RISULTATI RICERCA

The Epistemological Debate on the Neuroscience - Two fundamental approaches are considered in this paper: materialistic reductionism and neurophenomenology. According to reductionism, the neurosciences can ascertain the reliability of psychological cognition by investigating the material do- main. Neurophenomenology, instead, recurs to an integrated and complex approach, which combines philosophical, psychological and neurological knowledge. This essay critically analyses these approaches, and tries to define their respective philosophical genealogy.

Key words: Epistemology, Mind/body problem, Neurophenomenology, Neuroscience, Psychoanalysis, Reductionism.

Parole chiave: Epistemologia, Neurofenomenologia, Neuroscienze, Psicoanalisi, Relazione mente/corpo, Riduzionismo

Time Alteration in Melancholia. A Phenomenological Inquiry - An important trend of psychiatric research views psychopathological symptoms as temporal disturbances. This essay is based on the assumption that melancholia/ depression primarily signifies an alteration of experience of time, essentially linked to an alteration of the ways in which the subjects experience their own body and how they relate to other people. The phenomenological approach allows us to understand how the melancholic person suffers a blocked future, how he/she is irrevocably marked by a past that never passes and how the present is experienced as an eternal recurrence of one and the same state.

Key words: Phenomenology, Psychiatry, Melancholia, Depression, Time, Diachrony.

Parole chiave: Fenomenologia, Psichiatria, Malinconia, Depressione, Tempo, Diacronia.

What is Truth’s Success? - The pragmatist theories of truth developed by James and Dewey in some of their writings were not aimed at providing a theory of truth as such, but, rather, a theory of the relationship between belief, action and truth. The same holds for some of Ramsey’s texts: rather than identifying truth with practical success, he pointed to the articulation between the success of our actions and the truth of the beliefs on which they are based.

Key words: Action, Belief, Dewey, James, Ramsey, Truth.

Parole chiave: Azione, Credenza, Dewey, James, Ramsey, Verità.

The Problem of Religious Language: What can we Learn from Twelfth-century Discussions? - This paper discusses a recent book by Luisa Valente, Logique et théologie: Les écoles parisiennes entre 1150 et 1220, in which she gives a rich account of how twelfth and early thirteenth-century Parisian theologians attempted to solve the problems of religious language by appeal to the notions of propriety and translatio. Words had a proper signification when used in accordance with their original meaning, whereas translatio involved a semantic shift from the proper sense to a new extended sense. However, words used in this way were equivocal, and towards the end of the period theologians tried to save the univocity of at least some of the words we apply to both God and creatures. Their efforts form the background to the new thirteenth-century theory of analogy, a theory to which some contemporary philosophers of religion have returned.

Key words: Analogy, Equivocation, Religious language, Signification, Translatio, Univocation.

The Invisible Image: Symbol, Abstraction, Concept - This essay interprets the notion of image as being the correlate of a symbolic experience. From this perspective, it is possible to discuss philosophically the reality of the image, while avoiding either reducing it to a neuronal phenomenon, or positioning it in a non-conceptual dimension. The image constitutes a central moment in the genesis of objectuality, which is immanent to representational intentionality. It constitutes the hinge between visible and invisible, represented and non-representable, spatiality and temporality. A conception of image which is vital and capable of producing figures constitutes a specifically philosophical instrument capable, on the one hand, to clarify the dynamics of representational phenomena, and on the other the reality of the creation of the work of art, especially in our time. The images that art is looking for are those which lead to the dimension of primitiveness, understood in terms of reality as of a vital genetic dimension, and in those of abstraction as the emergence of a form.

Key words: Image, Symbol, Representation, Art, Abstraction, Sensibility.

Parole chiave: Immagine, Simbolo, Rappresentazione, Arte, Astrazione, Sensibilità.

Imagination and Human Boundaries. Darstellung and Einstimmung in Kant and Wittgenstein - This essay focuses on the occurrence of two words-concepts in Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s texts: Darstellung, which designates in both philosophies the imaginative activity of exhibition or presentation, essential in the experience of meaning, and Einstimmung, which designates the inter-subjective communicability of meaning. In Kant’s philosophy, Darstellung plays a fundamental role in connecting the cognitive faculties. It refers, on the one hand, to the sublime character of imaginative power, which makes representation free from presence, and, on the other hand, to the inter-subjective and communicable character of this human capacity. By Darstellung also Wittgenstein refers to the presence of meaning in the logical form of language, and, at the same time, to the impossibility of representing language as an object. Imagination also presides over the communicability of meaning understood as an agreement, that is both a consonance of voices and a consent inscribed in the body.

Key words: Agreement, Imagination, Presentation, Seeing as, Showing, Sublime.

Parole chiave: Darstellung, Immaginazione, Mostrare, Sublime, Übereinstimmung,

The Singing Subject in Greek Melic Poetry. Enunciative Fiction - Poetic images and Pragmatics Starting from Benveniste’s analyses of historical enunciation, the nature of pronouns and the subjectivity of language, this essay focuses on that the kind of subjectivity implied in much Greek lyric poetry, especially in Pindar. By means of discursive tools, the narration builds an exclusively verbal image of the "I", which comes before any reference to elements external to the text. In this way, the "I" stands for an enunciative, pragmatic and polyphonic subject: it is, indeed, the actor (singer, tragic actor, choral group) of a ritualized situation. This performative identity is different from the author of the written text. In Greek poetry, the written text is above all a speech-act, mostly a song-act. This raises the problem of the difference - and of the relation - between the author’s biographic subjectivity and the identity created by the linguistic devices in the text. Using different images: chariots, ceremonial processions, Calame’s analysis focuses on the metaphorical identification between poetic song and journey.

Key words: Enunciation, Image, Metaphor, Poetry, Pragmatics, Subjectivity.

Parole chiave: Enunciazione, Immagine, Metafora, Poesia, Pragmatica, Soggettività. Vedere come.

Images in Contemporary Civilisation. Scopic Exstasis - Linguistic Sedimentation, and Bodily Inscription At present, we are exposed to an excessive offer of images, which raises a problem of assimilation. Subjects are increasingly passive, in ways that can border on pathological conditions. Yet, it is not so much a question of condemning this situation as of finding a way of re-symbolizing images, saving them from mere contemplation and inserting them in a process of contextualisation. Such a process requires an understanding of the role of the body and of the incorporation of images along the lines of Bachelard’s intuition of the "resisting" nature of images. This raises the possibility of an education to images suited to the present age.

Key words: Alienation, Education, Embodiment, Image, Informatics, Symbolisation.

Parole chiave: Alienazione, Educazione, Immagine, Incorporazione, Informatica, Simbolizzazione.

Time in Images and the Legitimation of Identity - Starting from Franz Wickhoff’s typology of figurative representations in a sequence of events, different conceptions of time and identity presupposed by each form of this typology are here outlined, and the observer’s role in the construction of temporal succession is emphasized. The thesis according to which temporality is an ontological attribute or a phenomenological peculiarity of images is rejected. The temporality of images is, instead, the outcome of a "dynamics of legitimation" of the identity both of the artist and of the onlooker, who configure their own identity by constructing temporal succession in a figurative narration.

Key words: Image, Identity, Dynamics of Legitimation, Subject, Time, Narration.

The Philosopher and the Moviemaker. A Discussion of the Cinematic - Image The present article focuses on two topics underlying the lecture given by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in 1945 at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques, in Paris. One is the reflection on the peculiarities of filmic expression and cinematic image; the other, the convergence between the inspiration of cinema and that of philosophy, which Merleau-Ponty sees as a significant feature of his time: a convergence which the cinema of the nouvelle vague was also to acknowledge and which Christian Metz was to confirm retrospectively. Moreover, in developing both topics, the author finds a way to interpret Merleau-Ponty’s lecture as an undeclared polemical response to Henri Bergson’s famous negative judgement on cinema.

Key words: Cinematic Image, Gestalt Psychology, Melody, Montage, Perception, Rhythm.

Parole chiave: Dinamica di legittimazione, Immagine, Identità, Narrazione, Soggetto, Tempo.

Shadows and Dreams: Perceiving, Imagining, Depicting - The aim of this paper is to shed light on the role of imagination in our reception of pictures. In contemporary debate many scholars maintain that we need imagination in order to grasp what pictures depict. This solution is shown to be untenable and is rejected, by arguing against four theses which seem to justify it. As a conclusion, it is shown that imagination is called into play not by depiction as such, but only by the use we make of depictions when we are willing to take part in the game they ask us to play.

Key words: Imagination, Make believe, Narrative, Phenomenology of perception, Picture, Seeing in.

Parole chiave: Immagine cinematografica, Melodia, Montaggio, Percezione, Psicologia della Gestalt, Ritmo.

Husserl and the Double Life of Imagination - Husserl’s discussions of imagination are mostly concentrated within a rather short period of time (between 1904 and 1911), after which they dwindle to re-emerge only sporadically. Yet in those few years Husserl elaborated a conception of imagination and of its two different kinds (image-consciousness and phantasy) which seems still largely unstudied. The main aim of this article is to discuss the difference between the two modalities of imagination, as well as the difference between the two of them and perception. Some crucial aspects are here brought to light: a "contrast" between perception and imagination, and the difference in kind between image- consciousness and phantasy. In the first instance, the contrast is of spatial nature. In the second instance, the difference is temporal. The latter theme introduces the great question of the temporal life of transcendental consciousness and of its possible original duality.

Key words: Image, Phantasy, Phenomenology, Space, Subject, Time, Transcendental

Parole chiave: Fantasia, Fenomenologia, Immagine, Soggetto, Spazio, Tempo, Trascendentale.

Compliance to the screening of the colorectal cancer: methodologies for intervention - In March 2005 the Emilia Romagna region started a screening for the colorectal cancer prevention. Over a period of 2 years, all the target population of the region, between 50 and 69 years old, was asked to undergo a screening of their faeces. Within the Cesena Ausl, 36% of the target population replied to the call, against a regional average percentage estimated at 46%. As a result, a co-operation with the 4 local agencies dealing with cancers was started in Cesena Ausl. This was done in order to increase the compliance of the target population and it involved: ACISTOM, ARRT, IOR, LILT and Assiprov. This work was carried out through an analysis of the phenomenon, the organization of conferences, focus groups and other communicative activities for the population. After 2 years of work, the compliance in September 2008 was estimated to have increased up to 48% and is believed to be improving furthermore throughout the implementation of future work.

Key words: screening, prevention, colorectal cancer, style of life, well-being promotion, action Research

Parole chiave: screening, prevenzione, tumore colorettale, stili di vita, promozione del benessere, ricerca intervento

The Skindex: an instrument to measure Quality of Life in Dermatology. A psychometric comparison between long and short version in a group of psoriasis patients - Psoriasis is one of the prevalent skin diseases in the World. This chronic condition has a significant negative impact on patients’ quality of life (QoL). The Skindex-29 is a selfadministered questionnaire assessing QoL of patients with skin diseases in 3 domains: burden of symptoms, social functioning, and emotional responses. Recently, authors (Nijsten et al., 2006) have developed a short version made up by 17 item that measures two dimensions: burden of symptoms and psychosocial responses. The aim of present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the both versions: original (Skindex-29) and short version (Skindex-17). Confirmatory factor analyses, conducted on a group of 360 psoriasis patients, supported the construct validity of the Skindex-17. Adequate internal consistency and significant distress correlations were found. Overall results suggested that Skindex-17 represented a brief and easily administrable questionnaire as well as a useful tool for both clinicians and researchers interested to assess QoL of psoriasis patients.

Key words: psoriasis, quality of life, measurement, skindex, confirmative analyses

Parole chiave: psoriasi, qualità di vita, misura, skindex, analisi confermative

Risk perception in adolescence: construction and validation of new scales - If compared to other periods of life, adolescence is characterized by a tendency to implement more likely behaviours that can be harmful to health. The implementation of such behaviours stems from a complex system of assessments, in which the perception of risk is an important, though not exclusive (Petrillo, 2008), factor. To measure adolescence risk perception a question have been used to detect self-reported perceptions and another question for hetero-reported ones. In order to get less general and more suitable measures for this type of target five scales were constructed, referring to different spheres of behaviour (diet, exercise, consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, sexuality), through which subjects were asked to evaluate six possible negative outcomes for themselves and their friends, derived from each behaviour. The scales were administered to 1.107 students of Naples, almost equally distributed by gender (male 40.6% and 59.4% females) and with an average age of 15.7 years. The exploratory and confirmative factor analysis, conducted on each scale of perceived risk, self and hetero reported, showed monodimensional structures, with satisfactory psychometric properties.

Key words: personal risk perception, risk perception of peers, adolescents, healthy behaviour, unrealistic optimism, detection scales

Parole chiave: percezione del rischio personale, percezione del rischio dei coetanei, adolescenza, comportamenti salutari, ottimismo irrealistico, strumenti di rilevazione

An italian alexithymia questionnaire for children: factor structure and reliabilityThough better knowledge concerning alexithymia in childhood could improve understanding of its development during the lifespan, it has been scarcely investigated in children. A necessary step in research on alexithymia is to create instruments for assessing the construct. The object of the present study was to develop an Italian Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children based on the instrument proposed by Rieffe et al. (2006) and to examine its factor structure and reliability. The English version of the questionnaire was translated into Italian and it was administered to 576 children recruited from primary and secondary schools (age mean = 10.78, s.d. = 1.67; males 357 and 219 females). Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed preliminary evidence of a four-factor structure, which explained 37.90% of the variance: Factor 1 "Difficulty Describing Feelings", Factor 2 "Difficulty Identifying Feelings", Factor 3 "Confusion on Physical Sensations" and Factor 4 "Externally-Oriented Thinking". As to reliability, the Cronbach alpha indicated adequate internal consistency. Pearson correlations among the total score and the four factors were statistically significant. Moreover, the sample was divided into two groups (children and pre-adolescents) and a ttest was conducted: children showed significantly higher scores than adolescents on the total score of the questionnaire. No significant gender differences in mean total scores were found.

Key words: alexithymia, childhood, questionnaire, Italian version

Parole chiave: alessitimia, età evolutiva, questionario, versione italiana

Titolo inglese? - Aim of the study was to investigate the emotional experience in everyday life, considering both the subjective aspect and the physiological components. The subjective experience has been collected by a diary, while the physiological component were measured by a holter. The analysis of the subjective experiences showed that the families of emotion most frequently experienced were: joy, anger, fear and sadness and there was a balance between positive and negative emotions. Furthermore there was a significative relation between specific emotions and specific antecedents, with a prevalence of social antecedent. A multivariate analysis of the subjective and physiological data showed specific patterns for the different emotions and a coherence between subjective response and the physiological component of the sympathetic system.

Parole chiave: emotions, everyday life, psychophysiology, heart rate

Parole chiave: emozioni, vita quotidiana, psicofisiologia, battito cardiaco