Francesco Ferrari

This article analyzes the extent to which, during the 1990s, Derrida devotes his attention to the emergence of a new phenomenon he calls the “globalization of avowal”, by which he means an unprecedented extension of theological-therapeutic discourse into the legal-political one. To achieve its goal, the paper examines how and why, according to Derrida, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SA-TRC) shows in an exemplary way how religious practices, such as repentance, confession, and forgiveness asked for, can be extended in the public sphere for the purpose of promoting social healing. The globalization of avowal embodied by the SA-TRC is thus framed by this article as emerging in significant contemporaneity with concomitant epochal phenomena such as the “age of apology” and the “era of the witness”, all of which result to be ultimately linked to the cosmopolization of Holocaust memories in the last decade of the 20th century. By juxtaposing Jankélévitch’s assertion that “forgiveness died in the death camps” and Hegel’s notion of reconciliation as healing of the wounds of the spirit, the article then traces the parable Derrida draws between the “night of forgiveness” which takes place with the Holocaust and the “dawn of reconciliation” represented by the SA-TRC. In its last section, the paper finally thematizes how Derrida posits a certain return-as-repentance to the past and his plea for a relation to the Other as justice as requirements for reconciliation, here framed as the unfolding of the conditions of possibility which needs to be taken into account toward an (outmost problematic) individual, intra- and intergroup “living together”.

The aim of this work is to argue for the idea that processes and process-based entities are to be modelled as relational structures. Relational structures are genuine structures, namely entities not committed to the existence of basic objects. My argument moves from the analysis of Whitehead’s original insight about process-based entities that, despite some residual of substance metaphysics, has the merit of grounding the intrinsic dynamism of reality on the holistic and relational characters of process-based entities. The current model of process ontology requires genuine emergence and this, in turn, requires organizations, i.e., emergence in organizations. Another view about processes rely on a structural specification of processes. I suggest that the two views can be made compatible by the help of a specific sort of structures, namely relational structures. The appeal to the mathematical theory of genuine structures, category theory, reveals the formal plausibility of this convergence. According to this formal approach, genuine structures are essentially dynamic entities for they are relational, namely, as well as organizations, they are not existentially committed to particulars.

Nominalism in formal ontology is still the thesis that the only acceptable domain of quantification is the first-order domain of particulars. Nominalists may assert that second-order well-formed formulas can be fully and completely interpreted within the first-order domain, thereby avoiding any ontological commitment to second-order entities, by means of an appropriate semantics called “substitutional”. In this paper I argue that the success of this strategy depends on the ability of Nominalists to maintain that identity, and equivalence relations more in general, is first-order and invariant. Firstly, I explain why Nominalists are formally bound to this first-order concept of identity. Secondly, I show that the resources needed to justify identity, a certain conception of identity invariance, are out of the Nominalist’s reach.

The processing of sensitive information in the health field is subject to rigorous standards that guarantee the protection of information confidentiality. Recently, the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali) stated their formal opinion on a standard procedure in dental offices involving the submission of a questionnaire that includes the patient's health status. HIV infection status is included on the form. The Authority has stated that all health data collection must be in accordance with the current Italian normative framework for personal data protection and respect the patient's freedom. This freedom allows the patient to decide, in a conscious and responsible way, whether to share health information with health personnel without experiencing any prejudice in the provision of healthcare requested. Moreover, data collection must be relevant and cannot exceed the principles of treatment goals with reference to the specific care of the concerned person. However, the need for recording information regarding HIV infection at the first appointment, regardless of the clinical intervention or therapeutic plan that needs to be conducted, should not alter the standard protection measures of the healthcare staff. In fact, these measures are adopted for every patient.

È possibile istituire un nesso tra la presenza di Dio nel mondo, che Buber avrebbe descritto fin dai suoi primi scritti chassidici attraverso la nozione cabalistica di Shekinah, la presenza di Dio nell'uomo e la presenza dell’uomo a se stesso? È possibile riconoscere alla presenza il carattere fondamentale dell’accadere della relazione e, insieme, fondare la religione sull'accadere di quell’originario evento d’incontro, su una risposta al Tu? È possibile che, proprio attraverso l’evento della presenza, del presente dischiuso nell’Augenblick, la religione possa ritornare al suo significato di relazione, di legame vissuto nella pienezza dell’ora terrena? Ultima delle Sefirot a rompersi nella dottrina di I. Luria, la presenza di Dio nel mondo si offre all’uomo capace di riceverla, nell’in-tra-tenersi della relazione, sul fondamento di una passività originaria, in cui l’uomo è chiamato a rispondere con un’azione che proviene dall’interezza del proprio essere. Relazione entro l’essere del singolo uomo, chiamato a compiere in se stesso quell’interezza che ha nome unità; relazione tra il singolo uomo e l’intero cosmo, a partire da ogni singolo “altro” che gli può accadere di incontrare; relazione come incontro, unità, rivelazione, religione e, pertanto, come presenza. Religione come presenza, parimenti nell’urgere dell'eterno nell’istante, nel “qui e ora” della ewige Offenbarung. “In principio è la relazione” - tale è l’intuizione buberiana fondamentale, a partire dalla quale la realtà può raggiungere il proprio compimento come quel dialogo in cui incontrante e incontrato si chiamano tra loro Io e Tu, nel dono reciproco della presenza. Presenza e relazione, sistole e diastole dell’unica vita reale.

Solcando il mare aperto dell’Europa all’alba del Ventesimo secolo, il giovane Martin Buber (1878-1965) ha sopra di sé diverse costellazioni, offerte tanto dal filosofare di Nietzsche, Dilthey e Simmel, quanto dalla letteratura della Jung Wien, quanto ancora da un ebraismo personale e sotterraneo, oscillante tra sionismo culturale e chassidismo. L’antitesi tra religione e religiosità offre a lui – come a noi – il sestante con il quale orientarsi in una così ardua navigazione. Forte di ciò, Buber veleggia in direzione dei lidi, talora ascosi, della mistica, approdando a Cusano e a Böhme, a Laozi e al Baal Schem. La pluralità delle vie, da lui attraversate in questa stagione della sua vita e del suo pensiero, è fedelmente ripercorsa nella presente monografia, in cui il giovane Buber assurge a paradigmatico testimone della simbiosi ebraicotedesca d’inizio Novecento e della sua irripetibile Stimmung.