Trần Đức Thảo. A Marxist Theory of the Origins of Human Language

This paper will explore Trần Đức Thảo’s (Từ Sơn, Bắc Ninh, September 26th, 1917 – Paris, April 24th, 1993) work from historical, philosophical, and linguistic points of view. Most notably it will focus on Thảo’s Recherches sur l’origine du langage et de la conscience (1973). According to Marx and Engels, Thảo argued that language was originally constituted during collective cooperative activities. And he also suggested that human specific skills appeared for the first time with the production of first tools. To him, language arose as gestural and verbal indication involved in task-oriented cooperative activities already in hominid societies. Trying to integrate Piaget’s child development psychology with the findings of Spirkin’s anthropology, Thảo described six stages of evolution of genus Homo

Tran-Duc-Thao. Gli anni della formazione e dell'impegno politico (1917-1945)

Among the best known and influential interpreters of Husserlian philosophy in the 1940s, Tran-Duc-Thao (1917-1993) is at the center of a revival of interest. In this context, the present contribution, starting from unpublished archive documents, intends to propose a biographical and theoretical reconstruction of the first philosophical and political interests of the Vietnamese philosopher. His first two articles published in 1945 are the point of arrival of a slow and rich philosophical and political experience, which this work aims to reconstruct in its details, in which the young Vietnamese interacted with both the most important authors of his generation and with the great problems posed by a turbulent historical moment

Filosofia del linguaggio e critica alla linguistica nei primi scritti di Giorgio Agamben

As philosopher, Giorgio Agamben is known for his political writings. However the problem of language is an important issue also in his most recent essays. Considering a time span ranging from the late sixties until the early nineties, this article tries handing in Agamben’s linguistic reflections. On the one hand, Agamben’s linguistic reflection represent an essential starting point to fully understand his political proposal. On the other hand, Agamben can be considered without doubt a philosopher of language. Additionally, this article does not exclude an analysis of both the characteristics and the unsuitableness of his philosophy of language. Finally, with regard to this suggestions, it seems to be important the reference to the more general historical, philosophical and linguistic context of the period when the early work of Agamben have been published

A 2 years prospective evaluation study on onabotulinumtoxinA 195 U in chronic migraine

Background: OnabotulinumtoxinA (Botox®) is the first and so far the only treatment to receive a specific license for prevention of chronic migraine (CM). In our Headache Clinic the therapy with onabotulinumtoxinA is routinely administered to CM patients on a daily basis since 2001. Preventive treatment with onabotulinumtoxinA was offered to all patients that were 1) adults; 2) fulfilling the ICHD-II criteria for CM with or without analgesic overuse; and 3) with contraindications or lack of efficacy or tolerability to other preventive drugs. Exclusion criteria were coexistent of neuromuscular disorders, psychiatric diseases considered incompatible with such kind of treatment, pregnancy and breastfeeding

La filosofia politica di Giorgio Agamben. Concetti, metodi e problemi

The following article will analyse the main concepts of Agamben’s political philosophy and especially the key notions of his project Homo sacer (1995-2015). Firstly, it will show the way in which Agamben’s philosophy cannot be absolutely seen as political manifesto. Indeed, Agamben’s reflection is a radical investigation concerning a wide range of traditional political categories. But exactly for this reason, Agamben’s philosophy represents a theoretical solution to some problematic aspects of Western political philosophy. Furthermore, the following article will describe the structure of Agamben’s argumentations and the peculiarities of his method. Consequently, we will focus on some features of Agamben’s approach regarding politics, language, anthropology and so forth. Finally, we will try to advance a set of arguments to highlight the most significant conundrums of Agamben’s political philosophy

La fonte della critica di Herder al modello della statua esposta nell’Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache

Questo intervento ha lo scopo di riportare l’attenzione alla fonte utilizzata da Herder nella sua critica della proposta filosofica di Buffon, Condillac e Bonnet che si può leggere nell’Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache. In particolare la critica herderiana si rivolge al medesimo esempio utilizzato dai tre autori: si ipotizza una statua che progressivamente acquisisce la capacità di sentire. Probabilmente Herder non aveva una conoscenza di prima mano dei saggi di Buffon, Condillac e Bonnet. Infatti, alcuni studiosi del pensiero herderiano hanno suggerito che la fonte di Herder fosse il Systéme de la nature di d’Holbach. Tuttavia l’analisi di alcune evidenze testuali mostrano a sufficienza che d’Holbach non può essere considerata la fonte in questione: 1) una lettera da Herder a Johann Heinrich Merck nel medesimo periodo della stesura dell’Abhandlung; 2) gli argomenti addotti nella critica dell’esperimento mentale della statua. Esistono delle prove a sostegno invece della tesi per cui la fonte in questione sia De la philosophie de la nature di Jean-Baptiste-Claude de Lisle de Sales.This paper discusses the source of Herder’s refutation of the example of the statue that was proposed by Buffon, Condillac and Bonnet during the eighteenth century. Herder criticized the example in his most famous work devoted to language, i.e. the Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache. Probably, Herder had not a first-hand knowledge of the Buffon, Condillac and Bonnet’s essays. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that Herder’s source could be d’Holbach’s Systéme de la nature. However, the cross-check of following evidences certainly proves that d’Holbach cannot be the source: 1) a letter written by Herder to Johann Heinrich Merck in the same period; 2) the arguments raised against the example of the statue. Our purpose here is that the source can be a today almost unknown French philosopher’s work, i.e. Jean-Baptiste-Claude de Lisle de Sales’ De la philosophie de la nature. This research is relevant because Herder’s rebuttal of the “statue” is a key factor in the argumentation about the origin of human language exposed in the Abhandlung

Bibliografia di Giorgio Agamben

La presente bibliografia, redatta nel dicembre 2013, risponde ad un esigenza, sempre più sentita fra gli studiosi, di uno strumento di lavoro indispensabile per una ricostruzione adeguata, completa e coesa del pensiero di Giorgio Agamben (22 aprile 1942)

«Natura è sviluppo». J.G. Herder sullo statuto storico-naturale dell’uomo e la nascita della sensibilità storica moderna

Herder propone nelle Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, un’accurata e quanto mai consapevole esposizione dell’unità che lega il mondo naturale a quello storico. La tesi proposta nelle Ideen – la condizione allo stesso tempo naturale e storica dell’uomo –, richiede la soluzione di due nodi teorici: l’uno eminentemente storiografico e l’altro più precipuamente filosofico. L’assunzione dell’unità della natura e della naturalità dell’essere umano che contraddistingue la filosofia della storia di Herder ha in Spinoza e Leibniz le sue fonti principali. Da allora, sul fondamento filosofico dell’unità profonda della natura, Herder non smetterà di sostenere che i fenomeni del mondo storico – tra i quali spiccano lingue, letterature e istituzioni – devono essere studiati nella loro individualità con gli stessi metodi con i quali si studiano i fenomeni naturali. Porre la natura e la storia sullo stesso piano, sostenere che la natura sia già storia e infine difendere la tesi che la storia sia sempre natura, provocherà la reazione polemica di Kant. Da simili premesse si può infine delineare la peculiare concezione della ricerca storiografica suggerita da Herder e che lo rende uno dei fondatori della sensibilità storica moderna.In his Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Herder argued for the unity of the natural and the historical dimension. Herder was aware that man is a natural and historical being simultaneously. And more generally, the natural and the historical worlds are closely bound up with each other. Herder’s theory was deeply influenced by Spinoza and Leibniz. Moreover, for Herder the methods for the study of nature may be successfully employed for describing historical phenomena such as languages, national literary traditions, and socio- political institutions. According to Herder, as a matter of fact, history and nature share the same ontological horizon. As a result, nature is historical as much as history is natural. Such an assumption involved the scepticism of Kant. Furthermore, Herder argued for a peculiar historical method that might represent a touchstone of modern historical awareness. Indeed, the core of Herder’s theory concerned the rehabilitation of historical individuality

Consulenti pedagogici per la disabilità e la marginalità

Practitioners who approach the disabled/problematic individual with trainedawareness understand that their interventions must be pedagogically based andfounded on the highest expertise and best practices. They carry a heavy burden ofresponsibility because the individuals involved are important and working for theirbenefit means being aware of the decisive role they play in their lives, in the knowledge that the initiatives rolled out on the ground are either of a high quality or detrimental.Coloro che si avvicinano consapevolmente alla persona problematica si rendonoimmediatamente conto della necessità che il loro intervento sia fondato pedagogicamente e ancorato al più alto livello di conoscenze e soluzioni sperimentate e sicure. Grande è la responsabilità di chi si occupa di pedagogia speciale, perché in essa sono importanti le persone ed operare per il bene di soggetti con problemi significa avere coscienza che si è determinanti per la loro vita, nella consapevolezza che l’intervento che si mette in campo o è di qualità o è deleterio