Dare l'esempio. Cosa è cambiato nell'estetica degli ultimi trent'anni

Giving examples. What has it changed in the aesthetics of the last thirty years? In the last thirty years we have witnessed a progressive expansion of interdisciplinarity and of “postdisciplinary disciplines” like visual (culture) studies. This paper claims that this expansion relies mostly on a classificatory way of thinking, as opposed to an “exemplary” approach to historical, cultural, or artistic phenomena. It is maintained that working through “examples” is the most fruitful and adequate way of thinking in aesthetics and philosophy, both from a theoretical, and a political point of view

Art in the time of pandemic. Three terms

With a growing awareness that going “back to normal is impossible because normal was the problem”, the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic generated some of the most engaging reflections in the art world. Some of them were meant to mark deep breaks with the (more or less recent) past; some others stressed tendencies that had already emerged in the last decades, but that the pandemic helped reveal in their full significance. I will attempt to sketch three attitudes, that can perhaps be captured by three terms: essential, original, nonhuman. They are mere signposts that I consider significant, among many possible others. They point to regions with fuzzy borders, partially overlapping. The first term refers to the attempt at rediscovering “the essential” value or function of art, behind the glamorous merry-go-round of the art-world; the second one, at creating a short circuit between the most ancient (“original”) artistic-technological human operations and some forms of contemporary art, both basic and technologically advanced; the third one, at finding a legitimation “that lies beyond the human”

Preface

The theme of the essays collected here – Caring for the Future. The Social Value of Artistic Practices – was proposed before the great trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no doubt that this global trauma, which is affecting all the inhabitants of the planet in different ways, marks a break, not a parenthesis to be reabsorbed into “normality”. However, the pandemic has put under the magnifying glass problems that were already very much present in the global public debate before the pandemic manifested itself. The term “care”, proposed in the title of this collection, has become a fashionable term, which risks being emptied of meaning, as has already happened with another term that has become much overused, that of “sustainability”. However, care and sustainability are fundamental issues, which we cannot allow to be emptied, and which aesthetic-philosophical reflection must contribute to articulating and understanding

Othello vs Otello: filosofia, retorica, poesia.

This paper has three main interconnected foci: (a) the relationship between phi-losophy and fiction; (b) the distinction between Othello (the work) and Othello (the character); (c) the difference between poetry and rhetoric (or a certain ma-nipulative use of rhetoric). As for (a), it considers as inadequate any philosophical approach to the play that looks at it as an illustration of a (pre-established) philo-sophical position and/or (b) does not distinguish between illocutionary and perlo-cutionary speech acts. As for (c), it goes back to the distinction proposed by Kant (he himself an admirer of Shakespeare) between a manipulative use of rhetoric and poetry: while these two linguistic functions are materially indistinguishable (they are instantiated by the same words), they should be distinguished on a for-mal level, depending on the presence/absence of “spectators [that] are always in their senses” (S. Johnson). Only on this condition can the aesthetic dimension of the play (the difference between Othello and Othello) emerge

Notes on the Predicament of Humanist Culture

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Danto, Arthur Coleman

L'articolo enciclopedico ripercorre gli scritti del filosofo americano Arthur Danto fino alla data della sua morte, con particolare attenzione ai lavori dedicati alla filosofia dell'arte

Sensi di una fine. Danto e l'arte post-storica

Through a comparison between Arthur Danto’s philosophy of art and Kantian aes- thetic reflection, this article identifies the place from which Danto can underestimate the aesthetic experience and its alleged irrelevance in relation to art. I argue, first, that this position of Danto is crossed by some internal contradictions in his thought. Furthermore, based on the comparison with Kant, I examine the thesis of the “end of the history of art” advanced by Danto, considering in particular two aspects. I argue: (a) that Danto surreptitiously or parasitically uses in his critical activity a notion of aesthetic experience which his philosophical argument, and in particular his “aesthetic of meanings”, cannot legitimize; (b) that his thesis relating to the end of art history is symptomatic of a wider problem, which involves our forms of life, and which finds a particularly significant statement in Friedrich von Hayek’s neoliberal thought. The attempt at a neoliberal anthropology of homo œconomicus implies the tendency to absorb within it the very meaning of the experience that has long been at the center of aesthetic and artistic experience. This totalizing colonization of human forms of life appropriates some exemplary characteristics of aesthetic and artistic experience, perverting them, starting with the presumed generation of spontaneous orders, which we know are framed in an ideological horizon that is anything but obvious or natural. My thesis is that Danto’s idea of a post-historical art is one of the symptoms of this condition

Management of Low-Risk Thyroid Cancers: Is Active Surveillance a Valid Option? A Systematic Review of the Literature.

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, representing 2.9% of all new cancers in the United States. It has an excellent prognosis, with a five-year relative survival rate of 98.3%.Differentiated Thyroid Carcinomas (DTCs) are the most diagnosed thyroid tumors and are characterized by a slow growth rate and indolent course. For years, the only approach to treatment was thyroidectomy. Active surveillance (AS) has recently emerged as an alternative approach; it involves regular observation aimed at recognizing the minority of patients who will clinically progress and would likely benefit from rescue surgery. To better clarify the indications for active surveillance for low-risk thyroid cancers, we reviewed the current management of low-risk DTCs with a systematic search performed according to a PRISMA flowchart in electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and EMBASE) for studies published before May 2021. Fourteen publications were included for final analysis, with a total number of 4830 patients under AS. A total of 451/4830 (9.4%) patients experienced an increase in maximum diameter by >3 mm; 609/4830 (12.6%) patients underwent delayed surgery after AS; metastatic spread to cervical lymph nodes was present in 88/4213 (2.1%) patients; 4/3589 (0.1%) patients had metastatic disease outside of cervical lymph nodes. Finally, no subject had a documented mortality due to thyroid cancer during AS. Currently, the American Thyroid Association guidelines do not support AS as the first-line treatment in patients with PMC; however, they consider AS to be an effective alternative, particularly in patients with high surgical risk or poor life expectancy due to comorbid conditions. Thus, AS could be an alternative to immediate surgery for patients with very-low-risk tumors showing no cytologic evidence of aggressive disease, for high-risk surgical candidates, for those with concurrent comorbidities requiring urgent intervention, and for patients with a relatively short life expectancy

Revisional Surgery After One Anastomosis/Minigastric Bypass: an Italian Multi-institutional Survey

Background: Efficacy and safety of OAGB/MGB (one anastomosis/mini gastric bypass) have been well documented both as primary and as revisional procedures. However, even after OAGB/MGB, revisional surgery is unavoidable in patients with surgical complications or insufficient weight loss. Methods: A questionnaire asking for the total number and demographics of primary and revisional OAGB/MGBs performed between January 2006 and July 2020 was e-mailed to all S.I.C. OB centres of excellence (annual caseload > 100; 5-year follow-up > 50%). Each bariatric centre was asked to provide gender, age, preoperative body mass index (BMI) and obesity-related comorbidities, previous history of abdominal or bariatric surgery, indication for surgical revision of OAGB/MGB, type of revisional procedure, pre- and post-revisional BMI, peri- and post-operative complications, last follow-up (FU). Results: Twenty-three bariatric centres (54.8%) responded to our survey reporting a total number of 8676 primary OAGB/MGBS and a follow-up of 62.42 ± 52.22 months. A total of 181 (2.08%) patients underwent revisional surgery: 82 (0.94%) were suffering from intractable DGER (duodeno-gastric-esophageal reflux), 42 (0.48%) were reoperated for weight regain, 16 (0.18%) had excessive weight loss and malnutrition, 12 (0.13%) had a marginal ulcer perforation, 10 (0.11%) had a gastro-gastric fistula, 20 (0.23%) had other causes of revision. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) was the most performed revisional procedure (109; 54%), followed by bilio-pancreatic limb elongation (19; 9.4%) and normal anatomy restoration (19; 9.4%). Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that there is acceptable revisional rate after OAGB/MGB and conversion to RYGB represents the most frequent choice