The Italian Job:: Giambattista Vico at the Origin of Edward Said’s Humanism

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it will try to clarify the importance of the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) in shaping Edward Said’s categories. Second, it will shed light on the theoretical importance of such genealogy. From the philological point of view, it is important to show how profound Said’s knowledge of Vico’s work is. Therefore, this paper will follow references to Vico within the whole of Said’s work, from late the sixties ones to the posthumous Humanism and Democratic Criticism. As far as theory is concerned, understanding Said’s use of Vico’s concepts explains why Said refers to his own work with the controversial term “humanism.” Vico, critiquing modernity from the onset, is the basis on which Said built a new critical humanism. In particular, Said uses the very essential elements of the philosophy of Vico: the importance of the body as the source of humanity, the critique of modern abstractions, the idea that man knows what he makes, and the idea of the historicity of every human invention and construction

Wrong taxonomy leads to a wrong conclusion on a putatively ‘invasive’ species to Europe: the case of Pseudacrobasis nankingella (Lepidoptera Pyralidae).

In this paper the current distribution, biology and ecology of Pseudacrobasis tergestella (Ragonot) was revised in the light of the new synonymy with Pseudacrobasis nankingella Roesler. The synonymy, established in 2014, falsified the hypothesis of a recent biological invasion of P. nankingella in European countries. Furthermore, new records for the Italian Peninsula are provided after 113 years from its description for the type locality near Trieste. Males and females were dissected and their genitalia compared to illustrations in literature for warranting a correct identification. This species is polyvoltine and feeds on seeds of Quercus but adults are reported to emerge also from cones of Pinus. It was usually found in mild and humid forested habitats, in coastal areas and along rivers. The currently known range of P. tergestella includes the westernmost and the easternmost regions of the Palearctic, with a very large disjunction. We plan to submit specimens from as many as possible populations of this species to DNA barcoding analysis in order to investigate the diversification of genetic lineages

Bankesia desplatsella Nel, 1999 (Lepidoptera, Psychidae): a species new to the Italian fauna

Bankesia desplatsella Nel, 1999, is recorded here as new to the Italian fauna from specimens collected in the Calabria and Abruzzi regions. We provide the first description of the larval case, putatively belonging to this species, add details to our knowledge of the species' ecology, and analyse DNA barcodes of specimens from central and southern Italy. The female remains unknown

Edward Said y Palestina: archivo, narración, filología

El pensamiento de Said se debe entender en la relación entre la parte más teórica, la parte crítica de obras como Orientalismo, y la parte práctica, su actividad como militante de la causa palestina. La contribución de Said a la constitución de un archivo palestino es parte del intento de Said de cerrar la distancia entre la dos vertientes de su pensamiento. La narración de la lucha palestina no es un intento de hablar "en lugar de otro" sino parte de la formación de una subjetividad palestina que se manifiesta en su autonarración. La filología es la ciencia que Said imagina capaz de investigar ese tipo de producción de subjetividad. La filología, en Said, es un estudio de la palabra que tenga en cuenta no solo la naturaleza racional de la palabra, sino su corporeidad y sus facultades imaginativas e inventivas.Fil: Scalercio, Mauro. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto de Filosofía "Dr. Alejandro Korn"; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Traditional and TLS-based forest inventories of beech and pine forests located in Sila National Park. A dataset

Vegetation structure is a key determinant of species distribution and diversity. Compared to traditional methods, the use of Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) has allowed massive amounts of point cloud data collected for quantifying threedimensional habitat properties at increasing spatial and temporal scales. We used TLS to characterize the forest plots across a broad range of forest structural diversity, located in the Sila National Park, South Italy. The dataset reports data collected in 24 15-m-radius circular plots, 12 of which were dominated by beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and 12, by black pine (Pinus nigra subsp. laricio). In detail, this work provides dataset of i) plot-level attributes calculated from raw data, such as the number of trees, ii) tree-level data, comprising a total of 1709 trees, with information related to field-based forest inventory such as the diameter at breast height (DBH), and iii) plot-level information related to the time for conducting both traditional field- and TLS-based forest inventories. Compared to traditional methods, the use of TLS allows a very high-resolution quantification of the 3D forest structural properties, also reducing the time for conducting forest inventories

Il futuro come problema politico. Francis Bacon e Giambattista Vico come matrici del moderno

[Future as a political problem. Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico as matrix of modernity]. This essay shows the importance of the theme of the future as a political problem in Francis Bacon and Giambattista Vico. Bacon theorizes the possibility to control the future through experiments and the resulting natural laws. The whole construction of society has to be planned in order to achieve this end. In Vico the future appears to be a purely political problem, since the control of the future deals with the possibility to establish the rules that control the actions of the social group. Considering the control of the future as the core of political modernity allows to appreciate the crucial differences between Bacon and Vico, on one side, and Hobbes, who represents the “canonical” political modernity, on the other side. Hobbes’ Leviathan presents the social contract as the closure of political temporality. The theme of the future as a political problem allows then to understand the plurality of modernity, as it emerges from the different proposed solutions: a technical-scientific one in Bacon, a contractualistic one in Hobbes and a mythopoetic one in Vico

Las estructuras de la temporalidad histórica de Francis Bacon : Futuro, esperanza, progreso

En este texto se definen las estructuras de la temporalidad histórica en el pensamiento de Francis Bacon, en particular analizando su concepción del futuro. La tesis que se plantea es que esa estructura temporal es consecuencia directa de la relación entre poder y saber que, a su vez, conlleva la cuestión de la controlabilidad del futuro. Analizar estos temas puede iluminar cuestiones claves de la filosofía de Bacon, en particular por lo que concierne la relación entre la dimensión científico-epistemológica y la dimensión política del pensamiento de Bacon y su relevancia en el desarrollo de la primera modernidad.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

LEPIDOPTERA TORTRICIDAE FROM CALABRIA(SOUTHERN ITALY)

A list of 181 species of Lepidoptera Tortricidae recorded during several expeditions realized in Calabria(southern Italy) is reported. Fifty-nine species are mentioned for the first time in Calabria. Of particular interest are 23species that have as a southern limit of their distribution area the Calabria territory