, even today of a relevant actuality not only in order to restrain the corruption that devastates the politics, transforming it in bad politics, but also to give force to a successful recruitment of political élites. Therefore, in this work he treats the topic of the regeneration of political life aiming to connect the exigency of reform of the access to political roles with a not less necessary ethical vigilance expressed by the suffrage of electoral body. Following the line of Max Weber's thought, the Author concludes that the quality of politics has no need of demagogues, political hacks or political dilettantes, but of austere men of politics, dedicated to good purposes of general interest, and which should act according to the ethics of responsibility.
