Maria Teresa Speranza

The different images of the human being that have occurred in the history of thought are based on the Cartesian dichotomy between res cogitans and res extensa. The philosophical anthropology of the twentieth century seeks to overcome the mind‐body dualism, building a unified image of the human being. However, the comparison between the main anthropological theories and analysis of the controversies that have animated the debate about the definition of human nature reveal that the overcoming of Cartesian dualism leads to the formation of a new conflict, the conflict of the human being with himself.

An interesting debate on the issue of personal identity and its ethical implications has animated the days of the XIII International Congress of Max Scheler‐Gesellschaft. A large program of work has garnered numerous perspectives on the philosophy of person and the phenomenology of otherness, investigating in particular the role of emotions in the formation of person process. The main topic of conference was the Max Scheler’s phenomenology of emotions, which is an important turning point in the philosophy of twentieth century. The formation of ordo amoris, or rather order of feeling, generates the self‐ transcendence of the immediate feeling in virtue, in which the person realizes her singularity. The emotion, therefore, doesn’t remain confined in a state of mind and inner private but acts in the world, creating the emotional breakthrough (emotioneller Durchbruch) that makes me exist in a new way in the world, which allows me to act according to my ordo amoris.

The paper intends to investigate the deconstruction of the kantian ethical formalism by Max Scheler, who, adopting the phenomenological method, establishes an order of a priori knowledge absolutely distinct from natural and the scientific knowledge. Phenomenological knowledge leads to intuition of essences, that, according to their degree of generality, can be formal or material. Identifying a form of knowledge different from intellectual synthesis and the sensitive perception, namely fühlen or axiological feeling, Scheler releases the a priori from legislator mechanism of intellect and also from characteristics of objects. The a priori is rather a plainness that appears immediately in eidetic intuition, such as hierarchical structure of meanings and values, which constitutes the logos that permeates the universe.

The conference has brought to light the relevance of Gabriel Tarde, sociologist, psychologist and philosopher, considered one of the founders of criminology. His work, long neglected by the academic debate, is fundamental to understanding social dynamics and the forces that govern human action. Invention, imitation, belief and desire: these are the basic categories of Tarde’s thought, which enable us to appreciate his modernity, his sensitivity to the phenomenon of social deviance, his confidence in the human will, the true cause which conducts the process of historical change.

CASSIRER AND EINSTEIN’S PHYSICS. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE OF THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY The vast universe, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us as an eternal enigma, accessible only in part to our attention and our thinking, has never ceased to exercise his attraction on Einstein. The contemplation of universe led him to venture into the most mysterious sides of theoretical physics and to solve the most complex problems of classical physics. The paradox of theory of relativity consists precisely in the introduction of new absolute, which create a considerable epistemological advantage compared to the newtonian physics. The constancy of the speed of light becomes for Cassirer an ideal apriori, or rather a transcendental form of scientific thought, that revolutionizes the concepts of nature, measure, space and time and responds to the fundamental synthetic requirement of intellect, to his inevitable process of gathering and unifying the multiplicity of experience within the unity of the universal laws of science.

Damasio's criticism of the Cartesian cogito seems to deliberately ignore the cultural context and the epistemological foundations of the theory of man developed by the philosopher. Even the recent criticism has revised the Cartesian dualism setting emphasis upon the unity of the human being: in the overall framework of Cartesian thinking man is not identified with pure mind, but with the compound of thinking substance and extended substance. Therefore, the attack against Descartes seems entirely instrumental, functional only to explaining the theory on the primacy of emotions with respect to the rational sphere of the human being.

Human post‐Human. Towards homo technologicus? The fifth edition of TriesteNext, European Exhibition of scientific research has gathered students and young graduates, scientists and philosophers, businessmen and men of the institutions in order to discuss the latest achievements and future developments of scientific research, from biotechnology to logistics, from robotics to astrophysics, from informatics to marketing. The dialogue between science and philosophy, hosted by TriesteNext, analyzed the specific characteristics of the human being, the only being in the world able to produce language, to get in a cognitive relationship with the world and to undertake a recognition process with other men, a relationship that affects his very being and his way of acting in the world.