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Western nihilism could be considered as the result of secularization, and secularization as the horizon of Western philosophy. The dynamics of contemporary society coincides with the process of self-affirmation of man, and this idea moves together with the progressive abandonment of the reference to the transcendence. The main reason for this process of secularization is the disappointment of a missed salvation. So, time has changed its direction, and today we can see the triumph of a new carpe diem. But the destination of man is being able to live in a changing, uncertain, unknown time, knowing in advance that this uncertainty could be his real fate. ; Western nihilism could be considered as the result of secularization, and secularization as the horizon of Western philosophy. The dynamics of contemporary society coincides with the process of self-affirmation of man, and this idea moves together with the progressive abandonment of the reference to the transcendence. The main reason for this process of secularization is the disappointment of a missed salvation. So, time has changed its direction, and today we can see the triumph of a new carpe diem. But the destination of man is being able to live in a changing, uncertain, unknown time, knowing in advance that this uncertainty could be his real fate.

The paper discusses Paul Ricoeur's thought, in different moments of his work, on the question of justice. It focuses on Ricoeur's reading of Rawls's Theory of justice in several articles written in the nineties. From there he moves to Soi-même comme un autre, to Le Juste (1995), to Le Juste 2 (2001). The goal of my study is note a tension, which in the very tension that Ricoeur calls "stadium of pratical wisdom" and which stands in a dialectical relation to the field of law. But there being a "paradox" whitin the "political" brings Ricoeur to raise his attention at a higher level. In Parcours de la reconnaissance (2004), a text that I have not treated intentionality, he offers the reader further stimuli for reflection.

The essay intends to highlight the importance of the figure of the "legislator" in the Universal Law and its radical transformation in the different versions of the Scienza Nuova, in consonance with the change of the philosophical-political approach that Vico progressively realised. If in the Universal Law the legislator (Theseus like Solon, Romulus like Lycurgus) is the real incarnation of that wisdom that is always presented as the rounded foundation of politics, in the Scienza Nuova this figure appears instead substantially emptied to be transformed into a "poetic character", ideographic representation of the "age of heroes" and of the powerful social conflicts that characterise it, decreeing its inexorable destiny. A perspective within a new statute of "knowledge" and its relations with "power", which in the long run ends up involving also the nature and the very scope of Vico's Scienza Nuova.

The book investigates the reflection of Arthur Schopenhauer on education, calling to mind some of the great figures who have underlined his value as educator: Nietzsche of the Third Untimely Meditation, Hadot and Foucault of the Art of Living and Care of the Self; or, from the opposite perspective, the roles that were projected onto the philosopher as a teacher: aesthetic educator who was master of artistic contemplation for numerous generations of artists and writers between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, master of wisdom, revealer of Eastern cultures, eudaemonological model of practical philosophy. The research also examines the recent renewed interest in «formation» (Bildung) in order to repropose the problem of how to return from the viewpoint of Schopenhauer's «anthropological results» to the very conceptual core – the relationship between the educational field and philosophical universe of Schopenhauer in connection with his notion of the human subject.

In this work I aim to explain the theory of tyranny outlined by Alexandre Kojève in the essay entitled Tyrannie et Sagesse, that was originally composed as a review of Leo Strauss' On Ty-ranny. The paper tries to demonstrate that this specific Kojèvian theory is not occasional, but it repre-sents an important articulation of the "Hegelian" System of wisdom created by the Russian phi-losopher. An articulation in which it shows a kind of "meeting place" of central parts of the Sy-stem, in particular the philosophical anthropology based on desire (Begierde) and recognition (Anerkennung), the theory of Authority and the phenomenology of law. The common thread of my interpretation is the relationship thematised by Kojève between political power and philosophy. This perspective could open plural dimensions of tyranny in the kojèvian thought. Dimensions which are interconnected in the direction of a post-historical and post-political State, in which the concepts of "stranger" and "alien" are dissolved into an universal and all-embracing reality.

Concord may be recognised in the relationship between individuals living under the guide of reason; however it must be planned within society intended as a whole. Spinoza investigates this asymmetry: although society is a fundamental need and, for any rational human being, the best form of common living is the one lead by reason, the vast majority (multitudo) does not live under the guide of reason, but rather under the guide of passions. Those interpretations that attribute to the so called multitudo some form of spontaneous self-organised democratic wisdom, capable of ensuring a positive future, are to be considered mystical. The appendix to part IV of Spinoza's Ethics clearly demonstrates that concord is possible only within the relationship between single individuals, and that therefore man's task is to educate others to reason. Concord, as freedom, is considered a "private" virtue not in a egoistical or possessive sense, but because only singles can achieve it and transmit it to others, whereas it can not raise spontaneously from some sort of collective individuality.

A strange obsession for truth seems to define the present time: injunction to truth-telling, call to being authentic, fear of the fake are some of the features characterizing practices and rethorics of our living together. The realm of politics appears to be a privileged ground to this end, being able to grasp the symptoms diffused in the everyday life and configure them into steady models of behaviour through the effectiveness of its (self)representations. This paper aims to address the rhetoric pervasiveness of the concept of truth by inquiring the semantic field deployed by neologism "truthiness" and its Italian translation "veracità", tentatively defined as a "natural" truth that presents itself without mediation or filters and keeps together diverse phenomena, from popular wisdom to food wholesomeness. As a matter of fact, the need for witnessing one's genuine and truthful being seems to be the recurrent feature in several cultural expressions of the present time, as well as in the subsequent subjectivation processes. The goal of the paper is thus to analyse this "aesthetics of truthiness" to outline its specific enunciative strategies that testify how the matter of post-truth should be addressed primarily in terms of behaviours instead of knowledge.

Until recently, Philodemus' treatise On Household Management (Περὶ οἰκονομίας, PHerc. 1424) has been mainly used as a source for the reconstruction of early Epicurean economic thought (especially of Metrodorus' writing Περὶ πλούτου). Over the past few years, however, scholars have called attention to Philodemus' creative (yet philosophically orthodox) readaptation of Epicurean ethical and social theories to the needs of contemporary Roman society. Following this scholarly line, the present paper reassesses a passage from On Household Management (col. XXII.9–48) which has so far been interpreted as an unoriginal repetition of Metrodorus' arguments, and situates it in the cultural context of the late Roman Republic. By comparing Philodemus', Cicero's, and Cornelius Nepos' approaches to the issues of virtue, wealth, wisdom, and the ways of life, the paper confirms the dating of Περὶ οἰκονομίας to the period after 50 BCE – a dating which was first proposed by Guglielmo Cavallo on merely paleographic grounds. Indeed, Philodemus' claims about the value of practical and theoretical knowledge, his use of previous philosophical traditions (such as the Peripatos), and his choice of poignant historical exempla, all point to the work's embeddedness within the late Republican debate on political engagement, biographical literature, and evergetism.

This article aims to examine Pietro Pancrazi's reading of Étienne de La Boétie's "Discours de la servitude volontaire". Through an analysis of Pancrazi's mature works, "Il Contr'uno", the preface to the Italian edition of La Boétie's work (1945), and "Della tolleranza", a collection of journal articles written between 1945 and 1947, I will seek to show that, although Pancrazi rejects La Boétie's arguments concerning natural law and power of tyrants, he borrows the major points of his political theory – such as the theory of habit and the role of wisdom – in order to explain the origin and persistence of Fascism and other forms of slavery. ; Questo articolo intende prendere in esame la lettura data da Pietro Pancrazi al "Discorso sulla servitù volontaria" di Étienne de La Boétie. Attraverso un'analisi delle opere mature di Pancrazi, "Il Contr'uno", la prefazione all'edizione italiana dell'opera di La Boétie (1945), e "Della tolleranza", una raccolta di articoli di giornale scritti tra il 1945 e il 1947, cercherò di mostrare che, pur rigettando gli argomenti laboetiani sulla legge naturale e il potere dei tiranni, Pancrazi fa propri i punti chiave della teoria politica di La Boétie – tra cui la teoria dell'abitudine e il ruolo della saggezza – per spiegare l'origine e la persistenza del Fascismo e delle altre forme di servitù.

This contribution deals with some relevant issues concerning the relations among banking & economic development in China. With respect to the prevailing findings of literature on these topics China offers a unique "counterexample" since, although the common quantitative indicators of "financial deepening" are aligned with those of more advanced financial countries, the qualitative ones move away considerably from them. Consequently China contradicts the neoclassical view by which both "financial repression" & state ownership of banks, in a context of weak rule of law, hamper economic development. This theoretical "enigma" can be unfolded by resorting to non conventional analysis of the role of banking in Chinese economy. Non conventional view emphasizes credit policy as a tool to reconcile the conflicting goals of long run economic development & macroeconomic stability. In fact through a tight control of the state owned banks (the "big four") the Chinese policy makers succeeded in funding the obsolete capital-intensive state-owned firms & prevented the collapse of a considerable share of Chinese industry from reversing the high rate of development. Nevertheless in the late nineties the burden of "non performing loans" began to emerge as a worrying problem for Chinese economic policy, the solution of which was immediately perceived as serious financial constraint on economic development. In contrast with prevailing conventional wisdom the opinion of some analysts who argue that the overall economic resources of China are able to adjust financial imbalance & to reduce the menace to its macroeconomic stability & continuity of its economic development reveals a best understanding of potentiality of this country to run a track leading to status of prominent economic power. Tables. Adapted from the source document.