editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives tommaso sgarro università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-edit tommaso.sgarro@unifg.it “but ultimately you should at least remember that this is a century of transition. / tristan: oh, what conclusions do you draw from this? all centuries, more or less, have been and will be transitional, because human society never stands still, nor will there ever come a century in which there is a condition destined to last”. giacomo leopardi wrote these words in 1832, in dialogo di tristano e di un amico, included at the conclusion of the 1834 florentine edition of the operette morali, devoting a quick critique to the all-nineteenth-century idea that he wanted the nineteenth century to be a “century of transition”, marked by contradictions that would nevertheless be resolved and find their fulfillment in the affirmation of human progress. it is precisely the idea of progress (which holds within itself that of transition to a new and better era) that leopardi rejects; the protagonist is not history itself but human nature, which equal in all eras, would make each era identical to the other. that of “transition” would thus be a “naïve” idea, given by the illusion of the present, the time that everyone lives, which by its movement gives us the idea of a more overall ordered and oriented movement of history toward something that is beyond the human itself. indeed, the problem of transition brings with it in modernity the problem of “where”, of the horizon, since speaking of transition always indicates an indefinite intermediate condition from one state to another. if, then, for leopardi, transition is the meaning of history itself in relation to man, for hegel it has a definite function in history: “long periods may perhaps elapse before an old ethical form can be superseded by the new; the epochs of philosophy fall in these periods of transition”. transition is elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 9 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-edit mailto:tommaso.sgarro@unifg.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro thus a necessary moment for the affirmation of universal reason, which manifests itself in the form of ethics and is shown through the affirmation of a new philosophy. if in leopardi the need for a permanent form of transition of an existential nature is attested, for hegel the nature of transition is logical, necessary, and posed by the demands internal to history itself. it is no coincidence that the term has had its own importance in the construction of historiographical categories conditioned precisely by the hegelian interpretation of history, as if in history there is a kind of general transition from one civilization to another, during which new social forms, customs, new cultural, literary, and artistic conceptions and productions mature. for marx, who starts precisely from hegel’s logic, transition is the indispensable historical characterization of socialism as a preparatory phase for the establishment of communist society, showing how important this term was within the 19th century. today the word has left the “safe” (admittedly no longer too safe) field of the philosophy of history, to return to great use in specific ethical issues. thus, we speak of energy transition when we talk about the need to abandon the old forms of energy production and invest in renewable energy, in order to protect the planet; of ecological transition when we talk about the reshaping of the production system towards a circular economy, no longer based on the consumption cycle, but aiming at a more sustainable agriculture to protect human health (in italy they have even established a ministry of ecological transition, whose goal is to hold together these ethical-productive demands). while a use of the word unshackled from any historical-ideological superstructure has ensured its “new fortune”, this use has mostly been done uncritically, without a precise awareness of the implications the term carries. in order not to make a trivially à la page use of it, it is necessary to put on the agenda not a conceptual re-founding of it (useless to anachronistic), but a careful phenomenological observation that allows us to grasp new nuances and different perspectives from those of the past. the goal of the present volume of the journal elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, is by all means ambitious, and treads impervious ground. the operation is facilitated, however, by the precise awareness, that the main objective is to go and retrieve new senses of the term firstly within new and little-practiced intellectual contexts, and secondly in the field of practice. it is this reason why, within this philosophical “first half ”, the operation focuses on the transition of the term, from the “old” terrain of history to that of human “historicity” within the first essay, which i proposed, the human “historicity” elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 10 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría. through ellacuría’s analysis of the philosophy of historical reality, a new key emerges that makes transition the dynamic needed to read history no longer from the standpoint of ideology, as much as idealism, but as the place of praxis, of the realization of human possibilities that are characterized within a constant dialogue between man and the socio-historical reality to which he belongs. a first indispensable step to relocate the theme of transition within the human-history relationship, however, abandoning – however – the paradigms of the most rigid and obsolete hegelism. this also means overcoming the reading entirely internal to western culture of the lemma “transition” based on the oppositional and conflicting nature of the two states (the one of departure and the final one) within which the “state of transition” would be located. with luis roca jusmet’s essay, françois jullien: the double transit of human life, in fact, through a comparison with chinese culture, a comparison that can no longer be procrastinated even from a cultural point of view given the transformations in economic and social relations with the east caused by economic globalization, it is highlighted how nature, and the very human life that is part of it, are processes that cannot necessarily be formulated in terms of continuity (as is the case with the west) but as “transit”. through the reconstruction of jullien’s work, the author leads the reader to the knowledge of elements of thought that are absent in western culture and, nevertheless, useful in understanding the challenges imposed by the new use of the term transition with respect to ecological challenges. rethinking transition means, then, rethinking the political practices that result from it and, at the same time, rethinking politics itself (ecological transition practices, after all, involve a political paradigm shift). jordi riba miralles, in his the event, beyond the permanent crisis, through comparing the work of jean-marie guyau and that of alain badiou, and delving into the ideas of “permanent crisis” and “event”, questions precisely the rethinking of the nexus between history and the transformation of political reality. at a time like today’s, it must be understood that the problem is not overcoming the crisis itself, but rather understanding the political event to which it opens: in this respect, the permanent crisis is nothing more than the political dimension of the permanent transition of human reality. closing out the overview is alessia franco’s essay, for an epistemology of transition: paul preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference, confirming how the recalibration of the new meaning that accompanies elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 11 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro the term “transition” has more to do no longer with universal and general contexts, but with the human, considered no longer under the meaning of the old concept of nature, but on that of the practices within which it shows itself. this becomes visible when we analyze the theme of the body in relation to that of transition, so as to overcome the old oppositional logics on which the western way of thinking has been held. in this sense, paul b. preciado’s epistemology of transition, which is the focus of franco’s essay, aims to go beyond the epistemological regime of sexual difference based on heterobinarism, placing the topic of the body in transition no longer under the mere lens of psychoanalysis but from a philosophical perspective. copyright (©) 2022 tommaso sgarro editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: sgarro, t. (2022). editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 9-12. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-edit elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 12 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-edit https://www.ledonline.it/elementa sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 7 editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide francesco fistetti università degli studi di bari “aldo moro” (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-edit fistetti49@gmail.com in this monographic section of elementa dedicated to the paradigm of the gift, we present the contributions of a number of authors who programmatically inscribe themselves in the tradition of research that starts from the anthropology of marcel mauss (1872-1950), grandson of the french sociologist émile durkheim (1858-1917), and arrives at the revue du mauss (an acronym for anti-utilitarian movement in the social sciences), founded by alain caillé in 1981. an astonishing number of essays about the problem of the gift in relation to topics of interest in contemporary theoretical reflection have been published by philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, psychoanalysts, economists: from recognition to care, from hospitality to citizenship, from inequalities to universal income, from feminism to postcolonialism. adding to this the fact that since 2021 the first issue of mauss international, the english version of the journal, has been launched in digital form, is possible to realise that we are facing, within the humanities, an intellectual quest of singular importance. the seminal text that gave birth to the paradigm of the gift and its extraordinary intellectual adventure is mauss’s essay on the gift (1925), which is still a long way from its full fruit: it is possible infact to talk about its potential for development as a theory of social evolution in the transition from primitive and traditional societies to modernity, and at the same time in terms of analysis concerning the dynamics of reproduction/transformation in the modern and contemporary world. since the gift, as mauss expresses it, is a “total social fact”, i.e. a phenomenon that diagonally crosses all aspects of society (economic, political, aesthetic, symbolic, cultural, etc.), elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-edit mailto:fistetti49@gmail.com https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 8 the paradigm of the gift can be considered not as an a priori doctrine or a discipline closed in on itself, but as a powerful operator of translation. it constructs its own order by appropriating and retranslating other existing discourses. caillé’s book, extensions du domaine du don (arles, actes sud, 2019), which is the essay that constitute the introduction, moves precisely in this direction: to indicate the multiple applications of the gift paradigm. similarly, philippe chanial’s recent work, nos généreuses réciprocités (arles, actes sud, 2022), explores the “family similarities” between gift and care, between gift and gender, between gift and nature, between gift and hospitality, between gift and the politics of emancipation. again, on the relationship between gift and social justice a fundamental contribution was made by elena pulcini, tra cura e giustizia. le passioni come risorsa sociale (torino, bollati boringhieri, 2020). and, with regard to global justice in international relations, i have shown that the gift perspective leads to the need to adopt an “anti-sacrificial clause” in relations between nations, inspired by an imperative of solidarity and generosity towards the most disadvantaged peoples and states (francesco fistetti, théories du multiculturalisme. un parcours entre philosophie et sciences sociales, paris, la découverte, 2009). thanks to this intrinsic openness, the paradigm of the gift, as alain caillé points out, can be continuously enriched by dialoguing with other theories and fields of knowledge. but where does this vocation to productively communicate and hybridise with other disciplines come from? it derives precisely from the twofold discovery that the essay on the gift makes: (1) what the so-called primitive societies (sociétés primaires) teach us is that in them religion, law, economics, politics, etc., are not separate dimensions, but form a “total social fact”, of which the cycle of gift (giving/receiving/ returning) constitutes “the rock of eternal morality” and, at the same time, “the rock” of politics; (2) from this it follows that man has not always been that “economic animal” – homo œconomicus – that the economic and social sciences of modernity have celebrated. the pushing towards a tendency of an “encyclopaedic” recomposition of the fields of knowledge – without this meaning cancelling their epistemological specificity – stems from the critique of economic reductionism that makes the “axiomatics of interest” the fundamental ideology of modernity. it can be said that the recomposition of the fields of the human an social knowledge (and of moral and political philosophy) on the axis of the paradigm of the gift results in their rearticulation and enrichment both in terms of heuristic concepts and in terms of practical rationality. for example, since mauss highlighted the agonistic dimension of the gift, i.e. its being linked to a struggle for recognition (of a hierarchical status, of a determined form of superiority, etc.), elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 9 caillé developed this aspect barely hinted at in the essay. in short, it is not only in sociétés primaires that the act of giving makes possible the recognition of the value of the recipient (usually an outsider clan) and vice versa the recognition by the latter towards the giver. even in our societies, what axel honneth has called the “struggle for recognition” (of one’s individuality, one’s rights, social esteem) would be more ethically and politically fruitful if it were supplemented by the maussian discovery of the gift. it would avert the mercatist drift of individual rights, that is, the risk that their fulfilment depends on the economic conditions of the subject, i.e. that rights become a market variable. in fact, recognition of the other is always also recognition of a gift or, as one might also say, recognition of the other as the giver of something absolutely peculiar. this integration between recognition and gift brings out in full light the dimension of positive indebtedness that characterises the entire course of our existence: ever since the gift of life in the womb, we are constantly indebted to those who take care of us, who have passed on to us moral values or techniques whatever they may be, taught us ways of being in the world, etc. on the subject of positive indebtedness towards others, jacques t. godbout has written important pages (le don, la dette, l’identité. homo donator vs homo œconomicus, paris, la découverte, 2000) and in the essay translated here, he explains that the “need” to donate derives precisely from the fact that we are, originally, in a state of debt towards others and that our very identity ab initio is “in a state of debt, and isn’t our identity built by making active what we have received, by giving in turn”. on the originality that the theme of the gift has in paul ricœur, annalisa caputo dwells in the fine essay published here. with respect to the characteristics of recognition (caillé) and positive indebtedness (godbout) associated with the gift, caputo insists on the status that ricœur attributes to the gift not only as “surprise” and “risk” (because it can be rejected and not recognised as such) but also, to use ricœur’s words, as “un espace d’espérance”, “une onde d’irradiation et d’irrigation qui, de façon secrète et détourneée, contribue à l’avancée de l’histoire vers des états de paix”: and it is, as caputo points out, “the hidden counter-current in the history of violence”. while today in the heart of europe a war is raging that may prelude the nuclear apocalypse, peace truly appears to be the greatest gift, a “gratuitousness” that would generate infinite “gratitude” in a virtuous circle of positive indebtedness. it was marcel hénaff who, in le don des philosophes (paris, seuil, 2012), activated a fruitful dialogue between the maussian paradigm of the ceremonial gift and the ricœurian reflection on the link between gift and agape. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 10 alain caillé, for his part, has shown how ricœur’s masterly analysis of the paths of recognition (parcours de la reconnaissance, paris, stock, 2004) must be enriched with the maussian discovery of the gift as an agonistic gift and as the political operator of a covenant of coexistence between strangers. both of them, hénaff and caillé, have demonstrated the groundlessness of the suspicion that, starting from phenomenological and heideggerian positions, authors such as jacques derrida and jean-luc marion nurtured towards the gift paradigm when they believed they saw in the gift the sublimation of a utilitarian interest. finally, as far as i am concerned, i have recently tried to develop the link between the struggle for recognition, as enucleated by mauss and honneth, and the concept of hegemony elaborated by antonio gramsci in the prison notebooks. in fact, just as every struggle for recognition (of the individual, of a social group, of states) is a struggle for the recognition of a gift, it is at the same time a struggle for hegemony, understood not only in terms of material or socio-economic power relations, but also as a conception of the world and as culture in the anthropological sense, capable of opposing the dominant ideology of generalised utilitarianism. hence the need to come to terms, to “lay down one’s arms”, i.e. to constantly renegotiate the rules and values of democratic coexistence in order to make it ever more inclusive and participatory. as mauss states at the end of the essay, reactivating the cycle of the gift (giving/receiving/returning) consists, today more than ever, in understanding that, in order to build a common and plural world, the conditions of a social (and, one might add, geopolitical) order must be established in which “to oppose without slaughtering each other and to give without sacrificing themselves to one another”. the second part presents an in-depth psycho-pedagogical exploration of the theme of the gift and consists of two contributions. the first, by andreana lavanga and francesco sulla, titled “praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students”, closely examines studies conducted since the 1950s on the effects of praise in the teacher-student relationship. acknowledging praise as a gift, it demonstrates its potential to enhance adaptive behavior, diminish problematic behavior in the classroom, convey positive emotions, and improve the overall classroom atmosphere. the second contribution, authored by anna daniela savino, titled “the gift of desire: the ‘inner voice’ between neuroscience and theory of attachment”, examines the phenomenon of desire and explores the experielementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 11 ence and capacity to desire. it delves into the post-pandemic scenario of covid-19 and the associated “crisis of desire”. utilizing recent findings in affective neuroscience and critiquing lacan’s perspectives, a new hermeneutic is established, highlighting the interplay between gift and desire. copyright (©) 2023 francesco fistetti editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: fistetti, f. (2023). editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 7-11. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-edit elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-edit https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization editorial ii – governing transitions elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa editorial ii governing transitions tommaso sgarro università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-edi2 tommaso.sgarro@unifg.it the idea of transition is accompanied by the idea of fragility. transition as a passage from one stage to another, narrates something not yet defined, determined; it narrates the becoming of something into something other than itself. the questioning of identity realizes fragility in the transitional dynamic, and this fragility marks the very meaning of humanity and its history, which never remain in itself, but is in constant movement. this is the reason a transition paradigm cannot be constructed; rather, it would be appropriate to seek a privileged vantage point from which to observe the “making” of transitional processes. if, to do this it was once necessary to destabilize the theoretical foundation, it is now essential to produce a direct field observation of a restless object that is difficult to grasp. thus, to research transition is to never really grasp it where it is, because by the time one tries to describe it, it has already become something else. observing social changes, especially after the covid-19 pandemic, has become particularly complicated. the hyper-digitalization of social changes has accelerated transitional processes, and this has developed a kind of ideology of transition, as if it does not deal with dynamics, but is the very goal of processes – elusive by their very nature – dedicated to continuous and indefinite transition. it is undeniable that this phenomenon has been reinforced by the communicative fluidity generated by the development of new communication technologies. if from the 6th century b.c.e., with parmenides, western culture began to see, the deep sense of the truth behind the real in the idea of permanence and stability, today, transition is seen as the real plot behind events. it is not a dialectical process but rather, it is a process of indolence of thought that brings the assumptions of post-modernity to saturation. being has become “in transition”, constant, elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 67 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-edi2 mailto:tommaso.sgarro@unifg.it tommaso sgarro continuous. while there is no doubt that post-modernity has had important merits in deconstructing the ideological systems that weighed heavily on the history of the 20th century, today, this lack of reference points risks limiting the scope of any hermeneutic discourse, which is already outdated in the instant it is proposed. while one cannot return to the impetuous vision of truth and reality that underlies western metaphysics, one cannot fail to become aware that a government of transition is required. otherwise, the risk is the subsumption of an eternal aimless transition as an affirmation of ontological fragility, resulting in confusion between weak and fragile thinking. a definitive and in a negative sense, subversion of the limits that post-modernity itself had set. on the contrary, thought is always performative by its very nature, not merely describing but always constructing an approach to reality; its fragility is therefore the mere result of a socio-historical dynamic. today, therefore, one cannot speak of transition in the singular. de-mythologizing and de-ideologizing does not mean taking the question backwards; on the contrary, it means trying to prevent it from ending up in the dead end of paradigms, of dialectics, of historicism as an end in itself. let us try then to turn the tables by dealing with transitions in the plural. let us try, from reality, to reconstruct thinking that defines social practices which bring the problem into focus by making its contours clearer. let us not read transitions from the idea of transition, but by interrogating the subjectivities that are within transitional processes. in this respect, pedagogical-experimental inquiry allows us to sketch out and propose a method in the field, avoiding simplistic theorizing. governing transitions means educating about them; it does not mean governing processes in a technocratic and universalistic sense, but rather, it is about learning to be able to navigate the dizzying flow of current social transitions. the overlap between transitions and the speed of social processes is in fact the clearest signal of how the issue risks slipping into a futurism that is never tame in the human spirit, but always a dangerous harbinger of authoritarian drifts, an assumption of ideological risk. governing transitions means instead constructing an autocratic discourse, which starts from the care of the self, of subjectivities, as a prerequisite for the care of the we, of the human being in its transition within its own community dimension before its social dimension. it is a matter of disabling possible new power devices, hidden behind a narrative of transition that degenerates into rhetoric. to do this requires, as edgar morin wrote: “striving to think well, making ourselves capable of elaborating and using strategies, and, finally, making our bets with all consciousness”. some of these bets are addressed in the second volume of this issue of elementa in transitions. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 68 editorial ii – governing transitions pierpaolo limone and maria grazia simone, in the essay specializing online during the pandemic: an exploratory survey on support teachers in the initial training phase take a close look at the new figure of the support teacher in the era of the covid-19 pandemic; they also delve into the training needs and critical issues related to their initial training. the italian law 107 of 2015 specifically defines the process of school inclusion of students with disabilities in italy by redefining the role of support teachers. the two authors analyze data from an exploratory analysis of tests administered to participants in the fifth cycle of the tfa (tirocinio formativo attivo) at the university of foggia. in particular, the field analysis reveals the need to use technologies, factors accelerating transitional processes, as cultural mediators capable of affecting learning processes and refining teaching methods. in this sense, governing transitions means governing educational processes from the structural changes of digital pedagogy, one of the most evident effects of the post-pandemic phase. francesca finestrone, starts from the ancestral relationship that exists between music and education to analyze current trends that bring together the therapeutic and rehabilitative value of music within the sphere of digital transition and educational programming. in music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being, the prerequisites of the transition to special education are defined, which in the interaction of technology, music, and education build new and effective practices to help pupils with special educational needs. these move from recognizing the role of technology in a proactive sense and rejecting its simplistic demonization. gennaro balzano and vito balzano reckon with the transitions of the world of work in the face of the digital work wagers developed during the pandemic phase. what emerges from the reconstruction of educating for transitions in work contexts is that the digitization of work processes was a process that was already in place and that the pandemic has only accelerated this. this would confirm the overlap between transition and the speed of socio-work transformation processes within a transitional dimension ideologically set by the current phase of reorganization of the liberalist economic system. against this drift, an alternative form of “permanence”, understood as continuity of the educational process, is defined. this latter goes on to coincide with the entire lifetime of the human being, is not aimed at the mere production cycle, and allows a rethink of work as a tool and not as an end. giuseppina maria patrizia surace, on the other hand, addresses the transition par excellence, that of the phenomenon of migration, not in an elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 69 tommaso sgarro aseptic way but by delving into the specific case of unaccompanied minors in their personal transition to adulthood. what emerges is a narrative about “transitions in transition”, capable of addressing the issue of selfidentity from personal experience. in the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors, the development of the migrant person, as it intertwines with structural factors of a socio-political nature that interact and mark the transition to adulthood is reconstructed with a certain abundance of references and data. thus, training processes are not neutral, but they respond to inputs from socio-historical changes, modifying the way in which human beings think and deal with reality. the plural declension of transitional processes helps to understand their complexity, and their irreducibility to dialectical dynamics. transition must be read within the rhetorical device of the precise phase that produces it. transitions, on the other hand, speak of human beings and their passage through history. the recent russianukrainian crisis, shows that it is not over, that it is changing, in transition, and that, however, there is no single point of arrival, contrary to the belief of francis fukuyama (the end of history and the last man, 1992). seriously considering transition as transitions is the approach that we have tried to bring into play in the pages of this issue of elementa. as mentioned above, this is an outline, a starting point, without any claim to great detail or peremptoriness: one must always, however, start somewhere. copyright (©) 2022 tommaso sgarro editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: sgarro, t. (2022). editorial ii – governing transitions. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 67-70. doi: https://dx.doi. org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-edi2 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 70 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-edi2 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-edi2 elementa_2-2022-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 153 education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization salvatore iuso pia marinaro università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-iuma salvatore.iuso@unifg.it pia.marinaro@unifg.it abstract in an era increasingly characterized by pluralism and globalization, intercultural pedagogy represents a starting point for addressing the challenges that today’s society confronts us with daily. throughout history, cultures have changed through interactions, exchanges, and hybridization, leading to the formation of an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural society. against this background, it is crucial to develop approaches based on dialogue and mutual recognition. however, acceptance and willingness to encounter require an educational path that is promoted by schools from childhood, especially in view of the monocultural mentality that too often characterizes more and more people and prevents the opening of a path that counteracts ethnocentrism in favor of a broader perspective. from this point of view, intercultural pedagogy proves to be the only approach that can guarantee the formation of individuals ready to create a truly multicultural society. keywords: diversity; education; globalisation; identity; interculturality; intercultural pedagogy; monocultural mind; multiculturality; plural mind; plural society. 1. identity and diversity although every culture has been modified and hybridized in its relations with other cultures since the earliest times (ceruti, 2018), today, of course, we live in a present increasingly characterized by a web of dense relations between individuals and cultures. we are talking, of course, about the process of globalization which, starting from the economic sphere, has rapidly spread to practically all areas of society, bringing together contexts that elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-iuma mailto:salvatore.iuso@unifg.it mailto:pia.marinaro@unifg.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa salvatore iuso pia marinaro 154 would have had nothing to do with each other just a few years ago. the contact between even distant geographical areas, increasingly facilitated by technology, has made possible the development of a plural society made up of cultures that intertwine and influence each other, so that borders are becoming increasingly blurred. interactions and hybridizations between cultures, forms of spirituality, and heterogeneous forms of knowledge now seem to occur with significant frequency even in the everyday experiences of many individuals and communities (ceruti, 2018). in a society made up of diversity, i.e. something with which, willingly or unwillingly, we will have to live with every day (balslev & rorty, 2001), it is indeed essential to develop behaviours that respect diversity and thus the person, in a dialogical approach that makes it possible to create a relationship that can be both similar and different, recognizing in the other a being that is similar to us in its human essence and at the same time different because he or she is the bearer of new qualities, every human being thus carries a dual aspect of the human being – it is not rigid, static and fixed once and for all, but dynamic, mobile, changeable, subject to ups and downs depending on the external context, the needs of the moment, the expectations of the environment and even our state of mind and age (kapuściński, 2006). it is, in this sense, a principle of recognition and valorisation (ellerani, 2014) that does not stop at the cognitive level alone, but rather presupposes a profound change affecting the emotional level capable of shaping all those involved. we must ask ourselves, at this point, how personal and cultural identity is formed in relation to diversity. if it is true, in fact, that both parties involved are called upon to reflect on their own culture and to choose how to relate to the other, then it becomes sacrosanct to understand that it is impossible not to be contaminated by the other with whom a relationship is woven, but that on the contrary, it is necessary to undertake a lifelong learning process capable of educating individuals who live in a mestizo culture. acceptance, welcome, and readiness to meet are not to be understood as automatic approaches but must be developed by accompanying the subject in a path that favours intercultural communication that makes dialogue possible, understood as speaking with others, since the intercultural experience is such only if the ego of each subject expands in the direction of the other, making room for his or her point of view (nanni & abbruciati, 1999). only by entering into a relationship with this assumption will it be possible to embark on the path that leads to the profound transformation of the individual. as mentioned, however, it is good to remember that, at the time of the encounter, everyone brings with them a cultural habitus that inevitably elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 155 shapes and moulds them: is the fruit of a relationship, of one or more relationships that the individual weaves in the course of his or her history. precisely because of these characteristics, i.e. the need to consider identity as plural and dynamic, it would be wrong to believe that it lacks coherence simply because it is characterized by being full of so many facets. at the same time, it would also be wrong to want to constrain it into static boundaries with the fear that, in crossing them, one will encounter some kind of threat. when the individual is reduced – or is forced to be reduced – to only one of its many facets of identity, then one runs into a fatalist conception whereby it is what it is from birth, and therefore cannot transform or evolve. if this were the case, then, as amartya sen would say, we would be dealing with a society based on solitary affiliation (sen, 2006), in which the subject is from the beginning bound to traits inherited from his habitus with no possibility of choice and no power to change. this solitarist approach is belied, however, by the faculty of rational science, which allows the individual to decide which affiliations to attach greater importance to. it is precisely the plurality of the individual that makes this choice possible: giving priority to one belonging does not mean, however, totally erasing other identities or failing to recognize them as bearers of value. it means, instead, making a decision on the exact weight that identity holds for him/her in relation to the importance of other categories to which, at the same time, it belongs (sen, 2006) in a context that protects cultural freedom in such a way as to make the development of diversity possible. 2. navigating different mindsets in contemporary age when related to culture, identity can take on an ambivalent character. while it is true that a strong sense of one’s own identity improves life within the community (sen, 2006) and intensifies relations with one’s neighbour, it is also true that solidarity with members of one’s own group can turn into hostility towards others. mind, this does not mean that identity should be eliminated, and it is indeed essential to preserve the sense of pride one feels in being part of a group, but it is necessary to bear in mind that this must not become a source of violence and terror (sen, 2006) since a culture that is completely closed in on itself and self-sufficient is conceptually and historically meaningless (nanni & abbruciati, 1999). as mentioned at the outset, cultures have always been in contact with each other for commercial and social reasons: deciding what the boundaries are therefore becomes a purely political need, and consequently, the relations elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa salvatore iuso pia marinaro 156 between cultures are influenced precisely by the encounter/confrontation that each one has with the others, reaching degrees of success when differences have come together to address common problems, which has generated a space for innovative confrontation. when it comes to educational processes and identity formation, the school becomes a protagonist as a focal centre of exchange for all the individuals who benefit from it. in recent decades, there has been an increase in foreign pupils in italian schools. we are talking about individuals who have arrived in italy or were born in our country of foreign parents: especially in the latter case, it is easy for them to question their own identity, split as it is between the environment in which they grow up and that in which they live. this splitting, very often, is experienced with conflict, as it is difficult for the person experiencing it to be adequately accompanied in his or her path of growth and discovery of his or her own identity: in these cases, a situation is created in which the person believes he or she has to make a transition both of growth – from childhood to adolescence to adulthood – and of integration within the society in which he or she lives, which, at least in some aspects, will necessarily be different – and often even distant – from the one in which the family raised him or her. it is the school, at this juncture, that is called to the front line to provide concrete support to the student who never feels completely at his or her place. since confrontation with otherness, in fact, makes it possible to understand how one’s own point of view is not unique and inescapable, the school and its pedagogical project are indispensable in a learning process aimed at elaborating an idea of plural identity and multiple selves, for which a multidimensional, plurilingual and pluricultural educational itinerary can be outlined; on the other, it is aimed at elaborating an idea of interculture, for which to hypothesize and construct a network of institutional collaborations with a view to a system of competent and appropriately integrated social, cultural and educational offers (pinto minerva, 2002). the pedagogical project we are talking about, in this case, is one that enables the search for new forms, tools, and opportunities capable of forming the basis of a constructive and creative dialogue for the creation of a society that can truly call itself multicultural. to form such a context, however, we must start from the grassroots. when we speak of interculturality, we must necessarily first define the concept of pluralism, since the cognitive matrix of intercultural education is plurality and its natural enemy is single thinking, homologation as a process of wiping out differences and the triumph of monoculturalism (pinto minerva, 2002). in short, we are talking about a complex system that repudiates in every way monocultural categories, which are unsuitelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 157 able for understanding reality and interacting with other individuals. the mind must be educated to a complex system that must, however, also be intercultural, that is, able to cope with the problems that reality poses every day. when we speak of complex thinking, however, we mean above all a thinking that binds, on the one hand contextualizing, i.e. linking to the context, and on the other hand trying to understand what a system is (morin, 1999). a monocultural mindset indicates a deep involvement in one’s own culture, leading one to believe that the world is limited to this one perspective. this is, as we have said, a problematic approach to say the least, since it tends to cause limited thinking about one’s own culture and that of others. the monocultural mentality, in short, causes the individual to think of his own as a superior culture, homogenizing all others and consequently ignoring the peculiarities that make each society unique and worthy of being placed on the same level. this type of approach, moreover, very often leads to the loss of a vast heritage of knowledge and traditions that, not being properly preserved and handed down, risk falling into oblivion and disappearing from common knowledge. 3. pedagogical approaches for an intercultural mind today, unfortunately, we are witnessing the entrenchment of this type of mentality: even though tradition has been handing down continuous exchanges since the dawn of humanity, it is also true that societies have always had discriminatory and closed attitudes towards cultures that might appear different or distant from their own. this closure leads individuals to remain imprisoned in a static state that does not allow meaningful dialogue between cultures, preventing the full development of globality. the multicultural mindset, from this perspective, proves to be advantageous in that it profoundly transforms the mental structure. it is a mindset that is open, flexible, and ready to face multiple situations, which can offer degrees of freedom and flexibility unimaginable by those who are locked in a monocultural mindset (anolli, 2006). it is a mindset that knows how to interact with other cultures precisely because it is able to recognize the partiality of its own point of view, placing itself in an attitude of curiosity and openness towards cultures. the confrontation between different models of thought offers a wide range of possibilities and freedom in exploring the potential of existence. the openness of the multicultural mindset also implies the acquisition of different systems of meaning, allowing the construction of additional paths of meaning. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa salvatore iuso pia marinaro 158 intercultural communication requires first and foremost mutual acceptance and should be seen both as a response to the social challenges of contemporary society and as an ethical and cognitive task. the first aspect is practical and relates to current issues in the world, including the acceptance of migrants, dialogue, and cooperation in learning. dialogue, in particular, is a fundamental tool to combat racism and fear of diversity, provided it is guided by rationality and reasoning. it is a challenging task that requires one to move forward toward one’s neighbour in order to understand and approach him, but at the same time, it also requires one to take a step back by reflecting on one’s beliefs without abandoning them or considering them relativistically equivalent to all others. this balance is essential to appreciate diversity without homologising it with other differences, because not all differences are equal. it is therefore a challenge for a new model of culture, radically different from the traditional one – western or greek-christian-bourgeois – and able to review the foundations of this model and propose new ones (cambi, 2001), in order to overcome ethnocentrism through a positive approach that promotes tolerance and rational choices, replacing the emphasis on belonging and place. from a theoretical point of view, interculturalism challenges the ever-changing mindset of western man, which constantly tests the practices he is confronted with and his resistance. this challenge requires constant adaptation in order not to fall into the closed paradigms from which one wants to distance oneself. it is a matter of challenging tradition and the cultural habitus based on primary identity in order to foster new cognitive and ethical attitudes, which is a challenging thing to do and meets with deep resistance that seeks to preserve old models. the pedagogical frontier is dynamic, in a complex process stretching between the present and the future. interculture contributes to developing an ecological, inclusive, and dialogical pedagogical approach, based on the principles of equality, emancipation, non-violence, and difference. pedagogy recognizes its importance but knows it cannot meet this challenge alone; therefore, it draws on other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy, promoting their interaction. pedagogy focuses not only on how to deal with different cultures but also on how to facilitate encounters between them, regulating and orienting dialogue towards listening. pedagogy stands as the core of the ever-evolving rationalization of interculture, aiming at constructive communication. this challenge embraces the uncertainty of outcomes, which is intrinsic to the very nature of pedagogy, both as pedagogical action and as “project knowledge”. the individual must rethink himself, redefine himself without fixed boundaries, embracing complexity, pluralism, and a new, decentralized perelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 159 spective. his approach to the world must be flexible, adaptable, free, and oriented towards dynamic experiences. likewise, culture must evolve towards a pluralistic and decentralized perspective, breaking away from the rigidity of simplification and systematization. it must open itself to hybridization and creativity and manifest itself in different forms, moments, and ways. furthermore, society must reorganize itself as a pluralistic society without a central point of reference that values individuality in its many possibilities. intercultural pedagogy starts from the complexity that characterizes each culture and each individual. it recognizes the plural and multicultural nature of each of us and values and supports not only the diversity between individuals but also the diversity within individuals (ceruti, 2018). in this age of pluralism and complexity, it is essential to outline the fundamentals of pedagogy, because schools are facing new challenges and cannot improvise educational paths or take routes whose outcomes they do not know. the significant changes initiated in the third millennium require adequate preparation to cope with the increasing mobility of people and languages. interculturality represents a paradigm shift that abandons the monocultural pedagogical approach in favour of a recognition-based thinking that opens up different pedagogical perspectives. intercultural pedagogy is a way of thinking that starts from cultural specificity but integrates a dimension of universality through sharing common elements. this pedagogy is open to exploring the possible and does not follow a predefined approach. it is primarily a relational pedagogy that focuses on the relationships between people from different cultures in order to develop a formative practice. 4. conclusions intercultural education should be seen as an integral and structural part of the educational process, not limited to the context, but fundamental for dealing with the complexity of contemporary reality on a conceptual and educational level. this type of pedagogy should integrate complexity, overcome seemingly irreconcilable differences, and serve as a space to explore intercultural dynamics in the relationship with meanings and in the creation of codes and symbolic heritages of reference. individuals must also learn to deal with both external influences and their own potential and to explore independently the risks and opportunities associated with their choices. education should be seen as a continuous learning path. the educational goal for each individual should be the realization of their best form in life by reaching the maximum of their elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa salvatore iuso pia marinaro 160 potential. education aims at autonomy, and an example for that could be the ability to self-regulate, and it is based on the surrounding culture and environment while taking into account individual characteristics and differences, adapts the educational method to the needs and learning styles of each learner in order to make it effective and meaningful in a context of lifelong learning, and is able to accompany individuals throughout their lives and support them through any obstacles they may face. references anolli, l. 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(1999). la tête bien faite. paris: seuil. nanni, a., & abbruciati, s. (1999). per capire l’interculturalità. parole-chiave. bo logna: editrice missionaria italiana. pinto minerva, f. (2002). l’intercultura. roma bari: laterza. sen, a. (2008). identity and violence: the illusion of destiny. new york: w.w. norton & company. riassunto in un’era sempre più caratterizzata dal pluralismo e dalla globalizzazione, la pedagogia interculturale si pone quale punto di partenza per affrontare le sfide a cui la società odierna ci mette davanti ogni giorno. le culture, nel corso della storia, si sono modificate elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 161 grazie a interazioni, scambi e ibridazioni, che hanno portato alla formazione di una società sempre più pluralistica e multiculturale. risulta quindi fondamentale, dato il contesto, sviluppare approcci basati sul dialogo e sul riconoscimento reciproco. l’accettazione, l’accoglienza e la disponibilità all’incontro richiedono però un percorso educativo promosso dalla scuola sin dall’infanzia, soprattutto considerando la mentalità monoculturale che troppo spesso caratterizza sempre più individui, precludendo l’apertura di una strada che contrasti l’etnocentrismo a favore di una prospettiva più ampia. la pedagogia interculturale, in quest’ottica, si dimostra l’unico approccio in grado di garantire la formazione di individui disponibili alla creazione di una vera società multiculturale. copyright (©) 2023 salvatore iuso, pia marinaro editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: iuso, s., & marinaro, p. (2023). education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 153-161. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-iuma elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-iuma https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 103 universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ross martina.rossi@unifg.it abstract this contribution aims to reflect on the didactic and methodological changes brought about by distance learning, with particular regard to the concept of inclusive teaching. during the last year, in fact, the epidemiological emergency dictated by covid-19 has led to the emergence of new needs, imposing a redesign of tools and resources in use. all this has had a strong impact on students with disabilities and specific learning disorders (sld), who, in addition to having fewer digital skills than their european peers, were suddenly forced to follow lessons at home without the physical support of the teacher. it was necessary, in fact, to think and re-think about the design of inclusive educational interventions. from a methodological and conceptual point of view, inclusive teaching is linked to the concept of universal design for learning (udl), an inclusive psycho-pedagogical approach that aims to break down the barriers that exist in learning processes. during the pandemic period, one of the major challenges that scholars have begun to consider is applying the udl approach, generally used in in-person classes, lectures and online courses. keywords: disability; distance learning; inclusion; technology; universal design for learning. introduction as of march 2020, as a result of the epidemiological situation dictated by covid-19, 90% of students had to leave their school and university desks. institutions promptly responded to the health emergency by offering alterhttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ross martina rossi elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 104 native solutions to face-to-face teaching. it is precisely in this particular historical period that the term distance learning was born, a concept that differs from that of distance learning, understood as “a mode of delivery of training activated on an emergency basis in order to replace the training in presence following its suspension due to the effect of the prime ministerial decree of 04/03/2020” (tamborra, 2021). the application of distance learning, however, has brought to the surface problems and contradictions already inherent in the school system, especially in terms of inclusive teaching; it has not in fact increased inequalities, but has made them emerge. the pandemic, in fact, has closely touched students with disabilities and with special educational needs, who have had to face a double challenge linked both to the emergency situation and to their condition of fragility. with this in mind, it has become even more relevant to study how teachers can apply the universal design for learning online approach, starting with designing for inclusive learning environments (rao, 2021). 1. universal design for learning: tools to ensure inclusive teaching universal design for learning (udl) is an inclusive psycho-pedagogical approach that aims to break down barriers in learning processes (capp, 2020). it aims to address three crucial teaching challenges: • valuing diversity; • inclusive education; • the critical and conscious use of ict (information and communication technologies). this approach was born in the 80s in the united states in the field of architecture to design buildings and environments accessible to all, eliminating architectural barriers. subsequently, the concepts related to accessibility began to extend into the educational field. specifically, cast  – center for applied special technology – in the early 1990s, thanks to anne meyer and david h. rose, began to research, develop and articulate the principles and practices of udl, with the intent to propose, through the use of technology, innovative solutions for the learning of students with disabilities in compensatory and dispensatory modes (meyer, rose, & gordon, 2014). thanks to technological advances and their diffusion, cast then proposed a method of action applicable to all students, suggesting flexible objectives and methods (munafò, 2020). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 105 cast defines udl as “a set of principles and guidelines for the development of programming that seeks to give all individuals equal opportunities to learn” (cast, 2018). the ultimate goal of udl is to ensure the implementation of personalized training curricula, respecting diversity and individuality, eliminating the classification of students with specific learning disorders, which in fact does not allow the implementation of the very concept of inclusion. the real challenge is both to propose an effective model for the creation of educational objectives and flexible approaches that can be personalized and adapted, and to create an inclusive learning environment that helps each student develop his or her potential (james, 2018). the aim is therefore to encourage participation, involvement and learning starting from individual needs and abilities. the principles of udl were developed based on neuroscientific research. according to meyer and colleagues (2014), when a person performs a learning task, whatever it is, it is possible to identify three neural networks involved in the learning process, which correspond to the (fig. 1): • “what we learn”, referring to the knowledge network; • “how we learn”, referring to the active strategy network; • “because we learn”, referring to affective networks. figure 1. – three learning networks (munafò, 2020). based on these neuroscientific elements, the three principles of udl emerge (munafò, 2020). cast, in fact, proposes guidelines that “can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities” (cast, 2018). the three core principles, therefore, are (cast, 2018): 1. providing multiple means of representation – the “what” of learning: this means that there is no single mode of representation that is optimal for all learners, as providing options for representation turns out to be critical. 2. provide multiple means of action and expression – the “how” of learning: as each student uses a different means of action and expression. 3. provide multiple means of engagement – the “why” of learning: as each student is involved and motivated differently in learning processes. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 106 figure 2. – udl guidelines (cast, 2018). in short, the udl philosophy is based on the idea that there are multiple ways to represent knowledge (principle one), multiple ways in which students can demonstrate their knowledge and understanding (principle two), and multiple ways to engage students in the learning process (principle three). within the three principles of the udl, there are 9 guidelines and 31 checkpoints (fig. 2); these provide teachers with specific pedagogical strategies to break and break down barriers during the learning process. the principles, guidelines, and checkpoints are organized from the most general to the most specific (capp, 2020). 2. inclusive teaching and covid-19. what changes? from a methodological and conceptual point of view, udl is linked to the concept of inclusive didactics (maffione, 2020). heidrun (2019) defines inclusive teaching as the set of actions “for the design, implemenhttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 107 tation and evaluation of educational practices that activate the learning and participation processes of all pupils. the ultimate goal of inclusive teaching is to enable all students to achieve educational success, eliminating any potential barriers that may hinder it (maffione, 2020). being, therefore, a teaching of all students, the recipients of inclusive teaching are not only students with special educational needs, but every student in the class group, welcomed and valued by the teacher, based on their individual specificities. due to the health emergency caused by covid-19, school and university activities have undergone a radical change (rossi & tateo, 2021). in fact, since march 2020, 90% of students have had to leave their school and university desks. this has led to a rapid response from countries around the world, which have invested in distance learning solutions using various online media and platforms (mascheroni et al., 2021). the term distance learning refers to “a training delivery method activated on an emergency basis in order to replace face-to-face training following its suspension as a result of the prime ministerial decree of 04/03/2020” (tamborra, 2021). distance learning has resulted in the emergence of new needs, which require a redesign of tools and resources in use. it was necessary, in fact, to think and re-think the design of inclusive teaching interventions. it is inevitable that all this has had a strong impact on students with disabilities and with specific learning disorders – sld (arenghi et al., 2020). with the term sld, we refer to neurodevelopmental disorders that affect the ability to read, write, and compute correctly and fluently that occur with the onset of schooling. the complexity of the disorder is not yet fully understood; however, research is working towards this end (peconio, doronzo, & guarini, 2021). the covid emergency has placed every teacher in front of an unprecedented educational challenge: to guarantee the right to study of all students by implementing effective distance learning (maffione, 2020). especially in the case of students with specific learning disorders, teaching technologies assume a fundamental role as they allow to adapt the content in the form and to use compensatory or dispensatory tools (peconio, doronzo, & guarini, 2021). as the data of the research carried out by the european commission (2019) entitled “2nd survey of schools: ict in education” highlight, the real problem actually lies in the low digital literacy of teachers, who found themselves unprepared to deal with this emergency phase. teachers have not been able to use technological devices correctly and efficiently. in fact, as stated in the latest istat report “school inclusion of pupils with disabilities – a.s. 2019/2020” (2020): https://www.ledonline.it/elementa martina rossi elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 108 training in specific educational technologies for pupils with disabilities is still not very widespread, although it is essential for the proper use of the tools to support teaching, both in presence and at a distance: in one school out of 10 no support teacher has attended a specific course for the appropriate use of these technologies; in 61% of schools only some teachers have attended courses, while in the remaining cases (28%) all teachers have attended at least one course. in line with the levels of training, the use of educational technologies by teachers for support has not yet reached maximum diffusion: there are less than 60% of schools in which all teachers use these tools. (istat, 2020) in addition, the same report shows how the activation of the dl has made a delicate process such as school inclusion more complex. among the reasons that have made it difficult for pupils with disabilities to participate in distance learning it is possible to find (istat, 2020): • the severity of the pathology (27%); • the difficulty of family members to cooperate (20%); • socio-economic hardship (17%); • the difficulty in adapting the educational plan for inclusion (iep) to distance learning (6%); • the lack of technological tools (6%); • the lack of specific teaching aids (3%). these data, although negative, should not represent a defeat, but a starting point to reorganize teaching for pupils with sld and with special educational needs (peconio, doronzo, & guarini, 2021). 3. promoting inclusive online education: future perspectives in terms of “inclusive teaching” distance learning has not increased inequalities, it has brought them to the surface. the teaching of these months has been not at a distance, but one of emergence (crescenze & rossiello, 2021). indeed, as hodges and colleagues (2020) state, the primary goal in these circumstances is not to design a robust educational ecosystem but rather to provide temporary access to education and to respond quickly to educational needs during an emergency or crisis. there is no doubt that distance learning has brought a series of consequences and changes to traditional teaching practices; it follows that it cannot be considered as a simple parenthesis. regarding inclusive teaching, one of the major challenges that scholars have started to consider is applying the udl approach, generally used in face-to-face classes, in online classes and courses. indeed, it has become even more relevant to study how teachers https://www.ledonline.it/elementa universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 109 can apply udl online, starting with designing for inclusive learning environments (rao, 2021). to ensure that technology tools are used to support all students in both online and classroom learning environments, it is necessary to consider their use as part of an intentional design process, using a proactive design process that explicitly integrates udl (rao, 2021). in doing so, teachers will be able to support all online learners, including students with disabilities or other students who experience challenges in the learning process. designing distance learning pathways with udl methodology means being able to include multiple types and modes of learning, providing materials that can support students’ specificities, providing multiple opportunities for engagement and assessment so that students can demonstrate their mastery of learning (lachheb, abramenkalachheb, & huber, 2021). implementing the principles of udl requires technology-based learning environments and digital tools. digital tools for teaching include: • hardware: such as laptops, mobile devices etc.; • software: such as applications or extensions; • technology-based environments: e.g. websites or e-learning platforms. in the light of what has been said, therefore, it is necessary to think and re-think about new ways to make distance learning inclusive. it is useful, therefore (maffione, 2020): • choose the right it tools and appropriate communication modes based on the specific needs of the learner; • make content accessible through activities to customize or individualize study materials; • differentiate and/or simplify the working methods of the activities, according to the didactic and educational goals to be pursued; • ensure constant feedback and “remote” guidance for times of difficulty and/or psychological stress. another fundamental aspect to ensure inclusive teaching even at a distance concerns the use of peer tutoring: this allows the involvement of the whole class by encouraging students to feel part of a group even in the absence of teachers; never as in distance learning the resource of the proximity of peers can make the difference (fantozzi, 2020). it is necessary remember the need, especially in distance learning, to provide for the use of compensatory and dispensatory tools, which may consist, for example, in the use of speech synthesis software that transforms reading tasks into listening tasks, books or digital vocabularies and concept all students according to a truly inclusive pedagogical vision: in this sense the udl “forces” schools and institutions to review not only teaching methods but also learning environments and spaces. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa martina rossi elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 110 conclusion in the light of what has emerged, there is no doubt that there is a need to reinvent and reshape the design of educational interventions. all this is possible only through the experimentation of new teaching and learning strategies, able to put at the center the principle of inclusion. therefore, it is appropriate to focus on the specific needs of each pupil and to use methodologies that respond to different needs (peconio, doronzo, & guarini, 2021). to do this, it is necessary to experiment and apply udl also at a distance, as it is the only approach able to facilitate the personalization and individualization of training paths, providing a differentiated proposal offered to all, eliminating the classification of students with special educational needs which in itself is not inclusive; udl, moreover, allows the use of various educational and didactic means to enrich students’ learning from the beginning. the negative data analyzed and emerged in this contribution, should not be a defeat, but a starting point to reorganize the teaching for students with sld and special educational needs, remembering that technologies are able not only to improve the environment but also to shape what is learned, changing how we learn. providing different spaces and places to learn increases opportunities to meet individual needs. references arenghi, a., bencini, g., pavone, m., & savarese, g. 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(2020). schooling disrupted, schooling rethought: how the covid-19 pandemic is changing education. https://www. schooleducationgateway.eu/en/pub/resources/publications/schoolingdisrupted-rethought.htm rogers, s. a., & gronseth, s. l. (2021). applying udl to online active learning. the journal of applied instructional design, 10(1). rossi, m., & tateo, l. (2021 in press). hybrid teaching in the experience of the university of foggia: analysis, implementation and perspectives. in proceedings of second workshop on technology enhanced learning environments for blended education – the italian e-learning conference (telexbe). tamborra, v. (2021). emergency distance learning all’università. il futuro della didattica universitaria tra policy accademica e openess della formazione. formazione, & insegnamento. rivista internazionale di scienze dell’educazione e della formazione, 19(2), 157-167. zambianchi, e., & ferrarese, g. (2021). il modello dell’universal design for learning a supporto della didattica digitale integrata. formazione, & insegnamento. rivista internazionale di scienze dell’educazione e della formazione, 19(1), 522-532. riassunto il presente contributo ha l’intento di riflettere sui cambiamenti didattici e metodologici apportati dalla didattica a distanza, con particolare riguardo al concetto di didattica inclusiva. durante l’ultimo anno, infatti, l’emergenza epidemiologica dettata dal covid-19 ha comportato l’emersione di bisogni nuovi, imponendo una riprogettazione di strumenti e risorse in uso. tutto ciò ha avuto un forte impatto sugli studenti con disabilità e con disturbi specifici dell’apprendimento (dsa), i quali, oltre ad avere meno competenze digitali dei loro coetanei europei, sono stati costretti improvvisamente a seguire le lezioni a casa senza il supporto fisico del docente di sostegno. è stato necessario, infatti, pensare e ri-pensare alla progettazione di interventi didattici inclusivi. da un punto di vista metodologico e concettuale, la didattica inclusiva si lega al concetto dell’universal design for learning (udl), un approccio psico-pedagogico inclusivo che si pone l’obiettivo di abbattere le barriere che vi sono nei processi di apprendimento. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 113 durante il periodo pandemico, una delle maggiori sfide che gli studiosi hanno iniziato a considerare è applicare l’approccio udl, generalmente utilizzato nelle lezioni in presenza, nelle lezioni e corsi online. copyright (©) 2021 martina rossi editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: rossi, m. (2021). universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 103-113. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ross https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ross elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic. an exploratory survey elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic 1 * an exploratory survey pierpaolo limone 1 maria grazia simone 2 1 learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) 2 università telematica ecampus doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-lisi pierpaolo.limone@unifg.it mariagrazia.simone@uniecampus.it abstract the paper aims to deepen the characteristics, training needs and critical issues related to the initial training of the support teachers in the era of the covid-19 pandemic. the first part offers a synthetic theoretical framework about the problem. the second part presents the results, still in the initial phase of elaboration, of an exploratory survey conducted among some students attending the active training internship (tfa, fifth cycle) at the university of foggia. an initial analysis of the results reveals the profile of a rather motivated aspiring support teacher, eager to acquire new skills, with a good level of confidence in technology. the article proposes, in the final part, paths for reflection and action that can be used by training designers and academic decision makers in order to optimize future specialization training for support teachers, at multiple levels. keywords: inclusion; incoming training; pandemic; professional role; special needs teacher. * the authors jointly planned the overall design of the contribution. p. limone is responsible for writing paragraphs 1 and 4, m. g. simone for paragraphs 2 and 3. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 71 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-lisi mailto:pierpaolo.limone@unifg.it mailto:mariagrazia.simone@uniecampus.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone 1. literature review in the rich italian pedagogical and cultural debate on the issues of scholastic integration of disabled pupils, the voice has rarely been given to the direct protagonists: the teachers, who carry it out every day in italian schools (canevaro et al., 2011). during the university specialization to become a support teacher, the student is called to fight against many stereotypes, and even “misunderstandings” (cottini, 2017). they are rooted in school practices and can become obstacles for the development of the professional role idea and for inclusion in teaching/learning contexts in which disabled pupils are present. these stereotypes may concern the teaching role, others the idea of the student. they can be summarized as follows: • the assimilation of the support teacher figure to a “minor” category, compared to the curricular one, even in the presence of specialized training (trisciuzzi & galanti, 2001). • the difficulty in seeing, in support teacher, a “system figure”, a professional resource available to the whole class, and not just the one who cares about the disabled student (mura, 2014; nes, demo, & ianes, 2017). • the idea that the disabled student is “owned” by the support teacher. this generates the tendency to delegate and relieve the teaching team from a series of responsibilities (trisciuzzi & galanti, 2001; canevaro, d’alonzo, & ianes, 2009; canevaro et al., 2011). this situation produces many obstacles to participation and inhibit the creation of an inclusive learning environment. • the poorly evolving representation of the disabled pupil and his consequent being above all a “case” (d’alessio, 2011; dovigo, 2014; goussot, 2015), rather than a person. despite these numerous critical issues, we agree with those who said that another support teacher training is possible (canevaro & ianes, 2019). it is feasible, according to our point of view, if the students, in academic specialization paths, is offered quality of the learning activities, calibrated on his training needs and with a strong technological component. the issue of training and initial academic specialization for support teachers represents, today, an open question that is requiring important reflections. it is no longer tolerable, in fact, that this kind of teachers may find themselves taking care of children, pre-adolescents and adolescents, with various types of disabilities or deficits, without being able to boast adequate theoretical and methodological skills. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 72 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic the legislative process that introduced in italy the active training internship courses (tfa) wanted to generate a specialized academic preparation and a clear professional qualification of these teachers to contrast stereotypes and favors the scholastic inclusion of disabled students. the current transformation of the training curriculum of the specialized support teacher, introduced by legislative decree no. 66/2017 under law no. 107/2015, is animating a series of theoretical, epistemological and methodological reflections on: • the professional skills of this kind of teacher; • the principles of inclusion shared internationally (think of icf classification); • how to make this competitive and qualified figure. from the attendance of the active training internship courses, the figure of a support teacher emerges with teaching, planning, theoretical, methodological and relational skills regarding disabilities, capable to influence contexts (santi, 2015; santi & ruzzante, 2016) and promote learning and inclusion of all. academic programs of specialization for support teachers becomes an indispensable training ground for the acquisition of specialist and transversal skills and educational sensitivities about diversities. all of this are essential for making the setting inclusive, the learning proposal and promoting the school of differences. as bocci, guerini and travaglini (2020) points out, specialization on the themes of pedagogy and special education needs, requires a reflection on the models of inclusive action that are emerging at the international level. a greater degree of awareness is required, a more accentuated ability to read situations and critically analyze them, managing to grasp what escapes common attention. this implies that the training on special education theory and methods must characterize all teachers, not only who have to teach to disabled students. academic specialization courses for support teachers have always had a marked theoretical-practical feature. for this reason, this kind of course have regulations that provided for complete disbursement in presence, with mandatory attendance. for a year and a half now, the dramatic planetary presence of the covid-19 virus in our daily lives has made it essential to resort to distance learning to face the emergency of the closure of schools of all levels. at the same time, communication, education and learning technologies have made it possible to attend university specialization courses for support teachers entirely online. the online activation of this kind of courses was introduced by the interministerial decree no. 94/2020 for students of the fifth cycle elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 73 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone (academic year 2019/20). the subsequent ministerial decree no. 858/2020, issued following the persistence of the pandemic, also allowed practical and laboratory activities to be carried out online. this significant transformation has required universities to redesign the teaching and learning paths in order to be delivered entirely online. in university of foggia case, the redesign actions, due to the persistence of the pandemic, were carried out taking into account three convictions: a. see in the online course not an emergency path, a substitute for what the face-to-face course should have been, but an important possibility to free learning from the space and time of the university classroom and thus make it more accessible for a wider audience of students. clear advantages are thus obtained also with respect to the needs of social distancing for reasons of prevention, the reconciliation of life / work times, transport, etc. b. perceive, in the possibility of specializing online, a significant opportunity for professional and also personal growth. it is necessary to react to the adverse event, by tracing living in a pandemic era, as a significant opportunity for learning and developing resilience. one can look at the emergency beyond a deficient perspective (the one that complains about the lack of personal freedom, security, direct contact with the other, etc.), to see it as a “generative field of stimuli, actions and reflections and even conceptualizations from which to derive learning. in this sense, it can be an emancipating experience” (paparella, limone, & cinnella, 2020). c. set up the teaching activities by providing practical tasks not only in the workshops but also during the moments of frontal teaching, to encourage learning by doing. from unforeseen situations, from great upheavals, it is not possible to go out the same as before. every opportunity for change, in an evolutionary perspective, must be welcomed and exploited in one’s favor. in this way, a precious opportunity for education and development is gained (limone & simone, 2020). 2. materials and methods the research problem is the following: the professional figure of the support teacher requires to develop, in the initial training course, a good synthesis of skills, both specialized and transversal of inclusive teaching (cottini, 2014; camedda & santi, 2016; d’alonzo, 2016). this must also be guaranteed through online specialization courses. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 74 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic the research question is a cognitive one: who are the teachers preparing to specialize as support teachers in times of pandemic? to try to answer to these questions, in the period february-june 2021 we conduct an exploratory survey at the specialization courses for support teachers activated at the university of foggia (italy). the qualitative-quantitative survey, carried out using a multiple choice questionnaire administered to about no. 383 postgraduates, aimed to outline: the profile of the trainees, their training needs, the teaching motivations, the representation of the necessary skills, the inclusion idea, the relationship with technologies and educational experience in a pandemic era. the sample survey was total: the information survey is performed on all units that make up the population under study. the interviewees were attending the following study subjects: • special teaching for intellectual disability and generalized developmental disorders (grade: second grade secondary school). • pedagogy of the helping relationship (grade: primary school). numerically, the first group was made up of no. 202 subjects, the second from no. 181 subjects. the students were joined by the exploratory survey in the final phase of these two courses. in both courses, they were asked to fill in the protocol individually and, subsequently, to confront each other within on line discussion groups between students, discussing their impressions. during the plenary discussion phase, with the coordination of the teacher in charge of the two courses, all the students were able to socialize the impressions collected in their group following the compilation of the questionnaire and listen when it emerged from the discussion of all the other groups. as regards the questionnaire, it should be noted that it was not a protocol to detect a sort of “customer satisfaction” on the activities in progress, nor to evaluate the effectiveness/efficiency of the course itself, but to trace some dimensions underlying the development of professional role in the initial training phase. there is a large debate on the initial training of the support teacher (chiappetta cajola & ciraci, 2013; cottini, 2014; florian, 2014; goussot, 2014; ianes, 2014; mura, 2014; zappaterra, 2014; ianes, 2015; mura, 2015; ciraci & isodori, 2017; boccia, guerini, & travaglini, 2020) which was used as the theoretical background for the formulation of the questionnaire. as a reference for the processing of the questions and for the formulation of the items, the profile of inclusive teachers from the european agency for development in special needs education (eadsne, 2012) was used. among the objectives of the document are: (a) identify a framework of values and areas of competence valid for any program initial elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 75 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone training; (b) highlight the core values and areas of expertise in the preparation of all teachers to work in inclusive school environments. the data was collected using a questionnaire administered with cawi method and anonymous distribution. the questionnaire consists of no. 30 multiple choice questions. it was an exploratory questionnaire of inquiry (de ketele & roegiers, 2013), anonymous and self-administered online. the survey tool was uploaded to google forms and the interviewees were able to access the on line compilation via the relative link. the exploratory survey tool was divided into the following areas, not visible to respondents, which correspond to some blocks of questions: 0. registry and personal data section. 1. teaching motivation and professional skills (questions no. 1 to no. 5). 2. professional role idea and required skills (question from no. 6 to no. 9). 3. relationship with disabilities and inclusion idea (questions no. 9 to no. 18). 4. relationship with technologies (questions no. 19 to no. 24). 5. covid-19 and distance learning (questions from no. 25 to no. 30). the questions relating to the detection of attitudes provided for structured responses on a 7-point likert scale. an open question was provided for any in-depth and narrative needs. in the design of the questionnaire, the known critical elements linked to its use were considered (bailey, 1982): social desirability (tendency to respond in a conformist way), acquiescence (tendency to agree on everything) and systematic tendencies (constant bias that leads to giving extreme responses or always using the central point of the response scale). the first block of questions (personal data section) contains questions aimed at detecting the socio-demographic information of the students (age, sex, last degree obtained, any other qualifications, current job position, etc.). the second block of questions presents items whose purpose is to detect the reasons that led the students to attend the specialization course, their representation of the knowledge / skills / abilities useful for improving their professional role in an inclusive perspective, their idea of teaching, the critical issues that can be linked to being a support teacher. those who already teaches, perhaps due to the fact of being a teacher with an annual contract, were asked for information about: their relationship with colleagues, with the overall group of students, with the disabled student, with his/her family. in the third section of the questionnaire we wanted to investigate the interviewees’ idea of school inclusion and how they undertake to increase the participation of the disabled student in class activities. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 76 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic the fourth block of questions concerned the relationship of trainees with education and learning technologies. it was not only asked which technological aids they use most frequently, for what purposes and whether or not there are critical issues in their use. information was also requested regarding the actual role of technologies in favoring the process of inclusion of disabled pupils. the fifth and final block of questions urges the interviewees to reflect on their teaching and training practices in times of pandemic. in particular, if the closure of schools and the distance learning influenced the relationship with the disabled student, such as critical issues that emerged and, possibly, which advantage areas. 3. results and discussions here we offer a first analysis of the results, produced on frequency research, which in the future requires further elaboration and deepening. for the moment, this first analysis intends to provide the general identikit of the student who attends specialization courses for support at foggia university. the group under investigation is mainly represented by women (f = 372, m = 37). the prevailing age group is 40-50 years old (49%). the main educational qualification is high school diploma (44%). the vast majority of the people has no other qualifications (63%). a substantial share is employed as a teacher with an annual assignment (56%). 3.1.  teaching role and skills representation we are faced with a trainees group absolutely satisfied to have approached this profession (52%). the reasons for choosing teaching role are a specific vocation for teaching (51%) and on the interest in developmental age students (50%). among the teacher skills, 90% preferences focused on relational and empathic ones, followed by observation skills (84%), pedagogical and psychological ones (77%) and methodological ones (75%). the largest portion of the interviewed group (66%) believes that teaching is configured first of all as an educational relationship with the student, soliciting his “knowing how to be” (65%) and which translates into support actions to be offered to the student (59%). to a lesser extent, elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 77 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone teaching is seen as simple moment of knowledge transmission (63%) or social mission (72%). those who already teach, show discomfort because they feel a certain lack of specific skills in terms of special education (24%) and the extent of student disabilities (37%). 3.2.  inclusion area regarding the involvement of the support teachers in class activities, as many subjects (56%) complain of feeling scarcely involved. 44% of them found little willingness on the part of colleagues to adapt the curriculum to the rhythms and learning needs of disabled pupils. support teachers feels poorly valued by their colleagues (46%). on the part of the class, on the other hand, they feel perceived as a valid resource (54%). the relationship with the family of the disabled student is also positive (62%). regarding the strategies to favor the disabled student inclusion in the classroom and a more direct relationship with peers, the interviewees had multiple answer options and indicated group work (70%), peer tutoring (61%), theatrical, artistic and musical activities (59%). to raise the quality of inclusion of disabled students, it is useful to increase their skills in the area of effectiveness and self-esteem (77%), social and relational skills aimed at peers (84%), personal autonomy (73%). technologies are considered, by a large portion of the interviewed group (56%), as valid tools to encourage inclusion. 3.3.  technology area the interviewees (in the percentage of 54%) judge their relationship with the technologies and computer tools used in their usual teaching practices to be quite good. the presence of technology in teaching is considered quite important (69%) and very important (25%). the frequency of use for educational purposes is daily (4.9%) and weekly (37%). support teachers make more frequent use of technology to support disabled pupils learning, considering it an important aid for preparing teaching materials (40%), for carrying out research and disciplinary insights (35%). among the various tools, there is a preference for iwb, multimedia interactive whiteboard (33%). the possibility to use specific software for disability (26%) and specific app for disciplinary learning is discreet (24%). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 78 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic the utility dimension that the interviewees find in information technologies in teaching concern: support to disabled student learning motivation (45%), favoring collaborative learning opportunities among peers (40%), sharing knowledge with the class group (39%), guaranteeing the possibility for the teacher to build personalized teaching materials (42%). among the critical issues founded with technology, the interviewed group agrees on a lack of ict equipment and devices in the school where they work (35%) and the school structural limitations (37%) . few people report deficiencies in their computer skills (10%) or disinterest of disabled student towards them (8%). 3.4.  area relating to pandemic and distance learning during the health emergency caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the interviewees who already teaches were able to continue to meet their students with disabilities in school (47%) while an equally consistent part of them made use of video lesson (37%). the difficulties most encountered in distance learning can be summarized in technical problems, related to connection (26%) and equally relatively difficult to understand by the disabled student (79%) and how to help from family (21%). overall, the experience of distance learning is assigned a sufficiency rating (30%) and very few are enthusiastic about it (12%). in interviewees opinion, distance learning was found to be deficient mainly on inclusion front (54%) and on the relational one (51%). this poor consideration of distance learning by interviewed group was confirmed in some control questions and open questions. in summary, it is stated that distance learning was a necessary support in this period of emergency but, at the same time, it failed to guarantee the inclusion and relationship needs of disabled student. 4. conclusion the data emerged from this exploratory survey, although still embryonic, make it possible to develop a summary of the professional profile of support teachers who are entering the school system in a difficult historical moment like the one due to the pandemic. some points of reflection can be taken to identify the training needs of support teachers but also of academic training programs. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 79 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone respondents are gradually building their professional role. as pellerey (2018) states, the focus of the process of building professional role and identity is undoubtedly on the human person. this kind of identity is less and less defined and solicited externally and socially, while the constructive process that the subject must carry out becomes more and more central. an important lever for addressing the critical issues currently connected to the exercise of the teaching role, especially during initial training, is to work in a double sense: supporting the structuring of professional identity and supporting teaching motivation (piccinno & simone, 2015). the support teacher should be conceived not as an additional figure, but as a strategic one to make the school an increasingly inclusive environment capable of enhancing differences. in the near future we need to aim for structural changes in teaching training. from our point of view, one of the keystones lies in the integration, in teaching practice and professional knowledge, of a digital pedagogy to be included on a permanent basis, and not occasionally, in teacher training programs at all stages of their careers. it is now agreed that the lack of specific preparation in this sense, through the preparation of specific training courses (limone & pace, 2016), inhibits the planning of quality educational itineraries; this can only generate additional difficulties in teaching and learning in times of emergency and also in usual teaching practice. the development of information and communication technology has brought a surprising and revolutionary challenge to the idea and practice of traditional education. internet technology offers new opportunities to integrate face-to-face learning with online learning methods. in the future, there is a trend towards using blended learning scenarios, combining various forms of learning and integrating a variety of ways to access content using mobile technology. it is now necessary that the technological results obtained become part of the teacher’s professional action, between presence and distance, through the reconstruction of new identity meanings recognizable only in the light of an authentic, meaningful and strategic learning (entwistle & mccune, 2004). the university, in this process, plays a fundamental role as driving force for continuous teachers training and to respond to the needs, not only emergency ones, of the present time. university is asked to redesign training courses that propose technologies not as simple teaching support tools, but as cultural mediators, capable of affecting the logic and practice of the university institution also with regard to higher education and research (loiodice, 2011). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 80 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the 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(2014). formare insegnanti specializzati per il sostegno in italia. uno sguardo dia-cronico. metis, 4(1). riassunto l’articolo intende approfondire caratteristiche, bisogni formativi e criticità legati alla formazione iniziale del docente di sostegno in epoca di pandemia da covid-19. nella prima parte si offre un quadro teorico di sintesi sul problema. la seconda parte presenta i risultati, seppur ancora in fase iniziale di elaborazione, di una indagine esplorativa condotta presso alcuni allievi frequentanti il tirocinio formativo attivo (tfa, quinto ciclo) all’università degli studi di foggia. da una prima analisi dei risultati emerge il profilo di un aspirante docente di sostegno piuttosto motivato, desideroso di acquisire nuove competenze, con un buon livello di confidenza con la tecnologia. l’articolo propone, nella parte finale, delle piste di riflessione e di intervento che possono essere utilizzate dai progettisti della formazione e dai decision makers accademici allo scopo di ottimizzare i percorsi di specializzazione futuri per i docenti di sostegno, a più livelli. copyright (©) 2022 pierpaolo limone, maria grazia simone editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: limone, p., & simone, m. g. (2022). becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic. an exploratory survey. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 71-83. doi: https://dx.doi. org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-lisi elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 83 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-lisi https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-lisi https://www.ledonline.it/elementa sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 47 mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio università degli studi di bari (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ponz paolo.ponzio@uniba.it abstract from martin heidegger to emmanuel lévinas, from hannah arendt to paul ricouer: the continental tradition of twentieth-century thought has built its narrative around the themes of otherness, crossing the theme of the mask that fulfills its function precisely in the dialectic identity/otherness (idem/alter to put it in technical terms). it is also true that when one thinks about what is a “mask” it could only be possible to wonder what lies behind it, what stands in the way. the mask itself is divisive and defensive, yet, at the same time, it exposes itself, acts (like an actor who moves freely on stage and, nevertheless, is forced to stick to the development of the script). and also about the “otherness” it could be said that it hides and reveals itself at the same time; it is the totally other and, at the same time, the overturned self (almost an “i” which is more and “other than” me, of ricouerian memory). it is the foreigner, but also the welcome guest, as lévinas attests; it is at the same time the refugee, the immigrant, the pilgrim or the wanderer (to use the nietzsche of “human too much human”). keywords: heidegger; lévinas; mask; otherness; self. 1. the mask as a paradigm of existence to highlights some of the outlines, however, i would like to begin this intervention with some passages from a well-known novella by pirandello, the train has whistled, in which one of the many pirandellian masks – https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ponz paolo ponzio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 48 mr. belluca – for many years lived the unhappy condition of a “meek and submissive” employee to his boss, “circumscribed”, as some work colleagues called him. circumscribed, poor belluca, within the very narrow limits of his arid job as a computist, with no other memory than open items, simple or double items or reversals, and deductions and withdrawals and settlements; notes, ledgers, rags and so on. mobile filing cabinet: or rather, old donkey, who pulled the cart silently, always in one step, always along the same road, complete with blinders. well, one evening belluca had fiercely rebelled against his head of office, and then, at the bitter reproach of this, he almost hurled himself at him, giving everyone “a serious argument to the supposition that it was a real and own mental alienatio”. it seemed that his face, all of a sudden, had widened. it seemed that the blinders had suddenly fallen off, and the spectacle of life had suddenly opened up around him. it seemed that all of a sudden his ears were unclogged and he perceived voices for the first time, sounds never heard before. […] what does it mean? – then exclaimed the head of the office, approaching him and taking him by the shoulder and shaking him. – ohé, belluca! nothing, – belluca replied, always with that smile between impudence and imbecility on his lips. the train, mr. cavaliere. the train? what train? he whistled. what the hell are you saying? tonight, mr. knight. he whistled. i heard it whistle… – the train? yes sir. what if he knew where i got! in siberia… or or… in the forests of the congo… it’s done in an instant, mr. knight! […] the other clerks, at the shouts of the furious head of office, had entered the room and, hearing belluca speak like this, had mad laughter. then the head of the office – who must have been in a bad mood that evening – shocked by those laughter, was on a rampage and had beaten up the meek victim of so many cruel jokes of his. except that, this time, the victim, to the amazement and almost to the terror of everyone, had rebelled, had railed, always shouting that madness of the train that he had whistled, and that, by god, now no longer now that he had heard the train whistle, he could no longer, no longer wanted to be treated like that. they had grabbed him by force, harnessed him and dragged him to the madhouse. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 49 here he still went on talking about that train. he imitated the whistle. oh, a very plaintive whistle, how far away, in the night; heartfelt. and, immediately after, he added: – let’s go, let’s go… gentlemen, where to? for where? and he looked at everyone with eyes that were no longer his own. those eyes, usually dark, without luster, frowned, now laughed at him very lucidly, like those of a child or a happy man; and phrases without construct came out of his lips. unheard-of things, poetic, imaginative, bizarre expressions, which astonished all the more, since it could not in any way be explained how, by what miracle, they flourished in the mouth of him, that is to one who had never dealt with anything else until now. than of figures and registers and catalogs, remaining as if blind and deaf to life: a computer machine. now he spoke of blue fronts of snowy mountains, raised to the sky; he spoke of slimy cetaceans which, voluminous, on the bottom of the seas, made a comma with their tails. things, i repeat, unheard of. […] gentlemen, belluca, he had forgotten for many and many years – but just forgotten – that the world existed. absorbed in the constant torment of that unfortunate existence of his, absorbed all day in the accounts of his office, never a moment’s respite, like a blindfolded beast, yoked to the rod of a nòria or a mill, yes sir, he had forgotten for years and years – but really forgotten – that the world existed. two evenings before, he threw himself to sleep exhausted on that sofa, perhaps due to excessive tiredness, unusually, he was unable to fall asleep immediately. and, suddenly, in the deep silence of the night, he had heard a train whistle from afar. it seemed to him that his ears, after so many years, who knows how, suddenly became unclogged. the whistle of that train had torn him apart and suddenly carried away the misery of all those horrible distresses of his, and almost from an uncovered tomb he found himself wandering yearning in the airy void of the world that opened enormously all around him. he instinctively held on to the blankets that he threw on himself every night, and he ran with his thoughts behind that train that went off into the night. there was, ah! there was, outside that horrible house, outside of all its torments, there was the world, so much, so far away, to which that train was going… florence, bologna, turin, venice… so many city, in which he had been as a young man and which still, certainly, that night sparkled with lights on the earth. yes, he knew the life that was lived there! the life he once lived there too! and that life went on; he had always followed, while here, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paolo ponzio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 50 like a blindfolded beast, he turned the shaft of the mill. he hadn’t thought about it anymore! the world had closed for him, in the torment of his home, in the arid, bristly anguish of his computisteria… but now, behold, he was returning, as if by violent pouring, into his spirit. the moment, which struck for him, here, in this prison of his, flowed like an electric thrill through the whole world, and with his imagination suddenly awakened he could, behold, he could follow it through known and unknown cities, lands, mountains, forests, seas… this same thrill, this same heartbeat of time. there were, while he lived this “impossible” life here, many and many millions of men scattered all over the earth, who lived differently. now, in the very moment that he was suffering here, there were the solitary snowy mountains that raised their blue foreheads to the night sky… yes, yes, he saw them, he saw them, he saw them like this… there were the oceans… the forests… and, therefore, he – now that the world had returned to his spirit – could somehow console himself! yes, occasionally rising from his torment, to take a breath of fresh air into the world with the imagination. (pirandello, 19561987, pp. 588-594) here: reality happens and, in its occurrence, it imposes itself on the conscience of man who opens up to it. and with the reality that happens, the mask falls and the stature of the man who becomes aware of himself stands out clearly: a consciousness that is only possible in front of others. but what does it mean “reality happens”? what is the meaning of a such an event as the one described by pirandello in his novella? the imposition of reality manifests, on the one hand, the inescapability of what happens – its character as an event, or event – on the other hand, the need for attention with respect to the experienced event: the magnificence and exceptionality of the experience. luigi pirandello is echoed by jean-paul sartre, the existentialist philosopher and great writer. he reflects the experience of everyday life in the metropolis, with its subways, its buses, the loneliness of individuals in the crowd, the disintegration of the individual accelerated in the years between the two wars and his being “abandoned under millions of looks”. one could say, like one of the protagonists of the novel il rinvio, that the gaze of the other, as well as being disturbing, is also a guarantee for my existence, the proof that i am not a nullity, that i am a “value” and i “am” worth something. the “humanistic” turning point of the postwar period will be in sartre’s opinion based on the consideration that it is precisely the absence of foundations or values that encourages man to build his own ends by himself. and this necessity that engages the individuality of every man will no longer see the individual “alone in the face of his choices, isolated in an https://www.ledonline.it/elementa mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 51 essentially hostile social universe”: his choice will be in the sign of a social relationship, albeit not necessarily harmonious. you have certainly experienced, in the subway, in the foyer of a theater, on the train, that sudden sensation is unbearable of being spied on from behind. you turn around, but the curious one has already lowered his nose to the book […]. it is very easy for me to tell you what that gaze is: because it is nothing, it is an absence (and not a presence); here, imagine the darkest night imaginable. it is the night that looks at you. but a dazzling night; the night in full light, the secret night of daylight. i am bathed in black light […]. what anguish to suddenly discover that gaze as a universal center from which i cannot escape. but what a rest, too! i finally know that i am. i transform to my use and to your greatest indignation the word imbecile criminal of your prophet, that “i think, therefore i am” that made me suffer so much – and i say: you can see me, therefore i am. i no longer have to bear the responsibility of my sticky dissolving: he who sees me badly makes me be, i am as he sees me. (sartre, 1977, pp. 384-385) for j.-p. sartre, the consciousness thrown into the world is structurally conditioned by everything that surrounds it: the other, the world, is the antagonist, the danger, the being-in-itself. my conscience (being-for-itself ) lives in it, however, it would be empty and vain without that (bodei, 1997, p. 134): the gaze of the other, as well as disturbing, is therefore a guarantee that my existence exists. with the “i think”, in opposition to descartes’s philosophy, as well as kant’s philosophy, we reach ourselves in front of the other and the other is as certain for us as we are certain of ourselves. in this way man, who grasps himself directly with the “cogito”, also discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition of his own existence. he realizes that he cannot be anything (in the sense that a man is said to be witty, or that he is bad, or that he is jealous), if others do not recognize him as such. to obtain any truth about me, i must obtain it through the other. the other is essential to my existence, as well as the knowledge i have of myself. in these conditions, the discovery of my intimacy reveals to me, at the same time, the other as a freedom placed in front of me, which thinks and wants only for me or against me. thus, we immediately discover a world that we call “inter subjectivity” and it is in this world that man decides what he is and what others are. choice is possible in a certain sense, but what is absolutely not possible is not to choose […] man finds himself in an organized situation, in which he himself is engaged; he engages the whole of humanity with his choice and cannot avoid choosing […]. in any case, whatever he does, it is impossible that he does not take full responsibility in the face of this problem […] he chooses himself in the presence of others and you choose yourself in the presence of others. (sartre, 1993, pp. 64-65, 68-69) https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paolo ponzio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 52 the philosophical references that could be suggested are many, starting from the considerations of hannah arendt, of the origin of totalitarianism, to the lévinas of totality and infinity. yet it seems significant, once again, to have recourse to literature. in her novel la storia di lei, elsa morante inserts “a real story, indeed a sort of fairy tale or parable”, which is tremendously significant of the dramatic possibility that man has to frustrate himself and reality in a single shot. in the artistic field, de chirico’s metaphysical painting appears as evidence of the impossibility for men to escape the absurdity of existence. i will bring you “l’énigme d’une journée” one of these days; for the painting by m.lle laurencin i thought today of the title of “mystère d’un moment” because the various things represented there appear in all the unexpected of certain moments in which the intimate essence of the objects appears to us in all the meta-physical reality. the similarity that exists between these imaginations that i have and the things as they appear in life can be compared to the similarity that exists between the physiognomy of a person, who sees himself in a dream, and the physiognomy of the same person in his reality; and at the same time it is not the same person. i am therefore convinced that i have shown a new path in art. (de chirico, 2008, p. 601) 2. the mask of totalitarianism, or the denial of otherness the twentieth century was crossed by an era – the consequences of which, perhaps, have not yet completely disappeared – in which what becomes distinctive is the loss of reality and the other, the cancellation of difference as a factor of perturbation with respect to the affirmation of a absolute self. totalitarianisms are – to quote adorno – a system in which the law of unity applies, of the “programmed” elimination of the different, of the non-convergent in power (adorno, 1994, pp. 62-63). the penalization of deviations, the manipulation of consciences, as well as the forced cultural leveling, are clear indications of how the nazi-fascist and communist totalitarianisms and the american-style social conformism have reduced the plurality of men to mere gender difference. there was an esse esse who, for his horrendous crimes, one day, at dawn, was taken to the gallows. he still had about fifty steps left to the point of execution, which took place in the same courtyard as the prison. and in this crossing, his eye by chance landed on the crumbling wall of the courtyard, where one of those wind-sown flowers had sprung up, which grow where https://www.ledonline.it/elementa mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 53 it happens and feed, it would seem, on air and rubble. it was a miserable little flower, made up of four purple petals and a pair of pale leaflets; but, in that first rising light, the esse esse saw, to her amazement, all the beauty and happiness of the universe. and he thought: if i could go back, and stop time, i would be ready to spend my entire life in the adoration of that little flower. then, as if doubling, he heard his own voice within himself, but joyful, clear and yet distant, coming from who knows where, shouting at him: truly i tell you: for this last thought you had about death, you will be safe from hell! all this, to tell you, took me a certain interval of time, but there it lasted half a second. between the esse esse that passed among the guards, and the flower that appeared on the wall, there was still, more or less, the same initial distance: just a step. “no!”. esse shouted to herself, turning back furiously, “i don’t fall back, no, in certain tricks”. and since he had both hands hindered, he crushed that flower with his teeth. then he threw it to the ground, stamped it underfoot. and he spat on it. here, the story is over. (morante, 1974, pp. 604-605) beyond the effectiveness of this text, what emerges is the denial of what happens, as mario luzi said, in some verses of his book of hypatia: “from ignorance to certainty there is an intermediate moment of foreknowledge in which it is still possible for the mind to deny what happened” (luzi, 1978, p. 79). prescience, as luzi understands it, is the prejudice that is constituted as the hermeneutic principle of every event. for this reason, in the face of the event of reality (what happens as unexpected, as unplanned), what urges is a sort of simplicity which can allow us not to put anything between us and what happens. 3. mask and otherness, between veiling and recognition the thematic couple, mask and otherness, finds in one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, martin heidegger, the one who, perhaps more than any other – fully grasping the nihilistic spirit of our age – has rethought the being of man and the meaning of being in terms of an absolute finitude: absolute because it characterizes the being that we are and the very truth of being as a permanent difference from the entities present in the world and, therefore, as impossibility, hiding and oblivion. the giving of being and the fulfillment of man, in fact, lie precisely in this event of retraction, which would then be the mysterious root of nihilism, by virtue of which, in the meantime the truth of being is “lost” (as nietzsche, upon others, would have described it speaking of our age as a https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paolo ponzio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 54 final outcome of the long history of an error); in reality it is preserved and given as the very mystery of “nothing”. in the heideggerian perspective, this movement takes place in wandering – or rather wandering, as the german philosopher himself calls it – an absolutely insuperable condition for man in his relationship with being and, ultimately, as the event of “to be himself ”. to “err” or “wander” is not just the opposite of the truth, but it constitutes its secret heart. and in fact for heidegger if we intended the truth as it was attested in the course of the classical-christian tradition, that is to say as an “adaptation” of the intellect to the thing, we would risk to miss its original ontological dimension; we would reduce it to the comparison and correspondence of two already pre-determined entities (the intellect and the thing) – precisely missing or forgetting the truth as the truth of being itself, which always differs from the entity. if, on the other hand, we go back to the primitive greek sense of aletheia, that is to the unveiling of entities (thinking this sense even more radically than the greeks themselves did, at least starting from plato), then we will show the mysterious sense for which the unveiling of entities (truth as adaptation) necessarily implies and is permanently based on a “veiling” of being, which as veiled must remain as it is in order to safe its own truth, and which can never be adequate by an intellect. here lies the original ontological meaning of the error: ultimately it coincides with the fact that being, withdrawing into concealment with respect to the revealed entity – that is, according to traditional language, with respect to the “true” entity – is thought of as an essential “non-truth”. but it is a non-truth that should in no way be mistaken with a deception or a falsehood, but must be interpreted as that veil that allows the genuine custody of being. let’s hear it from heidegger’s own words, taken from a conference dating back to 1930 and entitled precisely on the essence of truth: conceived from the point of view of truth as revealing [something that comes out of concealment and manifests itself as an entity], the veil is then non-disclosure [the very being that withdraws from the entity] and therefore is non-truth authentic and more appropriate to the essence of truth. (heidegger, 1987, p. 149) this means that, while man, with his own ontological behavior, leaves the entity from time to time – which always manifests itself within a horizon of calculability and worldly concerns – at the same time is to veil the totality of being, that is to say, the giving of being itself as the incalculable, the indeterminable and the elusive. and it should be noted that according to https://www.ledonline.it/elementa mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 55 heidegger these two movements are not simply opposite and alternative to each other, but they belong to each other. heidegger continues: the veiling of the entity in its totality, the authentic non-truth, is older than any evidence of this or that entity. it is even older than the very letting-be [the being], which, while it reveals, already holds veiled and behaves in relation to the veil. what does letting be guarded by this reference to veiling? nothing less than the veiling of what is veiled in its totality, of the entity as such, that is to say: the mystery. it is not a particular mystery relating to this or that thing, but the only fact that in general the mystery (the veiling of the veiled) pervades and dominates as such the being of man. (heidegger, 1987, p. 149) here is the greatness, but also the “stop” of the heideggerian gaze: on the one hand he pays attention to the mystery as that which is not part of our calculation, that is, to that dimension of truth that coincides with being itself; but on the other hand he identifies the mystery only with the veiling of what is veiled, without being able to see that, together with this, indeed even more than this, the mystery lies precisely in the unveiling of the veiled (which instead for him means the entry into the realm of the calculable), that is, in the manifestation of being that hides itself precisely in the entity that shows itself. being-there [that is, the being of man], as it exists, preserves the first and broadest non-disclosure, the authentic non-truth. the authentic nonessence of truth is the mystery. […] but speaking in this way of non-essence and non-truth impacts beyond measure the usual way of thinking and gives the impression of a forced juxtaposition of imaginary “paradoxes”. since it is difficult to eliminate this impression, it is necessary to give up this way of speaking, which is paradoxical only for the common doxa (opinion). for those who know, however, the “non” of the original non-essence of truth as non-truth refers to the not yet experienced context of the truth of being (and not only of being). (heidegger, 1987, pp. 149-150) if the essence of truth is the manifestation of the entity, the permanent remaining hidden of the being is in turn veiled – it is “mystery” –, and therefore it will also withdraw with respect to essence (as non-essence) and with respect to truth (as non-truth). this is precisely the ambiguous domain of erring or wandering: getting lost in the calculable being forgetting the being that remains veiled, but also ensuring that non-essence and non-truth continue to precede, hidden and forgotten, every essence and every truth. but in its taking measures, humanity is diverted from the mystery. that insistent turning to practicable reality and this persistent turning away from https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paolo ponzio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 56 the mystery mutually imply each other. indeed, they are the same thing. […] man’s restlessness, which pushes him to move away from the mystery to turn to practicable reality, and which makes him pass gradually from one object to another of current reality, without noticing the mystery, is wandering [ irren]. man errs. it is not that man falls into wandering [irre], but he is already always moving in wandering […]. the wandering, for which man goes, is not something that, so to speak, passes close to man and into which he sometimes falls, as in a hole; on the contrary, wandering is part of the intrinsic constitution of being-there in which historical man is involved. (heidegger, 1987, p. 151) these are the same terms of the great jewish tradition, for which erring as a sin means severing the relationship with the mystery. but here the mystery itself is no longer a presence because it too withdraws from our existence, so much so that a few lines further down heidegger will say that erring, which he had previously said to be not noticing the mystery, is precisely “the domination of the mystery in wandering” (heidegger, 1987, p. 153). from this alone, according to heidegger, freedom can be born: a lettingbeing that is always, at the same time, a letting-being veiled. with respect to this position, contemporary thought wonders if and what could be a different path: if there is, that is, the possibility of recognition and where is the place where such recognition takes place. it takes place in the relationship with otherness, since is precisely the relationship that constitutes the place where truth dwells and it is possible to find the other and find oneself, a place where one can meet with the other-fromoneself and the other-of-itself. this inseparable circularity between truth and relationship is part of the imprinting that constitute the foundation of our being, for which a decisive paradigm shift is required: from a truth conceived and transmitted as a-temporal and a-spatial content (dogmatic paradigm) or as intimately oriented to praxis (moralistic paradigm) to a truth perceived and transmitted “within a relationship”. (salonia, 2007, pp. 152-153) it is martin buber who in 1923, in an essay entitled me and you, identifies the answer to overcoming loneliness – the existential condition of modern man – in the interpersonal and community relationship: “man becomes i in contact with you”, and again, paraphrasing the johannine prologue “in the beginning is the relationship” to indicate how the relationship is at the origin, it is the you that constitutes the i, is the encounter that gives meaning to his humanity (buber, 1993, pp. 79, 72). the relationship, in fact, is not a mere psychological-sentimental attitude, but “an original ontological structure”, as poma writes in the introductory essay to buber’s work (poma, 2004, p. 15). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 57 in confirmation of this originality of the relationship, the bible, in the text of genesis we read as follows: “and the lord god said: ‘it is not good for man to be alone: i want to make him a corresponding help’” (genesi 2,18). it is extraordinary to think how the relationship is precisely a thought of god who recognizes in the solitude of man a non-good and how it is the initiative of god to create the woman, to invent the relationship that is companionship, comparison, help, conflict and dialogue. it is in the mature surrender to the other that one grows in the relationship, and in surrendering oneself there is always both the risk of not being understood, of not being listened to, of being used, and the possibility of finding a you willing to understand, to feel as leghein, to dialogue, to enhance, to confront. of all the affairs of existence, it is the relationship that is the most difficult and tiring, especially when, wanting it to remain over time, it requires care, attention, a healthy dose of transfers and self-affirmations. certainly, there is the danger that the dyadic relationship expires into relativism, a fact that occurs precisely when the triadic dimension of the relationship is forgotten or overlooked, a dimension made up of diversity, novelty, storytelling, interpretation (stern, 1987). daniel stern, speaking of the development of the child, writes that around the age of 2-3 the self-narrative (or verbal) arises, a necessary phase of the child’s development, because it is in knowing how to speak that he begins to differentiate himself from the other. the language of an individual, the way he speaks, the way he uses grammar say a lot about that individual’s identity and relational competence. stern, speaking of the triadic dimension of the relationship, argues that the story without the other becomes narcisism; you and i without a story is symbiosis; me, you and story is maturity, precisely because telling yourself to another means not only talking about yourself, but also about something else and about others. stern seems to echo jacques derrida who writes on the importance of the mediation of the third, which is co-original, because it does not belong to either the i or the you, and is necessary for the maintenance of the relationship itself. without this mediation one would fall into fusion and solipsism (derrida, 2008). the third cannot and must not be reduced to either the you or the i. the tertium in the relationship becomes an unavoidable word, indispensable for the relationship to remain or become healthy. as buber says, man is always relational and, if you want to understand his specificity, you need to be able to grasp the relational texture. if it can no longer be relational, it means that something in its development has not worked. it may not be intentional, in the sense that it is not aware of what it feels and what it wants, but our being in relationship always has https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paolo ponzio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 58 our intentionality in itself, that is, what we want and where we want to go. but the awareness of one’s intentionality is an even higher step. emmanuel lévinas, in totality and infinity, shifts the focus from simple relationality, identifying the key word of his philosophy in the idea of visage. the face is a question, an appeal, an epiphany of the other, recalling an ethic of responsibility and value. whoever is willing to welcome the face renounces possession and accumulation. the subject who welcomes the total otherness of the face is not aimed at himself and his knowledge, he is consecrated to service. and, however, unlike modern thought, here there is no dialectic but mere delivery to the event: an event that is relationship with others, in which the ego and the other do not remain linked in their relationship but are self-absolving, so as to free themselves from any objectivistic claim. the fundamental question of existence is man-with-man, that is, relationship, mutual belonging, reciprocity. the latter is a fact that has no equal in nature and leads to the affirmation that the root of all reciprocity is in the recognition of otherness: no longer, therefore, the “we symbiotic” typical of the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century, but of the “we relational”, a new dialogic reality that in many respects still needs to be thought, constructed and lived. in this fluid society of ours, there is a real back and forth between the identity of us and the heterogeneity of the ego and the alter-ego, the irrepressible root of all reciprocity. and it is on this dimension of interrelation that belonging is based, as a contemporary declination of belonging and belonging to the world, as belonging to oneself and belonging to the other. the relationship in reciprocity presupposes a decision and is born in the movement of welcoming the other, it grows by opening itself to the you and to the infinity of the other: this first possibility of opening establishes every other opening, including the gnoseological one, since the experience of the other, and therefore of the infinite, is irreducible: it is the experience par excellence. absolute experience is not a revelation: a privileged manifestation of the other, a manifestation of a face beyond form. ambiguous form of a supreme presence that dominates those who welcome, that comes from above, unexpected, and therefore teaches its newness. the face is a living presence, is an expression, every moment undoes the form it offers, an adequate form to present oneself as the other to signify and have a meaning; it is meaning without context. (lévinas, 1977, pp. 64-65) however, this dialectic today risks to be not productive, since the man of “nowadays” lives as if he were threatened by the dominance of his own selfhood and the tyranny of otherness. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 59 the dialogical we of the encounter risks being translated into a useless and equivocal sentimentality, into compensatory paternalisms, into spiritualistic, sensualistic or hedonistic encroachments. the attempt to let the “we” live is not in itself a guarantee of a true encounter. there is always the possibility of the meeting’s fall, its setback, its failure. when “my” world has to become “our” world at all costs and the other is reified, we arrive at a decline in narcissistic egoity, which is a symptom that never sleeps in our societies, which welcomes more monolithic certainty than a dialogic truth. as bauman recalled in an interview on identity in 2002, taking up a poster posted on the walls of berlin after the war, there is a mosaic that characterizes our daily life: your christ is a jew. your car is japanese. your pizza is italian. your democracy greek. your coffee brazilian. your vacation turkish. your numbers arabic. your alphabet latin. only your neighbor is a foreigner. (bauman, 2003, p. 20) references adorno, t. w. (1994). contro l’antisemitismo. manifestolibri. bodei, r. (1997). la filosofia nel novecento (e oltre). feltrinelli. buber, m. (1993). il principio dialogico e altri saggi. edizioni san paolo. de chirico, g. (1914-1916). lettere di giorgio de chirico a guillaume apollinaire. in metafisica b (2008, n. 7-8). letter addressed to guillaume apollinaire dated january 31, 1914 (the date is presumed from the indication of the day in the header of the same letter). the letters by giorgio de chirico are conserved at the bibliothèque nationale de france, site richelieulouvois, département de manuscrits occidentaux: naf 27148 and naf 27158. we follow the transcription made by silvia tusi and published by k. robinson. derrida, j. (2008). psyché. invenzioni dell’altro, vol. 836. editoriale jaca book. heidegger, m. (1987). dell’essenza della verità. in segnavia. adelphi. lévinas, e. (1977). totalità e infinito. saggio sull’esteriorità, vol. 92. editoriale jaca book. luzi, m. (1978). libro di ipazia, vol. 195. rizzoli. morante, e. (1974). la storia. einaudi. pirandello, l. (1956-1987). novelle per un anno, vol. i. mondadori. published for the first time in the columns of the corriere della sera in february 1914, the novel il treno ha fischiato was included by the author in the volume la trappola in 1915, published by treves. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paolo ponzio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 60 poma, a. (a cura di). (2004). martin buber. la parola rivolta all’uomo occidentale, saggio introduttivo. in il principio dialogico e altri saggi. edizioni san paolo. salonia, g. (2007). odòs. la via della vita. genesi e guarigione dei legami fraterni. edb edizioni dehoniane. sartre, j.-p. (1977). il rinvio. mondadori. sartre, j.-p. (1993). l’esistenzialismo è un umanismo. mursia. stern, n. (1987). il mondo interpersonale del bambino. trad. it. di a. biocca e l. marghieri biocca. bollati boringhieri. vecchi, b. (2003). zygmut bauman. intervista sull’identità. laterza. riassunto da martin heidegger a emmanuel lévinas, da hannah arendt a paul ricouer: la tradizione continentale del pensiero novecentesco ha costruito la sua narrazione intorno ai temi dell’alterità, attraversando il tema della maschera che svolge la sua funzione proprio nella dialettica identità/alterità (idem/alter per dirla in termini tecnici). è anche vero che quando si pensa a cosa sia una “maschera” non si può che chiedersi cosa ci sia dietro, e cosa si “frappone”. la maschera stessa è divisiva e difensiva, eppure, allo stesso tempo, si espone, agisce (come un attore che si muove liberamente sulla scena e, tuttavia, è costretto ad attenersi allo sviluppo del copione). e anche dell’“alterità” si potrebbe dire che si nasconde e si rivela allo stesso tempo; è il totalmente altro e, allo stesso tempo, l’io rovesciato (quasi un “io” che è più e “altro da” me, di ricoueriana memoria). è lo straniero, ma anche l’ospite gradito, come attesta lévinas; è allo stesso tempo il rifugiato, l’immigrato, il pellegrino o l’errante (per usare il nietzsche di “umano troppo umano”). copyright (©) 2021 paolo ponzio editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: ponzio, p. (2021). mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 47-60. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ponz https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-ponz elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio the event, beyond the permanent crisis elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the event, beyond the permanent crisis jordi riba miralles universidad autónoma de barcelona – uab (spain) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-rimi jordi.riba@uab.cat abstract this paper proposes a link in the perspective of transition between the concept of permanent crisis belonging to the work of jean-marie guyau and the conception of the event due to alain badiou. the hypothesis links the two in the sense that it is not possible to speak of the event as a transformative form of social and political reality without first producing the permanent crisis. keywords: alain badiou; event; jean-marie guyau; permanent crisis; process; real life; second life; time; transition; true life. in this paper i will focus on the way in which alain badiou conceives the event by virtue of the proximity that his conception has to the idea of permanent crisis with its transitional nature. for this, as far as the permanent crisis is concerned, i will take the reference of jean-marie guyau, a pioneer about the idea of a definitive crisis and who was able to lucidly expose, before others, the fact that philosophy and the action that derives from it had entered into a permanent crisis. this is concretised as a never-ending work and not as an end (revault d’allonnes, 2012, p. 73). one of the first arguments developed by guyau is that, despite not having written any specifically political text, his writings reveal ways of approaching the political that bring him closer to the discourse of confrontation of the modern as a project with the real. this awareness of modernity in the process of definitive crisis gave rise to a pioneering discourse in our philosopher on the idea of the end of modernity as progress and of democracy without foundation. intelligences liberated from dogma. he states that they will continue to associate in order to defend themselves elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 37 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-rimi mailto:jordi.riba@uab.cat https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jordi riba miralles against human adversities, to fight against setbacks. this association has its beginning in the consciousness of fraternity that nestles in consciences, which, despite having freed themselves from disturbing dogmas (guyau, 1889), remains aware of the vicissitudes in which their integrity finds itself. to this end, he introduces a first transition between the absence of religion as a fundamental element of the world, with the idea of fraternity, which represents not only a stage in human evolution, but the very awareness of a condition which, free from the great dogmas, becomes aware of its state of essential solitude, shared with the rest of humanity. hence the idea of an orphan fraternity that guyau raises in his writings (riba, 2021). this orphan fraternity, conceptually expressed by guyau, with the word anomie is the creator of new forms of relations, of different solidarities in the face of those who continue to support the constituted norms. in this sense, jean duvignaud (1986) sees guyau’s anomie as the fact by which humans produce themselves through new forms of sociability and escape the norms of a morality defined by respect for rules or a collective conscience elevated to the rank of reason. guyau claims that anomie is just “the absence of a fixed law” (guyau, 2012, p. 165). it is at the basis of our freedom; it is one of the foundations of morality with all its risks. thought walks in front of it, with activity, composing the world and disposing of the future. we believe that we are the masters of infinity, because our power is not equivalent to a given quantity: the more we act, the more we expect. anomie also defines the singularity of the conception of theory, which can no longer be conceived as before. this principle therefore goes beyond the idea of discipline, law and rule. the only valid rule is the one that takes into account the facts, namely that we are beings endowed with meaning and thought and that this is the specificity, the reality and the essence of our nature. that is the starting point for understanding and creating politics. the human being, in any case, is driven by his desire for struggle and the risk of thought (guyau, 2012). 1. the metaphor of modernity to make this explicit, guyau introduces a metaphor at the end of his book esquissed’une morale sans obligation ni sanction which anticipates and clarifies this idea linking irreligion with fraternity. metaphor is, in revault’s words, the capacity to produce a new meaning, but giving entry to an original, essential situation, both of existence and of language. metaphorical expression has two characteristics of its own: it is an innovative elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 38 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the event, beyond the permanent crisis and revealing discursive form of something that remains either hidden or outside the proper sense of formal discourse. the metaphor expresses orientations in the view of the observation of the world of life which cannot be crystallised in pure concepts, but which provide a tacit dimension of intelligibility. this is certainly why blumenberg recognises it as an essential figure of what he calls aconceptualisation (blumenberg, 1995). this way of proceeding is not really new, on the contrary, it has a long tradition. the metaphor par excellence that shows the vast problematic of existence is that of the navigation on sea, which blumenberg explores in his book shipwreck with a spectator. it is therefore interesting to turn to guyau showing his perspective on the link between the crisis of modernity and the human condition and the political link that firmly joins them in a space that, despite its permanent uncertainty, bursts forth as an invitation to endless action (tassin, 2012). we discover then in guyau’s thought the intuition of an agonistic space in which hypotheses emerge without which the subject could hardly develop in a society that presents so many antinomies. guyau considers it is necessary to go beyond experience and formulate personal hypotheses, without giving rise to a system that would take the form of a metaphysical doctrine that could be universally imposed on human reason. hence, the metaphor mobilised by guyau at the end of esquisse is not only a good example of what beck calls “reflexive modernity” (1998), but also reveals the crisis of the normative detected in particular by “the absence of points of reference”, as claude lefort mentioned in many of his works. in a world dominated by uncertainty and permanent crisis, we are driven to live accepting risk and trying to manage it (beck, 1998), while seeking “paths” that, leadto precarious certainties for some, incomplete for others. guyau writes at the end of his book: “no hand directs us, no eye sees us; the rudder has been broken for a long time, or rather, there has never been one, it must be done: it is a great task, and it is our task” (guyau, 2012, pp. 343-344). only individualities in solidarity are capable of this. this is the way in which the two key concepts of guyautist thought, “anomie” and “solidarity”, find their realisation when articulated. this is guyau’s great intuition: the idea of moral fecundity. through it, guyau transforms the spectator into an actor. this is the key political anthropological aspect to understand the transcendence of guyau’s thought. the mission of the individual will not only be technical: to steer the ship to avoid sinking; it will also be political: to escape the drift to which humanity seems condemned in the absence of guiding principles. the moral agent, guyau points out, plays here the same role as the artist: elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 39 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jordi riba miralles he must project himself out of the tendencies he feels in himself, and make “a metaphysical poem with his love” (guyau, 2012, p. 161). it is therefore thanks to vital expansion, the intuition that we acknowledge to guyau, that human beings can and must fight against drifting, a state in which they originally found themselves. and that life is expansion means that it is also sociability, essentially altruism. guyau used a metaphor to represent his thinking, probably for various reasons: in order to question the order of the modern, to confront it as a project with the order of the real. with the metaphor of the leviathan, an old ship abandoned to its fate, guyau was able to express the fragility of the link between the thought and the real (ricoeur, 1986, p. 275). it is when he states that no hand directs us, that no eye watches over us, and that we have to build it and this is our task. he clearly states that if political modernity is represented by the idea of progress, this is politics without foundation. this is exemplified by guyau in his metaphor: there is no storm that threatens navigation, but it is the lack of a rudder that leads the ship adrift. but also, in guyau’s metaphor, with or without a rudder, there is no possibility of finding land or shelter. the pascalian “we are embarked” becomes a perpetual state. and in doing so, guyau also dissociates himself from hegel when he writes: here we can affirm that we are at home and that we can, as a sailor would do after a long voyage, cry out: land! descartes is one of those men who have begun again at the beginning, and it is with him that culture, the thinking of modern times, makes its debut. (hegel, 1985, p. 1379) guyau thus provides a different vision of the metaphor of the shipwreck (blumenberg, 1995). guyau’s political-irreligious discourse reveals the confusion of modernity in the face of the impossibility of realising the great narratives, of the definitive crisis that plagues modernity as a whole. for this reason, and not so much to get out of it, but to adjust to this new reality, the crisis of reason and the end of the idea of progress are made to coincide with the advent of the philosophy of action. the sea is conceived by our philosopher, in the manner of arendt 1, as the exterior of the garden, and the little socrates who observes it is the image of humanity confronted with the great problem of the absence of referents represented in guyau’s metaphor of the absence of a rudder to steer the ship. there is indeed no pre-established political discourse, nor can there be, just as there is no rudder to steer the ship. and in the face of this double 1 see pascal’s “thought” which hannah arendt uses repeatedly in her writings to establish the distinction between two particular ways of conceiving philosophical work. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 40 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the event, beyond the permanent crisis non-existence, guyau’s discourse is fruitful because at the same time as it presents the empty place from which to build the rudder, it is the affirmation that it can only be built from solidarity-based individualities. guyau thus introduces action as an expression of vitality, which turns the spectator, as we have already pointed out, into an actor. his mission will no longer be technical to steer the ship away from shipwreck, but political: to avoid the drifting into which humanity is plunged in the absence of guiding principles. there is thus in the metaphor an obligatory invitation to permanent construction. humans are conceived as energy to be spent. thanks to this vital expansion, guyau’s own intuition, humans can and must fight against this state of original drift. vital fertility replaces previous finalist and determinist discourses. 2. the crisis of foundations guyau accepts what was already rejected in his time and is still denied by many: the profoundly nonsensical character of today’s world (mugnierpollet, 1966, p. 41). it can therefore be affirmed that in the face of the unique reality of drifting, only the option of tenacity remains. in the course of a few years, these ideas were also ratified and developed by simmel, who stressed that there is no guarantee of success in this political project (simmel, 2010). and later revaultd’allonnes did not fail to consider this fact in his book. he takes it up again on the basis of the writings of foucault and lefort, whom, he points out, about having realised in the early 1980s the change in the forms of contestation in the contemporary epoch (despite the differences that separated them). they noted their “dissemination”, their transversality, the diversity of their objects (the family, women, children, sexuality, justice, the situation of prisoners, the management of companies, the protection of nature, etc.) (revault d’allonnes, 2012, p. 142). indeed, a century after guyau, as revault points out, lefort wrote with a similar aim to that proposed by guyau, that it was necessary to elevate reflection to a practice that is not mute. in this way, the democratic experience is traversed by antagonistic experiences (lefort, 1981). for this reason, in this current crisis, which is experienced as permanent, the use of metaphor proves to be of great help in explaining it. guyau, a precocious clairvoyant, fully describes the essential fact in which humanity finds itself after the end of the great narratives: the irruption of the politics and the conflict with the finalvision of history, hitherto. the critical consequence of this metaphor emerges as the absence of a elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 41 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jordi riba miralles foundation, as in the impossible normativity capable of providing principles of action and going beyond the strict reality in which individuals move, united in their common life. 3. the crisis of normativity and so, while the older systems represented only a tension in internal activity, in the present we are faced with a term situated between uncertainty and categorical affirmation. this is a certainty that is the basis of our freedom. we do not know what the future will bring us, but through action we operate, we work, we undertake (revaultd’allonnes, 2012, p. 134). and in this regard, guyau points out that the true commandment is the one we give ourselves not in the name of some higher authority, but of a particular principle superior to any commandment (agamben, 2013). this principle, therefore, goes beyond the idea of discipline, law and the state. the only valid rule is that which takes into account the facts, i.e. that beings are endowed with meaning and thought, and that this specificity is the reality and essence of our nature. therefore, the question: how can we give meaning and form to uncertainty in order to create an open space of possibilities? becomes necessary. the political model towards which guyau sees humanity tending, in accordance with his idea of fraternity, is what he calls federated republican (guyau, 1887, p. xviii). he does not elaborate much on this form of government, but he states emphatically that it should allow for the coexistence of all kinds of religious individualities and any kind of association that these individualities might wish to form. religious anomie is, according to guyau, the one that best represents this state, since it has crucial effects on modern individuality, that is, the one that occurs in the process of secularisation of the democratic becoming. christ could have affirmed: i have not come to bring peace to thought, but the incessant struggle of ideas; nor repose, but the movement and progress of the spirit; nor the universality of dogmas, but the freedom of belief, which is the first condition of its final expansion. (guyau, 1887, p. xix) expressed in another way, the essential truth of a democracy would be that in which political things burst forth with force. claude lefort took it upon himself to highlight this empty place of the political, showing once again the conflict between philosophy and politics, in particular in connection with guyau’s ideas. this is precisely his main problem, the impossibility elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 42 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the event, beyond the permanent crisis of simultaneously conforming to the double meaning that the concept of republic possesses, political things and politeia, in order to constitute a universal republic. to arrive at it, nothing better than to recall the words of feuerbach in his book principles of the philosophy of the future (1843): “the essence of man resides only in the community, in the unity of man with man, a unity which, however, rests only in the reality of the difference between the i and the thou”. this irruption of the politics allows the consolidation of the republicanism of political things, making more visible the secular conflict between politics and philosophy that arendt situates historically in the condemnation of socrates by athens. the singularity of this antagonism has allowed authors such as miguel abensour, jacques rancière and others to develop their thinking. they have done no more than update the conflict under the premise of a singular epochal principle, which, configured under the premise of democracy, contains those elements that the progressive abandonment of theological referents leads it to become a thought without referents; and society to organise itself under this premise. democracy should not be seen, under this conception associated with the fraternal principle, as a crystallised form, as an organisation of powers, but as an uninterrupted movement. a political action that opposes the established forms that prevent its realisation. conflict becomes in this situation the major axis which, instead of impeding, underlines the specificity of living together. it is true that the limitations of philosophical writing highlight the very impossibility of establishing a permanent link between the factual and the real. simmel called this gap between the ever-living action and its products a crisis of culture. democracy can therefore be thought of as having no alternative but itself in its permanent realisation. and there is no historical time beyond the present. in short, the interpretative contribution of the guyautist metaphor gives contemporary meaning to a situation which, seen with retrospective eyes, gives permanence to the revolutionary sentence of fraternity or death, undoubtedly intensely current, of the moment humanity is living. lefortian democratic uncertainty takes on new impulses, not in the face of external dangers, but because of the very circumstances in which democracy is inscribed. and in the face of which, all that remains is the expression of that orphan fraternity that guyau once brought to light and which, in the words of hegel, takes the place of destiny, and therefore, it is an unending and persistent modernity that opens up like a breath of what miguel abensour has called the utopian impulse (abensour, 2011). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 43 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jordi riba miralles 4. the role of event in the permanent crisis hence the importance of the events that guyau experienced in 1871 for him. in contrast to the predictions of positivism, they escaped these predictions. no law reflected them, because they did not obey causal regularity. at the same time, guyau experienced the establishment of contradictory and irreconcilable tendencies and motives. faced with such an oppositional situation, guyau nevertheless believed himself capable of providing an answer to the minds that were troubled by this uncertainty, by sketching the contours of a common ground, where thoughts could meet again. anomie, as guyau conceived it, defines the singularity of the command we give ourselves and which does not limit us in the name of a commandment, but in the name of a particular principle superior to any commandment. the only valid rule is the one that takes into account the facts; that is, that we are beings endowed with meaning and thought and that this is the specificity, the reality and the essence of our nature. guyau’s deployment of his anomic theory is based on three postulates. firstly, the affirmation of an individual self, the sole judge of its own life. guyau (1187) had imagined a society in the process of transformation in which the individual would be the principal agent of transformation. kropotkin, who saw himself as a disciple of guyau for this purpose, had thought that he found in guyau’s idea the reason for a society without obligation or sanction. guyau, secondly, conceives the idea according to which the social part present in each individual binds him indissolubly to the human species: the solidarity which, no doubt, he had lived in his personal experience during the days of the commune. thirdly, guyau felt that history is a series of acts that sometimes allow us to overcome adversity, but also force us, at other times, to accept the inevitable. this is undoubtedly what happened to the commune and to guyau himself. in short, guyau’s writings implicitly reject a whole way of conceiving political thought that hobbesian thought of fear displays and defends. against this guyau reveals how the struggle for emancipation is on the side of risk and courage. 5. the event, transit towards spaces of “non-resignation” thus, badiou’s idea of the event serves to relate post-foundationalism to the overcoming of the philosophical crisis and also of a certain moral elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 44 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the event, beyond the permanent crisis disengagement when it comes to do philosophy. the event is temporary and transformative, but only in the sphere of permanent crisis. in another context, conceived as free of permanent crisis, the event has no transformative capacity. for badiou, the philosophical way out of post-foundationality, to which badiou devotes his work, has elements that bring him closer to the ideas that jean-marie guyau put forward in his time, emerging from them the idea that links the permanent crisis with the event. let us take a risk, badiou points out, with the following formula: the event is that multiple which, presenting itself, exhibits the same inconsistency that underlies situations, and overturns, by its irruption, the conceived classifications. the novelty of an event is that it interrupts the normal regime of description and knowledge, which is always based on the classification of the known, and imposes another kind of approach that admits that something, there, in that place, hitherto unnamed, happens consummately. 6. fidelity to the event a truth is such an infinite multiple, always to come and to make a hole in knowledge, the result of a fidelity related to the unlimited consequences of an event. emancipated society, mathematised science, love subverting sexual difference by the invention of a new link between man and woman, artistic discipline called for the revolution of a form. these are the four types of truths, produced by the four procedures of politics, science, love and art, capable of producing, always unusually, a subject capable of making an exception to the ordinary regime of knowledge, opinion, egoism and boredom. his philosophy seeks to expose and unfold the potential for innovation, revolution, invention and radical transfiguration of every situation. for, unlike many philosophers today, badiou believes that we have not reached the end of philosophy, but that it must take one more step forward. to continue on that endless road from which we cannot step off if we do not want to abdicate our condition of humanity. for badiou, philosophy is closely related to the condition of humanity, so its absence represents a hopeless return to animality. but it will not be a question of constructing new “narratives”, these, in the sense of representing a metaphysical project, are certainly exhausted. badiou’s work is, therefore, complex. his thought discusses various forms of knowledge and raises many questions about philosophy itself. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 45 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jordi riba miralles 7. the confrontation between guyau and badiou on the permanent crisis but it will not be a question of constructing new “narratives”, for these, in the sense of representing a metaphysical project, are certainly exhausted. badiou’s work is therefore complex. his thought discusses various forms of knowledge and questions philosophy itself. his extensive oeuvre can be classified in various ways depending on the criteria we use to do so. the most common is to point out three areas in which his work develops. for badiou, philosophy must be armed with the best discursive weapons to confront a discourse that is based on the seductive power of the established. armed with powerful dialectical instruments, philosophy will have to establish a new regime of seduction. as one of the most seductive arguments of the established is the discourse of inequality, philosophy will have to uphold as the most abstract of its maxims that of absolute equality. to such an extent is this idea part of the essence of badiou’s thought that everything that goes against it is considered by the author to be contrary to the truth. this has led him to transform the notion of truth in such a way that it obeys this egalitarian maxim, which is why he has given truth three attributes. the first is that it depends more on its emergence than on a structure. all truth is therefore new. it will be what badiou will call the doctrine of the event. the second of the attributes is that every truth is universal, in a radical sense, an equal and anonymous for-all, this pure for-all constitutes it in its being. this will be its genericity. and the third of its attributes is that truth constitutes its subject and not the other way round. for badiou, it is not a question of a reconstruction of metaphysics, which has already made its end clear, with no possible return; rather, it is a question of the unknown that represents the redefinition of philosophy as a possible place of the unconditioned. badiou does not fail to point out the difficulties involved. there are a number of reasons inscribed in the historical development of philosophy as such. the first is that we know that the human sciences cannot replace philosophy. today we know that they cannot replace it because the human sciences do not allow us to think or treat singularity as such. instead, they deal with things from the angle of the general or from a profile determined by statistical or empirical data, but their contribution to the singular is never shown. therefore, there is a first form of expression of the necessity of the philosophical from the angle of thinking the singular as such. the second reason is based on the confirmation that large, hypothetical, collective subjects, such as the proletariat, the people, etc., can no longer be elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 46 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the event, beyond the permanent crisis maintained. hence the emergence of a second necessity which is directed towards the reformulation of the subject formulated in its own name in the face of the inhuman. it is no longer possible to speak from a redemptive collective subject. for the individual decision, without recourse to the figure of a collective subject, without religious, historical or spiritual support, the existence of a reference point is required, which serves as a fulcrum from which to raise the solitary decision. from the moment when everyone is returned to his or her own singularity in the face of the inhuman, an unconditioned principle is necessary. the re-establishment of a category of truth, of a fixed point of view, of a possible discrimination from the point of view above all of the inhuman as such. there is a third reason, which badiou sees from the perspective of the increase in the planetary reactions of the religious, the racial or the irrational, which have come to occupy the space of the periclitated collective subjects. we will not know how to deal with this rise of the reactive, of that which makes return its condition of permanence, if we do not have the perspective of a philosophical vision of these elements. there is a fourth and final reason, which badiou arrives to, from the perspective that the world we inhabit is vulnerable. it is a world that functions well as long as it functions well, but which has serious problems in dealing with complicated situations, which easily falls apart and has great difficulty in grasping events positively. 8. the transition to the political, between permanent crisis and event this is why, badiou points out, we need a philosophy of the event, which, together with singularity, truth and reason, will produce a solid philosophical proposal for a world in a permanent state of perplexity. according to badiou, none of the new schools that have emerged from the crisis of philosophy can yet provide this. in fact, it is a question of explaining badiou’s nodal and apparently paradoxical thesis: to know that there is only the history of the eternal, because only the eternal proceeds from the event. in other words, there is no history but truths, since all truth is strictly eternal, impossible to reduce to any relativism. for badiou there is undoubtedly a philosophical moment that is finished, but this very end presupposes a beginning. to end is to begin from what is finished, badiou points out in his book la philosophie, de nouvelle fois, composed of texts that originally appeared in periodicals. for elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 47 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jordi riba miralles this new beginning, he makes use of the hypothesis, just as guyau did in his time. at a time when the great certainties have been exhausted, philosophising implies risk. hypothesis is the risk in thought. in badiou there is a special allusion to the conditions on the basis of which philosophising takes place. these are four in number: politics, science, love, and art. each of these four conditions makes possible a perspective on the real and an opening towards the possible. in the field of each of them, philosophical intervention proves necessary in the face of the sudden orphanhood into which contemporary thought has fallen. this leads him to the formulation of an appalling radicality: “without the idea, all that remains is an animalised humanity” (badiou, 2010b, p. 45). and he points to the direction of philosophising: if humanity does not work on its own unfolding, on its own invention, it has no choice but to occupy itself with carrying out its destruction. that which is not under the reign of the idea will be under the reign of death. the human species cannot innocently be animal. man belongs to that species which needs the idea in order to reasonably inhabit its own world. (badiou, 2010b, p. 45) conclusion and why not think of the two metaphors, that of the leviathan and that of the platonic cavern, taken up by badiou, to establish this transition between the permanent crisis exemplified by guyau and the platonic cavern by restoring, through the event, the idea, an example of the guyau an rudder? references aa.vv. (2002). dictionnaire critique de la république. flammarion. abensour, m. (2011). utopiques ii. sens et tonka. agamben, g. (2013). qu’est-ce que le commandement? bibliothèque rivages. badiou, a. (1988). l’être et l’événement. seuil. badiou, a. (2010a). la philosophie et l’événement. germina. badiou, a. (2010b). la filosofía, otra vez. errata naturae. besana, b., & feltham, o. (éds.). (2007). écrits autour de la pensé d’alain badiou. harmattan. blanchot, m. 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(1981). l’invention démocratique. fayard. mugnier-pollet, l. (1966). pour une éthique probabilitaire d’après j.-m. guyau. revue universitaire de science morale. revue universitaire de science morale. genève. ozouf, m., & furet, f. (éds.). (1988). dictionnaire de la révolution française. flammarion. copyright (©) 2022 jordi riba miralles editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: riba miralles, j. (2022). the event, beyond the permanent crisis. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 37-49. doi: https:// dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-rimi elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 49 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-rimi https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-rimi https://www.ledonline.it/elementa sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 115 a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli larm2: laboratory of robot mechatronics dept of industrial engineering università degli studi di roma tor vergata (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-cecc marco.ceccarelli@uniroma2.it abstract this illustration-based paper presents and account of italian history on the collections mechanism models that were used and still can be used in design, teaching, and research activities not only on research and development of mechanical systems. a conceptual procedure is outlined for the development and use of mechanism models mainly at reduced scaled size. main italian collections of mechanism models are introduced with their historical values and current status. those examples are reported also to show the value of cultural heritage that mechanism models and corresponding developments may have as worthful for preservation and understanding of past achievements in mechanism design and its application even in other frames. keywords: history of mechanisms; history of mechanical engineering; italian history of mms teaching; italian collections of mechanism models; mechanism models. introduction modeling and models have been and still are used as basis for activity in acquiring knowledge and implementing results in design and operation of systems in general and more specifically in machines. the study of modeling and models from the historical point of view is generally not approached with adequate attention and in fact specific historical investigations are reported in the literature referring to their evolution but only simple comments are indicated on specific modeling and consequent design solutions only for those machines that had a significant impact on technological https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-cecc marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 116 and social developments. even in the context of the history of machines referring to mechanics teaching and machine design, modeling models are not mentioned as necessary tools for the introduction and explanation of the fundamental concepts for training and for practical issues in design and operation of functional characteristics of machines and mechanisms, so much so that in historical studies models are very rarely mentioned with such a characterization and/or aim, even if only for didactic purposes. however, sometimes, the history of science and technology is also explained by using short mention to models such as in encyclopedic works, like for example in capocaccia (1973) and singer et al. (2012), and in specific works in conferences and journals, like for example in papers at the hhm symposia like zhang and ceccarelli (2019), as well as in teaching activities with some entertainment purposes, as for example with lego packages (lego, 2019). some specific attention is addressed to models of mechanisms when their historical values are considered for museum exhibitions and historical temporary shows as an attraction to past developments, as outlined for example in ceccarelli (2011, 2013 and 2016). the history of teaching in italy referring to mechanism design can be outlined looking at the developments in academic sites where machine mechanics was/is taught, as for example in ceccarelli (2014b). the history of this specific historical development is often attached with an attention to individual figures, who used models on personal basis and experience in each teaching academic frame and therefore, it is difficult to get an overview that the author has partially attempted in the reference ceccarelli (2016). in the teaching of design and functionality of mechanisms but also in the analysis and definition of the mechanical structures of machines and systems, today in mechatronics domain, the use of modeling and models can be refreshed of particular importance as it can be recognized in the didactic texts where formulations and mathematical modeling as well as calculation procedures for analysis and design are based on graphical schemes that can be also of a virtual nature requiring very often to be validated by models of a physical nature, even in prototype form. in this work an attempt is presented following a previous work in ceccarelli (2020) to combine an historical study of the teaching of machine mechanics in italy with the history of the use of models not only for teaching but also for other related activities. 1. mechanism models a mechanism is defined in the iftomm terminology (iftomm, 2003), as “constrained system of bodies designed to convert motions of, and https://www.ledonline.it/elementa a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 117 forces on, one or several bodies into motions of, and forces on, the remaining bodies”. from the didactic point of view in many texts, such as lopez-cajùn and ceccarelli (2013), and uicker et al. (2017), a mechanism is recognized as a set of rigid bodies or links connected to each other with the aim of converting the mechanical energy input at a different level on an output link. therefore, the purpose of a mechanism is identified in motion transmission capacity and force transmission capacity with the characteristics of motion generator and action generator, respectively, using the output link according to the characteristic imposed at the input. thus, in general a mechanism can be considered a key component in a machine design because of its function in converting mechanical energy to a proper level for machine operation as also recognized in ceccarelli (2018). consequently, a mechanism model is represented with a schematization of the structure and its functions with graphical representations and/or mathematical modeling that can be useful for analysis and simulation of operation and performance in carrying out the task for which the mechanism is designed and then applied. a model is understood as a simplified representation of a system and in the case of a mechanical design it is an ideal representation of the mechanism structure preserving the main mechanical characteristics, as indicated in ceccarelli (2020). considering the above-mentioned understanding for a mechanism model, it is also possible to recognize the modelling of a mechanism useful not only for design purposes but also for explaining the functioning with the peculiar operation performance. indeed, a mechanism model can be elaborated for design, simulation and exhibition purposes with representations that today span from virtual solutions in computer-oriented software packages to scaled simplified mechanical constructions up to well defined prototypes or demonstrators, even referring to the same design as an evolution of the definition of the solution. an example of a model of a modern mechanism is illustrated in fig. 1 referring to a mechanical design of larmbot arm for humanoids (russo & ceccarelli, 2018; fort, ceccarelli, & laribi, 2022) in which the model is represented as a kinematic diagram in fig. 1a, as a cad solution in fig. 1b and with a lab prototype in fig. 1c. the kinematic model is aimed both to explain the design structure and basic parameters of the conceived solution, the cad design is used to define the details of the mechanical design and to analyze the feasibility of its operation, and the prototype is used for design validation and testing the operation performance, with activity spanning from teaching to design up exhibition. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 118 (a) (c)(b) figure 1. – example of models for a mechanism solution of a humanoid arm (russo & ceccarelli, 2018; fort, ceccarelli, & laribi, 2022): (a) kinematic model for design algorithms; (b) cad model for mechanical design and simulation; (c) a lab prototype for testing. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 119 as mentioned above, in general, mechanism models are aimed and included in a variety of activities for teaching, study, research, design, demonstrative illustrations and presentations, simulation, validation operation characterization, experimental check, and even promotion and market exhibition. they are used not only for developing mechanical systems, but even as means or part of systems in activities in other disciplines, with similar aims or complementary purposes as for example indicated in ceccarelli (2012) referring to service applications. today mechanism models can be developed as sketches or drawings (by hand or by computer-graphics tools), mechanical constructions either in scaled sizes or prototype structures, and virtual computer-based designs as based on different type of software and visualization with or without human interaction. figure 2 outlines the evolution of mechanism models from historical viewpoints looking at technical constructions as linked to achievements and technological means (ceccarelli, 2020). figure 2. – a timeline of conceptual evolution of mechanism models (ceccarelli, 2020). in figure 2 the first level of a model refers to a graphical representation in the form of a drawing that since in antiquity it has been elaborated as drawing schemes containing lot of details. still today the first ideas are sketched with drawings (either by hand or by graphics software) that can be used as first step of an activity either in explaining or in designing mechanical systems or in developing concepts and solutions. a graphical drawing model can have different formats as well as different levels of accuracy, not only in terms of graphical representation and it is used in many disciplines other than in mechanical design. over the time those drawing models have evolved from pure line abstraction to naturalistic representation towards technical synthetic standardized drawing languages (see for example isometric views and cross-sections with ruled color for material and lines), as for example referring to gear designs in ceccarelli and cigola (2012). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 120 the second level in figure 2 named as “model” stresses the modelling as a mechanical model that can lead to a prototype solution for a machine design or an experiment whose phenomenon is to be investigated. historically for long time mainly during the growing of science and technology, model constructions were widely used before proceeding to further activities and, after last decades of the success of informatics today they have regained significance for a physical experience, mainly with prototypes with full features that are used before final constructions of machine products. in addition, a mechanical model can be formulated with a mathematization that can give highlight of the mechanical characteristics and can be further used both for reiteration in design and teaching explanations of parameters in design and operation issues. a prototype as a third level model in figure 2, is considered a full solution of a mechanical solution and likewise it can be developed in reduced scale yet. a protype model is understood as a tentative design for a final product and it is often the model by which the design process and the operation performance are validated without having the full products in all its details or manufacturing accuracy, before entering in the market or in approved invention. since constructions of mechanical models and prototypes require lot of efforts both in manufacturing and cost, the advent of computer science provided alternatives with the fourth level of virtual designs that are developed, operated, and tested with different level of virtuality from simple cad solutions up to haptic-sensed 3d systems. the virtual models are today extensively used but they can be still developed after an activity which is based on previous levels of modelling, including even a first drawing model, that in last decades was somehow ignored although necessary and indeed worked out. the level of virtual modelling in figure 2 emphasizes not only the deepening of functionality analysis using models even for final design products but also aspects concerning with the durability and economic convenience of models including multidisciplinary and integration for different purposes in study, design, and teaching. the today virtual models are used also to represent the other type of models as an expression of their interesting contents not only in the science and technology but also for the history of mechanical engineering with a value of cultural heritage when design formulation (graphical or mathematical representations) and products are worthful to be preserved, although not completely preserved in the original solutions, as means to show the historical evolution of knowledge and to stimulate inspiration for further developments. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 121 mechanism models have been and are still developed in different formats as above indicated in figure 2 for different aims and frames of applications for activities in teaching, analysis, design, experimental activity and historical investigations with still a key role not only for mechanical systems, but even as means or part of systems in other disciplines. the example in figure 1 illustrates the still current interest in the practice of model developments in the different forms and formats, as referring to the very modern domain of robotics. 2. italian collections of mechanical models examples based on illustrations are discussed below with the aim of showing the characteristics of the models and of the modeling introduced above in the context of the italian historical panorama with the relative peculiarities. since ancient times, the analysis and design of mechanisms was carried out using examples and models to define characteristics and solutions suited to required tasks. probably also scale models with perishable materials were used, which in fact have not reached us, but which have been illustrated and discussed in treatises or even represented in artistic works. figure 3 shows an example from the work of archimedes (ca. 287-212 bc) of the third century bc. relating to the schematic of the functioning of the machines with the basic conceptual principle recognized in the mechanics of the lever (ceccarelli, 2014b). figure 3a shows the graphic representation reconstructed during the renaissance as from the work by guidubaldo del monte (1577) as the re-edition/discover of the archimedes work (commandino, 1558) with an explanation of a text and a synthetic representation of the mechanism, whereas figure 3b shows the scheme still synthetic but for a mechanical study for the purposes of a formulation for analysis and design due to galilei in his explanations during the first academic lectures on machines of his course held in 1593-98 in padua (galilei, 1964; ceccarelli, 2006). in this figure it is evident the formulation of the model in terms of graphic design coming from an ancient text that could probably have been accompanied by a graphic scheme, but enriched with the characteristics of an essentially graphic modeling for the characteristics of explanation and design of the functionality of the machine to which it refers or to the lever mechanism a. d. for a marble cutting machine with the characteristic of being illustrative in the main mechanisms and with a publicity purpose, even if it was found on the surface of a sarcophagus near the city of hierapolis (currently in turkey) as the tomb of https://www.ledonline.it/elementa marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 122 marcus aurelius ammianos, a local miller. in this model of an artistic type as an archaeological finding, the informative and explanatory purposes can be noted with emphasis, although the design features are not detailed also in order not to allow readers to reproduce a machine with high technological value that can be considered of even economic value, not indifferent for the family of the person housed in the sarcophagus. (a) (b) figure 3. – the lever model by galilei (1964): (a) a natural description model; (b) a kinematic diagram model. (a) (b) figure 4. – bas-relief representing the hierapolis saw (rossi, russo, & russo, 2009): (a) the archeological finding; (b) a mechanical model. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 123 figure 4b shows a modern mechanical model of the marble cutting machine formulated with a cad elaboration with the clear interpretative intention not only of the archaeological bas-relief of figure 4a, but also of the functionality of the machine, highlighting the main elements recognizable in the hydraulic turbine as a source of energy and in the slider-crank mechanism that guides the saw in the operation against the marble. this example highlights that already in ancient times the modeling of machines and mechanisms was used for various purposes, that is, popularization and commercial and social advertising. it should be noted that the cad model of figure 4b can be used, as indeed it with various solutions that can be found in websites and museum exhibitions, for a virtual model with animation of the operation of the entire machine, with emphasis on the kinematics and the role of the fundamental of slider-crank mechanism. figure 4a (rossi, russo, & russo, 2009) shows an example of a model in a marble bas-relief of the third century. the explanatory purpose of models of mechanisms with content of cultural heritage value with today’s attention can be seen in the mechanical model of figure 5 of the roman catapult. figure 5a shows the graphic representation reconstructed during the renaissance in the work of fra giocondo (1433-1515) for the princeps re-edition (fra’ giocondo, 1511) of the treatise de architettura by vitruvius (80-15 bc) in which the model of the war machine structure also explains how machine works as based on the mechanism consisting of two levers with elastic joints connected by the launching cable, also with a brief explanation text. figure 5b shows a scale wooden model exhibited at the museum of roman civilization in rome (2010) with a clear explanatory purpose of the structure both in functional aspects referring to the mechanisms as in the constructional peculiarities with assembly of parts that the roman legionaries could find in the field during the war campaigns. another significant reference referring to the modeling in antiquity with reconstructions in the renaissance and beyond, can be considered the work of vitruvius (80-15 bc), whose specific studies on machines and mechanisms in liber x were then rediscovered during the renaissance and republished also with sets of figures and graphic models resulting from interpretations of the text and the direct experience of the authors of the reproductions with machine designs that have been a reference for a long time both at a technical and historiographic level, as discussed in cigola and ceccarelli (2016). this last aspect of historiographical attention has recently received even greater attention with the creation of virtual models that have been elaborated and exhibited, also with scenic animations of various scenography in various occasions and occasions, such as the virtual https://www.ledonline.it/elementa marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 124 exhibition of vitruvian machines linked to leonardo da vinci in 2019 in the malatesta palace in fano, the birthplace of vitruvius. actually todays, virtual models even with 3d views and animation are extensively used mainly in exhibitions within museums or events showing past design of machines and mechanisms with aim to show the functionality of those past machines with cultural heritage values but also with modern concepts for design and functionality. (a) (b) figure 5. – ancient roman repeating catapult: (a) a mechanical scheme, by fra’ giocondo (1511); (b) a reconstruction in the museum of roman culture in rome (2010). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 125 (a) (b) figure 6. – models of the archimedes pump: (a) graphic diagram of the structure and functioning of the screw (galilei, 1964); (b) mechanical model of 17th century in florence museum (miniati, 1991). figure 6, referring to the archimedes pump for lifting water as an example of the experimental mechanics that was established since the 17th century, shows how mechanical models were used for didactic and experimental purposes. figure 6a shows a graphic model again from galilei’s lessons with a graphical representations as traditional means for a long time in the study of the functioning of machines and mechanisms while figure 6b (miniati, 1991), shows the mechanical model built for research but also used in teaching for more than a century, in the form that today is preserved at the museum of the history of science in florence having also acquired a character of historical value and cultural heritage of science and technology. in the mechanical model of figure 6b it is worth noting the accuracy of the mechanical construction aimed at representing the main elements for the functionality of the mechanism with which the screw performs the function of water lifting pump according to the mechanics and the representative scheme of figure 6a. this link between mechanical models and graphical models is still essentially based on the modeling of the design and functional characteristics useful not only for the analysis of the functioning but also for the design and use of the examined mechanism. therefore, it can be recognized that one type of model completes the other and vice versa. the use of graphic models has been persistent for a long time and of practical utility especially in the technical-scientific literature as in the didactic one with characteristics still considered necessary today both in the didactic aspects and in the design formulations. already in the renaissance https://www.ledonline.it/elementa marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 126 it can be thought that this graphic modeling was flanked by mechanical models in scale which, however, have not come down to us not only for their limited purpose in terms of use and validation of concepts at the time of design and restricted teaching practice, but also and above all for having probably been built with perishable materials such as wood. subsequently, this didactic-demonstrative purpose of graphic models of the machines had its success in the theatrum machinarum in the form of catalogs of machines in which the structures of the machines are represented with a text accompanying as a description of the functionality and construction peculiarities. this approach can be traced historically starting from the manual by francesco di giorgio martini (1439-1502) (ceccarelli & molari, 2020), up to the first printing of a real manual of the machines by agostino ramelli (1588). figure 7 shows an example of such modeling from the ramelli catalog (1588) with pedagogical purposes for a wide audience, also with the intention of attracting possible commitment for the design and construction of the represented and new machines. this didactic-illustrative purpose has developed since the first manuals of machines by francesco di giorgio of the early renaissance up to the elaboration of complex catalogs in the form of the theatrum machinarum and finally also in specific chapters of the didactic texts and reports of research activities and design during the, 19th century during the developments of the industrial revolution. figure 7. – example of graphic modeling of mechanisms in machines typical of theatrum machinarum from the work of agostino ramelli in 1588. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 127 during the development of the industrial revolution these catalogs specialized in the representation of graphic models of mechanisms within treatises further developed in technical manuals among which the first european (italian) manual can be ascribed to the work of giuseppe antonio borgnis (1781-1863). the example of figure 8 shows the modeling of the mechanisms with the aim of explaining a classification of the structural and functional possibilities of the various types of mechanisms. figure 8. – graphic modeling of mechanisms for a classification from the work of borgnis (1823). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 128 these aims for design and teaching activities have given rise to a specific literature and also to a research aimed at discovering unitary principles in the variety of mechanisms according to the various types also with the help of small scale models that have seen full success with the production of modeling designed by franz reuleaux (1829-1905) and produced by the voigt company (following a well-established tradition in germany, even if it also existed in other european countries, including in the states of fragmented italy) with planetary circulation (kerle, mauersberger, & ceccarelli, 2011), which in fact it has also reached the engineering schools in italy. in particular, in italy this activity has seen a production of specific literature since the first courses dedicated to the training of mechanical engineers at the university of turin which later became polytechnic of turin with professor carlo ignazio giulio (1803-1859) with his work that follwed didactic study by gaspard monge (1747-1818) further developed by robert willis (1800-1875) and continued throughout the nineteenth century until reaching the work of francesco masi (1852-1944) (ceccarelli, 2010) at the university of bologna with its encyclopedic treatise the theory of mechanisms of 1897 in which the modeling of mechanisms is treated not only on a graphic level but also on an analytical-formulistic level as represented in the example of figure 9. figure 9. – example of graphic-analytical models of mechanisms from the work of francesco masi in bologna at the end of the 19th century. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 129 in figure 9 it is to note how the mechanism model with its graphic drawing is used to identify a mathematical model with a innovative formulation, that can be useful both for analysis and design purposes, as today is implemented with more advance algorithm of informatic expert systems. this development of graphic models for analytical formulations with the purpose of analyzing and teaching the functionality of the mechanisms were also accompanied by products of various types of physical-mechanical models, both in scale with emulation of voigt models and models specifically designed by the italian teachers. figure 10 shows examples of those physical-mechanical models which were produced starting from the end of the, 19th century up to the 60s of the, 20th centuries with evident didactic purposes in courses dedicated to the study of kinematics and design of mechanisms for machines even with complex structures. figure 10 shows as an example of the dissemination throughout the national level models preserved in several italian academic institutions with mechanical construction structures respectively in metal, plastic, wood, and combination of materials to represent as such modeling also for didactic purposes has been produced with a great variety of solutions. in the, 1980-90s of the past century, the advent of computers and related computerized modeling technologies have also produced a bursting development of virtual models that are still used today in courses to explain the structures of mechanisms and their functionality with dedicated algorithms for the virtual simulation of their performance and numerical representation as a characterization of the principles and solutions proposed and further developable for even innovative designs. such virtual models are frequently also used in other fields, such as those indicated in figures 4-6 for museum exhibition purposes and preservation of contents of technicalcultural heritage. subsequently, at the beginning of this century didactic techniques for the study of mechanisms and machines were developed that combine the various types of modeling described above, i.e. graphic, physical-mechanical, computerized virtual ones, in such a way that a student in training for not only mechanical engineering of machines with mechatronic solutions can also appreciate the structure and mechanical functionality typical of man-machine and machine-machine interaction and integration with further systems from other disciplines that are now essential in the modern mechatronic structure of a machine and a mechanism when combined with various types of drives, control systems and sensorization that are necessary for the regulation of the machines according to the applications to which they are dedicated and designed. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 130 (a) (b) (c) (e) (d) figure 10. – examples of physical-mechanical models of mechanisms for didactic purposes in the 20th century at: (a) politecnico di torino; (b) politecnico di milano; (c) university of bologna; (d) university of rome; (e) university of palermo. a historical account on italian mechanism models elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 131 although today the teaching and design techniques are based on computerassisted modeling and therefore based on a mathematical and simulation modeling, the realization of physical-mechanical models is once again considered necessary and fundamental for a rational and efficient training to develop adequate knowledge and awareness of the problems of the solutions that an engineer must face for the development and management of mechanisms and machines with a mechatronic structure real designs for correct and efficient operation, as shown in the example of figure 1. conclusions mechanism models have paid and still pay an important role in explaining and validating machine design concepts and operation performance in teaching, research and technological transfer, even in publicity to the public. an historical evolution is presented looking at main features of model categories in drawings, mechanical models, protypes, and virtual solutions. italian collections are introduced as from main italian university sites with an eye from the very past up todays solutions with the aim of recognizing an important contribution of using mechanism models in the development of machine designs and the science of mechanisms over time. references capocaccia, a. 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(2020). models of mechanisms for teaching and experimental activity. in atti del viii convegno annuale società italiana degli storici della fisica e dell’astronomia (pp. 255-266). pavia university press. isbn: 97888-6952-7 ceccarelli, m., & cigola, m. (2012). on the evolution of graphical representation of gears. in mechanisms, transmissions and applications (pp. 3-14). springer. ceccarelli, m., & molari, p. g. (2020). francesco di giorgio (1439-1501). in m.  ceccarelli & y. fang (eds.), distinguished figures in mechanism and machine science: their contributions and legacies. part 4 (pp. 47-66). springer nature switzerland ag (history of mechanism and machine science, 38). https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-32398-1_3 cigola, m., & ceccarelli, m. (2016). machine designs and drawings in renaissance editions of de architectura by marcus vitruvius pollio. in essays on the history of mechanical engineering (pp. 291-307). springer, cham. commandino, f. 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(2017). theory of machines and mechanisms. oxford university press. zhang, b., & ceccarelli, m. (eds.). (2019). explorations in the history amd heritage of machines and mechanism. proceedings of hmm 2018. springer nature switzerland ag. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-3.19-79111-1_38 marco ceccarelli elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 134 riassunto il presente contributo presenta e racconta la storia italiana sulla collezione dei modelli meccanici che sono stati utilizzati e possono ancora essere utilizzati nelle attività di progettazione, insegnamento e ricerca, non solo circoscritti alla ricerca e allo sviluppo di sistemi meccanici. sono presentate le principali collezioni italiane, con i loro valori storici e il loro stato attuale. questi esempi sono riportati anche e soprattutto per dimostrare il valore del patrimonio culturale che questi modelli e gli sviluppi corrispondenti possono avere, utili per la conservazione e la comprensione dei risultati del passato nella progettazione e la loro applicazione anche in altri contesti. copyright (©) 2021 marco ceccarelli editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: ceccarelli, m. (2021). a historical account on italian mechanism model. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 115-134. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-cecc https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-cecc elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 163 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics 1 federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 1 learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) 2 yield engineer on semiconductor doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-doca federica.doronzo@unifg.it g.calabrese.296@gmail.com abstract the understanding of memory has been a constant challenge for scientific research for centuries. the mnemonic processes, which determine the identity of the human being, have been investigated through multiple points of view, such as the psychological, neurophysiological and physical ones. the result is complex and multifaceted visions that should be integrated to provide a unitary and complete interpretation. a survey of the most recent scientific literature is carried out on the functioning of declarative memory, to analyse the relationship between real information coming from the outside world, the encoded event and the recovered memory. the aim of the essay is to investigate the neural correlates, which regulate the cognitive system in question, through a dual neuropsychological-mathematical interpretation. neuropsychology sheds light on the anatomical, physiological and psychic mechanisms of memory while mathematics associates the corresponding mathematical configurations to neural networks. the reunification process between the two disciplines is achieved through neuromorphic computational simulation that emulates mind uploading. the assembly of artificial neurons has the potential to clarify in detail the memory processes, the functioning of neural correlates and to carry out the mapping of the biological brain. we hope that the results obtained will provide new knowledge on mnestic mechanisms to contribute to the evolution of disciplines such as general psychology, forensic neuroscience, cognitive rehabilitation and awake surgery. 1 for the purposes of academic recognition, contributions are attributed as follows: introduction and paragraph 1 to federica doronzo; paragraph 2 to gianvito calabrese; and the conclusion is the result of a shared work. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-doca federica doronzo gianvito calabrese elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 164 keywords: declarative memory; mathematical configurations; neuromorphic computation; neuropsychology. introduction memory is the cognitive domain that mediates a series of processes to acquire and store information over time, the aim is to guide behavior and plan future actions for survival. this function is fundamental for the human being as long-lasting memories form the basis of identity that is a self/ hetero perception of oneself and of the relationship between the self and the world. in particular, declarative memory is involved in the integration of individual experiences with the socio-cultural knowledge of the world. the four fundamental processes of memory are: coding, consolidation, storage and retrieval. coding is the processing of information (sensory analysis and attribution of meaning), the consolidation allows the generation of a representation, the storage consists in the recording of data in the storage-memory and the recovery phase is the recall mechanism of the memory. recently dudai (2012) confirmed the existence of another process, such as reconsolidation which is an extension of the phenomenon of memory consolidation. when a memory is recovered or reactivated it must be consolidated again, increasing the possibility that the reconsolidated memory may include new information not present in the original version of the event. the multi-warehouse model, which evolved from james’ first theorization in 1890, is the most accredited paradigm in the literature and provides for the subdivision of memory into hierarchically organized modules. a fundamental distinction concerns the component of temporal retention which determines the following subdivision: working memory, sensory memory and long-term memory. the latter can be classified into declarative (explicit), that is, conscious memory of events and facts, and non-declarative (implicit) which consists of memories expressed through the execution of actions regardless of awareness. the most recent model is the mnesis model, i.e. memory neostructural inter-systemic, in which the memory consists of interconnected sub-systems (eustache, viard, & desgranges, 2016). the three modules of long-term representation (perceptual memory, semantic memory, episodic memory) interact with each other through the processes of consolidation 2 2 phenomenon of reliving experiences: a still faint trace is converted into a permanent or enhanced form. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 165 and semantization 3; the episodic buffer 4 acts as an intermediary between working memory, procedural memory and long-term memory, and the latter two systems in turn have direct links. the structure demonstrates that memories have a dynamic and reconstructive nature and memory operates through a distributed set of brain areas that are, interconnected neural networks (fig. 1). figure 1. – mnesis. fonte: eustache, viard, & desgranges, 2016, p. 100. computational science is contributing to the understanding of brain functioning by designing artificial brain networks. the modeling of the biological brain has the potential to photograph and reproduce the neural configurations during the different memory processes, distinguishing brain activity for coding, consolidation and information retrieval. the key issues of the reflection in question are: • are past events faithfully reproduced or does the memory function induce constructive activities by distorting the original information? • is neuromorphic computing  5 a feasible project? what repercussions would it have with respect to the understanding of the central nervous system? 3 passage from episodic memory to semantic memory due to the passage of time which induces the loss of episodic details of memories. 4 in 2000, baddeley added episodic buffer to his short-term memory model. this third sub-component acts as an intermediary between systems having different codes, and combines them into unitary, meaningful and coherent representations. 5 new paradigm that essentially consists in assembling artificial neurons so that they function according to the principles of the human brain. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa federica doronzo gianvito calabrese elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 166 the above themes are investigated with a dual point of view, neuropsychological and mathematical, in order to integrate the results and increase knowledge with respect to the cognitive domain of memory. understanding the psycho-physiological mechanisms associated with memory processes, mapping the human brain and mathematically representing neural configurations, would allow us to answer the aforementioned questions. these goals would generate innumerable implications: forensic neuroscience and cognitive rehabilitation would implement assessments and interventions calibrated on the specific functioning of the memory process and brain activity. furthermore, a transdisciplinary understanding of the construct would enrich the theories and open questions of general psychology (such as reconstruction and alteration of memories) and would help to ensure greater safety of awake surgery: the facilitation of intraoperative mapping would precisely determine the dedicated areas of the brain to fundamental neurological activities and their functioning. 1. neuropsychological perspective neuropsychology has provided a significant contribution to the knowledge on the functioning of declarative memory through the study of both the healthy subject and that affected by diseases of the central nervous system. the transdisciplinary nature provides it with an added value, this paragraph investigates the studies and empirical evidences that clarify the declarative mnestic mechanisms from a psychic and physiological point of view. 1.1. construction and reconstruction of declarative memories to understand how memory works, it starts by examining its characterizing process: learning. this process, which mediates the consolidation of the traces, is determined by changes involving the synapses for both shortterm memory (greater neurotransmitter release) and long-term memory (formation of new synapses). any experience that results in remembering produces physical changes in the central nervous system (cns). the brain circuits that support the formation, storage and retrieval of declarative memory converge in a hippocampus-dependent system  6. in 1937 6 eichenbaum (2000) demonstrated that rats with hippocampal and parahippocampal lesions lose the ability to retrieve previously acquired memories (specifically spatial ones). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 167 papez was among the first to identify the circuit involved in the formation of long-term memories, known as the papez circuit, consisting of the projections from the hippocampal formation to the mammillary bodies and from the mammillary bodies to the anterior thalamus. squire (2015) most recently identified the main areas of the circuit: medial temporal lobe, hippocampus and primary, secondary and associative cortex. the hippocampus and the diencephalic structures are of crucial importance for the formation and consolidation of memories which are subsequently stored throughout the brain. here are four theories that differently describe how episodic memory works. squire, in 2004, developed the standard consolidation theory according to which the hippocampus acts as an “index” of access to recent memories for their spatial localization, for example visual elements are stored in the visual cortices, the sounds of words in language areas, etc. subsequently, the consolidation period allows direct connection to the cortical traces of memories, and the hippocampus is no longer essential for the retrieval of information. nadel and moscovitch (1997) with the multiple trace theory argue that episodic memories, more or less consolidated, are always dependent on the hippocampus. the temporal gradient is not associated with the transfer to the cortex but with the number of traces stored in the hippocampus: every time a memory is reactivated, a new memory trace is stored in the hippocampus. as a result, remote memories are encoded by multiple tracks and become more resistant to hippocampal damage. the recall can therefore alter the memory as a photograph of what really happened is not constructed, but rather a reconstruction of what is remembered the last time one thought about the memory takes place. in 2013 maguire and mullally advanced the scene construction theory, according to which the hippocampus is able to reconstruct the past experience in the absence of the original trace. during the re-enactment of a recent event, the hippocampus constructs a series of coherent scenes with event through neocortical-hippocampal interactions. these scenes quickly fade from the hippocampus as the representations consolidate into adjacent cortical areas. schacter and addis (2007), with the episodic simulation of future events, argue that the memory of the past and the imagination of the future draw on similar information stored in episodic memory, which therefore also supports the construction of future events by extracting and recombining the information stored in a simulation of a new event. bartlett provides another element in support of the distorted nature of memory by proposing a constructive vision of memory as early as the https://www.ledonline.it/elementa federica doronzo gianvito calabrese elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 168 first half of the 1900s. cognition would not allow a duplicative process of reality as it is impossible to separate memory from other higher functions such as thought and imagination. memory therefore plays a role of active transformation of memories by integrating perception and subjective experience. this phenomenon is due to the presence of patterns, e.g. knowledge that everyone has about objects or events, which guide the memory processes. from these theories it emerges that declarative memory is still the subject of controversial studies and appears to be the result of complex constructive and reconstructive mechanisms dependent on extended brain circuits. the doubt about the reliability of memories arises from the first mnestic process of information processing. constructivism argues that knowledge is necessarily dependent on the knowing subject as an active construction process. objectivity is therefore an illusion: the subject introduces his own order and meaning to what he experiences. the same event is meaning and remembered differently on the basis of one’s psycho-physical state (depending on the moment in which it is known), past experiences (which build the representations, defined by the bowlby theory iwm 7), and the common sense 8 determined by the place of belonging and the interactions subsequent to the occurrence of the event. below we present some theories that analyze the processes that affect the reliability of memories. the emotion-memory interactions occur in several phases from the construction to recovery of the memory trace by modifying the original data. the amygdala modulates, according to emotions, both the encoding and the memorization of memories dependent on the hippocampus, this in turn generates episodic representations of the emotional meaning and interpretation of events, influencing the response of the amygdala when stimuli are encountered emotional. although the amygdala and hippocampus are independent, they act in concert (phelps, 2004): emotions regulate memory and vice versa. the association between mood disorders and memory impairment is due to the fact that dysfunctional emotional alterations reduce the amount of cognitive resources available for the memory domain (dalgleish & power, 2004). 7 individuals, through interaction with the environment and in particular with the caregiver, build internal working models from childhood, that is, representations of themselves and the world. these mental structures regulate the perception and interpretation of events, allowing you to make predictions and create expectations about the events of your relational life. 8 pre-conceptual sense, implicitly shared by the members of a cultural context, which allows people to be in tune with what is common (stanghellini, 2008). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 169 the self memory system 9 (conway & pleydell-pearce, 2000) introduces another dynamic influencing memory such as the self-concept. this framework considers memory as a “motivated process” that is guided by the self-goals. autobiographical knowledge limits what the self is, has been and can be, in turn the self modulates access to long-term knowledge: in the event of changes in the self, memory stores are radically reorganized (conway, 2005). the self and memory can therefore operate independently and influence each other. it is also necessary to consider that memories also interact with each other changing them self. this interrelation is called interference, and it is both the tendency of new memories to compromise the recovery of past memories (retroactive) and vice versa the tendency of pre-existing information to influence new events (proactive). as a demonstration of this, it is observed that the mastery of a task can facilitate or hinder the learning or execution of a new task. at the end of this path, the contribution that schacter, one of the most famous researcher of memory, has provided to the theme, is exhibited. the scientist argues that memory plays fundamental functions in everyday life, but that it is also vulnerable to error and delusion. he theorized the existence of seven sins (imperfections) by assigning to memory a constructive and adaptive nature (functional to survival). sins are divided into three types of phenomena: oblivion phenomena (transience, absent-mindedness, blocking), distortion phenomena (misattribution, suggestibility, bias) and pathological phenomena (persistence). considering the evidence showing the pervasiveness of memory errors, schather concludes that memory is a faulty process that has serious repercussions on the legal system, especially in the context of the accuracy of the testimony. in fact, research has shown that post-event suggestion can contaminate a person’s memory by inducing false memories. this discussion has presented the pitfalls to which the memory is exposed. what emerged has implications not only for police investigations and criminal judgments but also for other disciplinary sectors such as psychotherapy which has long debated the veracity of memories. the novelty proposed is that mathematics is trying to combine psychological phenomena with neural correlates explained in terms of mathematical models, to scientifically corroborate what has been observed at a behavioral level. 9 the sms is a paradigm made up of two main components, the working self (complex set of active goals and associated self-images) and the knowledge of autobiographical memory. these components intertwine to form memories and self-representations. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa federica doronzo gianvito calabrese elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 170 1.2. the engram: from the biochemical perspective to the mathematical model neuropsychology clarifies the brain psychic and neurophysiological processes regulating memory but does not precisely delineate the activation configurations of neurons in the various mnestic phases. the innovative connectionist model implements a computational approach of the mind: it attempts to simulate biological intelligence, reproducible on a computer, through artificial neural networks. mathematical models can help provide a detailed representation of neural activity during the different memory processes to photograph the neural correlates of coding, consolidation, reconsolidation and recovery of memories. emerging changing configurations in support of the constructive and reconstructive nature theorized by neuropsychological research. below we describe the functioning of the learning process, at the basis of mathematical modelling, starting from the concept of engram. the engram is structured through a biochemical process by which neurons, which once functioned independently, begin to work together as a network. daniel hebb was the first, in 1949, to hypothesize that memories are stored in the brain in the form of networks of neurons. hebb’s postulate states that axonic terminations, strengthened thanks to corelated activity, form new branches, while terminations weakened by unrelated activity lose their grip on the post-synaptic cell. bills and lomo, in 1973, discovered that by administering a train of high frequency electrical stimuli (at the hippocampus) the action potentials produced by subsequent stimuli were increased but only in that neural path (the electric current strengthened the synaptic connections along that away for hours or weeks). this is the long-term potentiation (ltp): a persistent increase in synaptic efficacy that mediates the formation of memory. this phenomenon occurs only in the presence of a close temporal correspondence between the paired activities of pre-synaptic and post-synaptic cells. the neural activity model gradually changes with training to become consistent: the synchrony index of the triggered neurons is low at the beginning but increases with training cycles (zhou et al., 2020). the change in the dynamics of neurons from irregularity to synchronization coincides with the appearance of learned behaviors (e.g., mouse freezing for fear conditioning). synaptic plasticity is the generative mechanism of memorization, the ltp with the formation of new synapses regulates the consolidation of memories. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 171 the neuronal dynamics, which determine the memorization, can be described through mathematical models based on measurements of the voltage and time dependence of the currents that cross the membrane. the memorization process is interpreted as a return of the brain to the neuronal configuration equal to the one it had at the time of the stimulus; and the brain network is studied as a mathematical system having dynamic configurations (luccioli, 2005). the neuronal network can be represented as a system of n units (neurons) that interact with each other at instant t. at each instant the network is characterized by a configuration determined by the values of the electrical potentials assumed by the neurons. the information is then represented by specific configurations where the first neuron is active and the second quiescent and so on. the potential that the i-th neuron receives from the others is defined by the sum of the potentials that the neurons send to the i-th neuron. a neuron will be active if the sum of the electrical potentials, it receives from the other neurons, exceeds its threshold value in analogy to what happens biologically. on the basis of the mathematically defined configuration it is possible to identify the recognition of a stimulus and compare the configurations at different instants, differentiating the processes of coding and retrieving information (doria, 1994). what has been discovered, biologically and mathematically, coded potentially makes it possible to carefully evaluate the admissibility limits of testimonial evidence, the memory impairments in the medical field and the mapping of neural networks as a function of neurosurgical interventions. 2. mathematical perspective the difference in scale between the biological phenomena (neural activities) and the behavioral expressions (mnestic processes) creates room for multiple discipline to be hosted in and, in this scenario, mathematics has taken its role as special guest. the mathematical modelling allows to simulate the association between specific neural configurations and the various cognitive operations laying the foundation for the data neuromorphic processing. in the current paragraph the most important milestones, success (and perplexities) along the artifical neural networks conceptualization roadpath are presented. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa federica doronzo gianvito calabrese elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 172 2.1. the technological keys of the mind the difficulties involing a neuromorphic processor realization are multiple. in the classical computational system based on the von neumann architecture (hardware architecture for programmable digital machines which shares the instructions and the data in the same memory area) the control processing units (cpus) are physically separetad from the memory block, instead in the neural networks, processing and memorization co-exist inside the same synaptic structure. the increase of the completed operations by time unit (i.e. increasing clock frequency), could affect the microelectronic fabrication process. considering that forcing the boundaries of the solid state physics is not always a chance some strategitcal workaround and smart tricks are needed to support the continuos improvement of the computer performance. first of all the multi core parallel computing and the hierarical organization of cache memory. for the special case of parallelism, amdahl law state that if f is the fraction of a processing which can be done in parallel, and (1 − f ) is the part which has to be done in serial, then the best achievable speedup 10 (s) using a n core machine is: s = 1 (1 − f ) + f n (2.1) looking at the future of computation virtually means to reimage it: the brain organization is one of the most promising and ispiring technological architecture in the roadmap of the computer evolution. the field of application of the neuromorphic computing are wide, as it is extensive the number of solution proposed to reach the final accomplishment. the new neuromorphic technological platform could be the most natural interface between human body and cybernetic prostheses. this can open a new window on the way to approach the nervous system diseas, as quadriplegia and also more complex clinical picture (collinger et al., 2013). for the moment this looks like more the (happy) ending of the story. the input processing capacity a biological system can accept (104) and the fan-in 11, nominal or effective, of the computation machines are order of magnitude different (102). beyond the scale issue it’s the spike-timing design to be a deep conceptual difference in the information treatment 10 computational acceleration of partially divisible algorithm due to the insertion of n processors in parallel. 11 number of acceptable input from a circuit logic operator. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 173 when comparent to the current standard. the spinnaker project (spiking neural network architecture) try to jump over the fence by a multi-core architecture based on the paradigm of the brain functioning (mead, 1990). its billions of computation units are able to reinforce their interconnection thanks to the stdp mechanism constituing an high parallel degree artificial platform. if compared to the biological systems it is not more than the 1% of the human brain, of if it sounds more encouraging, it is equivalent to ten times a mouse brain (fig. 2). the basic block of the spinnaker is the spinnaker multicore systemon-chip. the chip is a globally asynchronous locally synchronous (gals) system 12 whee the nodes are represented by 18 arm968 processors working in synchronized regime, grafted in a circuital infrastracture based on the address-event-representation (aer)  13 communication protocol, which allows large fan-in and fan-out. the aer protocol is optimized for the real time housing of a great number of mini-packets able to emulate the neural spikes (mead, 1990). the strong legacy of the standard management of the computational resources introuduced by the classic arm processors seems to have been further exceeded by the truenorth project by ibm. the structure is made by 4096 cores which fulfil the role on neural network in turn integrated on a single motherboard. each one of the core raccoglie 256 simil-neural electronic units (approximately the size of a caterpillar’s brain) that allows to program 256 × 256 binary synaptic connections (indiveri, 2011). the true north is the ibm second largest chip ever made and only consumes 73 mw (a thousand time less than a typical commercial cpu) proving, as expected, a natural inclination toward the challenges coming from the domain of the cognitive responses or, from a more computer science point of view, the target themes of the machine learning alghorithms (indiveri & liu, 2015). a quantitative metric of what just discussed can be better defined looking at the image recognition capacity. the truenorth is able to categorize 6000 images per watt with respect to a canonical gpu, altought excellent, as the nvidia tesla p4 gpu which can perform the identification of just 160 immagini for the same power unit. this approach seems to be most successful than spinnaker in terms of memory distribution grade (fig. 3). 12 computational architecture based on secure and robust communication between synchronous islands in a system of independent clock domains. 13 address event representation (aer) is an emerging protocol dedicated to the communication of neuromorphic networks that aims to create a massive interconnection between neural units with a strong real-time focus. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa figure 2. – schematic representation of the gals architecture flanked by an image of the spinnaker matrix, with the 18 cores (synchronous islands). source: http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk. figure 3. – the neurogrid layout (to the left) is characterized by a 64 × 64 “neurosynaptic cores”. each core (to the right) owns 256 neurons and 65,536 synapsis. surce: ibm research, cc by. 174 http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 175 one of the main issues is the large size di questo dispositivo, 4.3 cm2, which makes questionable is industrial sustinability in term of die yield. also assuming to miniaturize the chip consistently with the mass production cpu size, the processor shows up a lack of plasticity/learning capacity which represent, instead, a choice taken during the development face in order to semplify design and operation. as last study case it is proposed the neurogrid which is based on an unusual array of neurons and synapses made by analog electronic circuits assisted by a digital router. this mixedsignal machine is the apotheosis of the real-time concept thought to handle the data on the fly and avoid any kind of machine state storage (douglas, mahowald, & mead, 1995). it appears to be what is closest to the formlization of coincidence of data retainment with the dynamic dialogue of the circuital components. the network pretends to interact realistically with biological systems and is, therefore, calibrated on time constants of tens of milliseconds. it’s a very long time scale if the reference is the digital system performance but for sure, for an analogic vlsi 14 is a very challenging result to reach. conclusions the studies on memories evolve constantly and the underlying comprehension is gradually becaming more complex and detailed. in particular all the learning about the memories generation and recall mechanism have quicly expanded. an important item in the field is the trustability of the recalled information. the brain is not a passive storage node instead it covers an adaptive function which can cause the memories alteration. this kind of error introduction serves for survival purpose. the memory builds patterns to expedite and facilitate the world understanding, although these processes cause the distortion of remembered events. the neuropsychology is helping to clarify the anatomical, physiological and psychic correlates of memory in order to understand its functioning. the neuropsychological studies show that mental activity is distributed through the brain and not categorized into independent modules: the modularization paradigm has been discarded in favor of the connectionist one, proving the existence of interconnected neural networks. 14 very large scale integration (in acronym vlsi) is a denomination that indicates a high integration of transistors within a single chip. generally it refers to the devices with the highest level of integration based on the technologies of the time. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa federica doronzo gianvito calabrese elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 176 mathematics fits into this context by representing complex neural configurations through the mathematical models. all the disciplines offer their contribution in the same direction of establishing the neuromorphic computing theory and design the perfect machine for its interpretation. the development of new it architectures is slowly becoming a reality. in the 2020 the neural chips market counted 1.952 billion dollars, and it is expected to grow to exceed 7 billion ollars by the 2026 with a particular traction from the automotive market (mordor intelligence, 2021). the integration of psychological, neuro-physiological knowledge with the mathematical one implies making an improvement for different disciplines and for the quality of life of the human being. the general psychology will be able to answer unresolved questions about the unreliability of memories and their reconstructive nature. the forensic neuroscience will have a valid mathematical model that illustrates brain activity during the memorization making the detectives able to easily filter out fake information. thanks to the neuroimaging the cerebral images could be directly associated with some computational configuration to support the diagnosis and and the follow-up in in the neurological and psychiatric fields. the awake surgery will increase the safety and effectiveness of the interventions throught the systematic mapping by the cerebral network. at the end the neuropsychological rehabilitation could arrange very precise intervention plan to fix the specific mnestic impairment and better monitoring the further progresses by the support of the prediction and behaviour suggested by the mathematical modelling. references andrews-hanna, j. r., saxe, r., & yarkoni, t. 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(2020). induction of activity synchronization among primed hippocampal neurons out of random dynamics is key for trace memory formation and retrieval. faseb journal: official publication of the federation of american societies for experimental biology, 34(3), 3658-3676. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 179 riassunto la comprensione della memoria si configura, da secoli, come una sfida costante per la ricerca scientifica. i processi mnestici, determinanti l’identità dell’essere umano, sono stati indagati attraverso molteplici punti di vista, come quello psicologico, neurofisiologico e fisico. ne risultano visioni complesse e sfaccettate che andrebbero integrate per fornire un’interpretazione unitaria e completa. si effettua una ricognizione della letteratura scientifica più recente, sul funzionamento della memoria dichiarativa, per analizzare la relazione tra l’informazione reale proveniente dal mondo esterno, l’evento codificato e il ricordo recuperato. l’obiettivo del saggio è indagare i correlati neurali, che regolano il sistema cognitivo in oggetto, mediante una duplice interpretazione neuropsicologicomatematica. la neuropsicologia fa luce sui meccanismi anatomici, fisiologici e psichici della memoria mentre la matematica associa alle reti neurali le corrispondenti configurazioni matematiche. il percorso di ricongiungimento, tra le due discipline, si realizza attraverso la simulazione computazionale neuromorfica che emula il “mind uploading”. copyright (©) 2021 federica doronzo, gianvito calabrese editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: doronzo, f., & calabrese, g. (2021). functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 163-179. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/ elem-2021-0102-doca https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-doca https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-doca elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría tommaso sgarro università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-sgar tommaso.sgarro@unifg.it abstract ignacio ellacuría was brutally murdered in november the 16th, 1989 by the hands of el salvador’s armed forces; ten years later in 1999, a quick but detailed “schema” of xavier zubiri’s anthropology, which he had used for a course he taught between july and august 1968 at the centro de estudios superiores para el desarrollo (cesde) in medellín, was published within the second volume which collected the jesuit’s philosophical writings. the “schema” brings together many of those theses that form the basis of his most important work, and which came out posthumously, “filosofía de la realidad histórica” (1990); this was developed in close comparison with the thought of the great spanish philosopher whose ellacuría was student and collaborator. the historiographical reconstruction of the salient passages of ellacuría’s research on the relationship between historicity and history in the broader zubiri anthropological context makes possible to highlight some peculiar aspects of the jesuit’s thought, which is not merely limited to offer a new and different line of interpretation of zubiri’s thought. the prominence of the idea of history as a transition within the social body, characteristic of the human experience, offers a new perspective, all internal to the ibero-american philosophy of liberation, and at the same time, allows us to trace new and different sources in ellacuría’s philosophical production. keywords: animal of reality; estado; historicity; history; ignacio ellacuría; liberation philosophy; possibility; reality; social body; xavier zubiri. between 1953 and 1954, xavier zubiri (1898-1954) gave about thirty lectures at the madrid chamber of commerce entitled the problem of man; elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 13 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-sgar mailto:tommaso.sgarro@unifg.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro as his best-known pupil, ignacio ellacuría (1930-1989) pointed out, this was the first attempt by the spanish philosopher to study man in a unitary way. it was from these lectures that ellacuría reconstructed, between 1967 and 1968, an “outline” of the presentation of zubiri’s anthropological problems (also in the light of the work carried out after 1954), that he held as a course between july and august 1968 at the centro de estudios superiores para el desarrollo (cesde) in medellín entitled l’antropologia di xavier zubiri. he published it for the first time in the second volume of the collection of philosophical writings of the jesuit edited by the uca (central american university “josé simeón cañas”) in 1999, ten years after the brutal murder of ellacuría occurred in el san salvador on november 16, 1989 at the hands of the salvadoran armed forces. in an attempt to show some interesting and original aspects of ellacuría’s work, i will try to trace a quick trajectory analyzinges the relationship between life and historicity from the 1968 work to filosofía de la realidad histórica (1990) 1, which represents his philosophical testament. on one hand, the close relationship with zubiri, one of the most important european philosophers of the twentieth century. and his dramatic death contributed to build around ellacuría a halo of myth and interest; on the other hand, this polarization has often forced the interpretation of his thought into a constant oscillation that goes from zubiri’s theories to those of the south american political struggle and liberation theology. these two aspects are preponderant and decisive in his work; however, they often prevented us from seeing the originality of the path that lies primarily, as hector samour wrote, in having considered philosophy not as: “a mere intellectual process or the product of a conceptual dialectic, extrinsic to the very life of the philosopher, but the product of an intelligence vitally and existentially committed to the revelation and realization of truth in the social and historical reality in which it is located” (samour, 2003, p. 20). what i will try to analyze is how ellacuría presents the dynamism life-historicality and its actualization within the social body, with the aim of proposing a timely, partial, reconstruction and a precise historiographic evaluation on one of the aspects that seem to be at the basis of the most original concept elaborated by ellacuría: that of historical reality (brito, 2020). 1 we will take into consideration the 2007 edition present in the edition of ellacuría’s works edited by uca. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 14 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría 1. life as a question about the “living” in the text of 1967-1968 ellacuría starts from the idea of man as a living reality, reviewing the question of life formally understood as a spontaneous or immanent movement as it is presented in zubiri’s anthropology (ellacuría, 1999, p. 303). the qualification of this movement, however, is rather problematic for the latter, since it immediately recalls the hegelian dialectic of history. life, however: “is in the way of producing movement neither spontaneously nor immanently, but […] in a way of being in movement: the way according to which movement affects the living […]” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 303). life is the living in movement, the mode of being of this movement is the mode of being of life itself (vargas, 2009); therefore, it is not a matter, as for hegel, of identifying the origin of movement but its mode: “human substantiality, therefore, even though it is intrinsically mobile and in movement, does not have life because it moves, but its life is in what that movement has intrinsic to substantiality as a source of actions, […] to live is to possess oneself in its substantiality, to move substantially, to be autós in movement” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 304). is not the movement that is autonomous, which is not alive, but who is in possession of the movement, that is, the man. to live is to be in possession of oneself, and this possession for man is the set of vicissitudes that determine his own life as movement. the close interconnection between one thing and the other, therefore, means that man cannot be interpreted as a soul alone (intrinsically substantive), nor as a body alone (intrinsically accidental), but in their union, in a substantiality that is actualized through the category of possibility. this is the reason why: “life does not admit only species; it admits above all and radically degrees: one is more or less alive” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 304); it should therefore be analyzed not under the form of life experience, but as a way of living: life is its making, its happening (pelegrina cetrán, 2002). substantivity is not proper to life but to the living, and in this difference the path of zubiri’s reasoning is built. zubiri, in fact, speaking of the three moments that delineate man’s life nacer, tener un decurso and morir, rejects any substantialist position, because it is not life but man that is; it derives a modal conception that is constructed through the ideas of collocation (locus/colocación) and state (situs/situación). these are two fundamental concepts because they are connected to the structure suscitación-respuesta that characterizes life, not so much and not only as a succession of states, but rather as a tension that leads from one state to another, life as the very dynamic of living: the living being is “between” things, some external and some internal, that keep it in an activity that is not only constant, but primary. by virtue of this elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 15 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro it is in a certain state of equilibrium, not static but dynamic, in a kind of stationary state, as physicists would say; not a stillness but a quiescence. […] in this state it is “between” things. and this “between” has two characters. one of installation: the living being is placed among things, it has its locus determined among them. another modal: the living being thus placed is arranged or situated in a certain way before them, has its situs. the category of situs, which had no role in aristotle’s philosophy, shows its portentous originality and importance in the subject of life. location and situation, locus and situs, taken in their full breadth and not only in a spatial sense, are the two radical concepts at this point. they are not two independent concepts. (zubiri, 1982, p. 46) about the structure suscitación-respuesta proposed by zubiri as the first state of living, ellacuría proposes an interpretation that seems to particularly emphasize the use of the word estado as reinforcing the strongly dynamic character of the process itself. an emphasis that is functional to the jesuit’s reasoning, but which finds its raison d’être in zubiri’s own words already in naturaleza, historia, dios: “things are not in motion because they change, but they change because they are in motion. when the actualization of possibilities is the result of one’s own decision, then there are not only states (estados) of movement, but events. man is an entity that happens, and this happening is called history” (zubiri, 1944, p. 15). the qualification of movement is, therefore, the core of the very reasoning for ellacuría, as is already evident in the text on zubirian anthropology, composed of three writings elaborated for different occasions between 1964 and 1966 (ellacuría, 1999, p. 77), where it is emphasized that suscitación is directly related to estado vital in its relationship with action. not being able to deepen further here the structure of the substantivity of the living in zubiri, these elements are sufficient to understand how it is marked by an internal dynamism, which for man passes from being mere motility of the entity (as in aristotle) to action: this is precisely the point that seems to interest the jesuit most in the connection between living and history. in zubiri himself, moreover, the use of the term estado completes a progressive maturation in its use from naturaleza, historia, dios, passing through sobre la esencia, where it assumes a first and fundamental valence through the qualification of the estado constructo of reality (espinoza, 2000/2001), up to inteligencia y logos: “modern philosophy in general has not taken into account the question of the reality of the state. in my view, it is necessary to redeem it” (zubiri, 2008, p. 465). this redemption is achieved through a new and precise qualification, from the philosophical point of view, of the term: “it is first of all a ‘staying in’ as a way of being, and a ‘staying in’ as a way of ‘staying-in’: it is a ‘being-remaining’. and elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 16 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría this state is therefore a physical and real moment” (zubiri, 2008, p. 465). “staying” therefore has to do with the very materiality of reality, and the dimension of “staying” does not evade man. ellacuría captures the urgency that leads zubiri to re-evaluate the term and that allows us to define life in its substantiality, not only as a succession of states, but rather as that tension that leads from one state to another and that characterizes the historical character of man. the estado is therefore for ellacuría the ontological precondition of situación, and it is this “being” that allows the location of man, to define that dynamism with respect to the surrounding environment, and gives him “intramondanity” constructing the space of the same anthropological question: “the situación is, first of all, the radical condition for there to be things for man, and for things to discover to man their powers and offer him their possibilities” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 241). for zubiri there are three categories that make up situación: status, habitus and situs. what allows the radical condition of the situation is for man the sentient intelligence that actualizes in a singular way the intramundane reality. ellacuría thus retraces the entire arc of zubire’s reflection, insisting, however, particularly on the datum of the dynamic immanence of human “being” in the world: “the situation involves man in a certain state, to the extent that he is affected by things themselves, insofar as they are real. this state is the one with which we have to face new situations. a state that takes us out of the previous state” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 317). this is possible because man plans (proyecta), but starting from what, in what way and with respect to what? not everything depends on man, and in fact man himself does not depend on himself but, materially, is the fruit of a generativity that is substantiated in a genetic transmission, formally, a transmission of “forms of reality”. if, on the one hand, planning has a clear vocation towards the future, on the other hand, it cannot prescind from the past. ellacuría outlines what he defines as “the splendid study” in which zubiri analyzes the profound sense of the radical substantiality of human life, but he also underlines how it does not stop at the mere radical structures of man as a living being; it is necessary to deepen other three inescapable dimensions of his substantiality: the social, the historical and the moral, that is, what man does among things, but above all what man does among other men, that is, what is the peculiarity of human dynamism: action. this highlights the propaedeuticity of the anthropological analysis outlined by ellacuría to the analysis of the “practical” dimension of human life: what emerges is the close link that the jesuit builds between sociality and history (present, but not so markedly in zubiri), because: “each one, by the simple elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 17 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro fact of making his own life, discovers that his situation is created by others. […] while man uses, modifies, etc. other things, what he does primarily with other men is to live together. thus, when referring to people, the word ‘other’ takes on a special character” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 329). it is not at all an intellectual datum that binds to the other and allows him to be grasped, but the fact that man is an animal of reality: “because of the psychophysical structure of his sentient intelligence, constitutively poured out on others” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 330). not only that, that of man more than an attitude towards the other is a habit: it is a physical habit, because it is a reality of habit. the man is therefore physically linked to others, it is therefore given a material definition of the concept of habitus because: “in it a ‘have’, and because it is a power, it exerts a ‘pressure’ on me. the social is not defined by pressure, but by the habitus of otherness. the social is not the presential in itself, but the social is presential because it is social” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 331). thus, the dimension of sociality maintains the same categories as the situación of human reality. ellacuría’s survey of zubiri’s social dimension proceeds in stages but, at the same time, is broad and in-depth, demonstrating the incredible knowledge that the jesuit has of his master’s thought. what is of interest here is to highlight how possibility is the aspect that allows us to link the social dimension to the historical dimension. if sociality defines the dynamics of possibility from the point of view of human planning as planning towards the future, historicity defines its coexistence with the past; here the question of the relationship between history and historicity opens up: “the possession of self, in which man’s life consists, is an appropriation of possibility, which makes man, unlike other beings, a historical reality” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 347). history, as well as nature and life, is not something other than the reality of the living being, but it is a substantive element of its being reality. 2. making history, having history in the oral lectures zubiri gave between 1953 and 1954, speaking of the social reality of man he says: “the social constitutes the definition of otherness as a system of possibilities. and in this sense it must be strictly said that others form for me a social body, has the form of corporeality because they definitively define the system of real and actual possibilities with which i will exist” (zubiri, 1986, pp. 307-308). the basque philosopher clarifies that this body has no substantiality, but the lemma is not particularly explored. it will be during the course estructura dinámica de la realielementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 18 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría dad held between november and december 1968 that zubiri will detail it and relate it to history: we humans find ourselves in a social body that, first and foremost, constitutes our world. this world is constituted by a system of possibilities. possibilities given to man, which man encounters, and this dynamism, the dynamism that is triggered by these possibilities of the social body, is completely different from the dynamism that is triggered by social structures as social structures. precisely, if the latter is the dynamism of communization, the dynamism of the system of possibilities of the social body as such is something completely different: it is precisely history. (zubiri, 1989, p. 260) ellacuría perhaps grasps even more than zubiri himself did in the years between the 50s and 60s the importance that the relationship between history and the social body has for the construction of a non-dialectical philosophy, both in the hegelian sense and in the marxist one; thus he writes in 1968: “only the social body ‘has’ history, even if it does not follow that the social as such is history. the material subject of history is the social, but the formal subject is the social as a body” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 339). thus, the distinction between making history and having history becomes necessary, from whose confusion derives the contrast between: “a conception of history as something purely individual or, on the contrary, as something supra-individual” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 340). the relationship between the two verbs needs to be clarified, since by the fact that only the individual makes history, it has been concluded that history has no other subject than individuals, just as by the supra-individual character of history, it has been concluded that there is a supra-individual subject that makes history. for ellacuría this clarity is possible only by delineating the intercurrent relationship between historicity and history; history is made by the individual man only to the extent that the material profile is made formally historical by the fact that it is incorporated into the defining system of possibilities of the social body; it is not a matter of a mere incorporation (as for hegel) but of a co-possibility of happening. as oscar barroso notes: “if zubiri said that every human being is ‘religious’ to reality, ellacuría would say that – insofar as history is the culmination of the ‘giving’ of the real – man is religious to the history of the real” (barroso, 2004, p. 96). if history is constituted by historical facts, it is nevertheless reality insofar as it bears witness to the present, real insofar as it is continuity with something that precedes it; from a formal point of view then: “it is tradition, that is, reality itself that, as reality, is shaping the present from the past. tradition, in fact, is not experiential in nature, because what is important in it is the very reality of experience and the way in which experience was constituted. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 19 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro […] its constitutive moment” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 340). this making of the human act that becomes history marks the difference between the mere human act and the human act as historical, because not everything that man does belongs to history, but only those dimensions of his doing in which he is incorporated into his social body. there is thus a fundamental difference between human temporality and historicity: the incorporation of an event into the social body, in the form of an increase or decrease in possibilities, is what places the historical fact in that modification, by virtue of which it is no longer so much the doing of certain powers as the realization of certain possibilities, which transform the fact into an event. the incorporation of the doing into the subject that has history, in this consists the event. history is an interweaving of events. (ellacuría, 1999, p. 341) therefore, history must be configured as an interweaving of events that are constructed starting from the historicity of mean in the social body as a realization of possibility. what is subverted is the very sense of the hegelian dialectical movement, since it is not the origin of the dynamic movement between human historicity and the history of the social body that is sought but its “how”. between history and historicity there is no bond of necessity, but a dynamic relationship, of openness, because: “historical time is not composed of past, present and future, but of precession, contemporaneity and succession, which represent the temporary condition in which the social body is left by the incorporation of the real and effective time of human life. it is time converted into social co-possibility” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 342). if man is therefore the “what” of the social body, it is in the “how” of man as historicity that the movement of history must be sought; this movement unfolds not from a necessary or necessitating mechanics, but from the social body as a body open to its possibilities: this is what makes historical time open, as much to the present as to the past and future. it is undeniable that ellacuría focuses everything on the individual-social body relationship in order to avoid any possible fall into a universalization of history, which zubiri himself admits at least under the aspect of the unity of the human species as a monophyletic unity. for this reason, for the jesuit, at least up to the moment he is writing, there has never been a universal history, because all men have never constituted themselves in a single social body, and yet universality had become possible because of the interconnection of social bodies; in any case, that a universal history is possible does not mean that it must be interpreted under the necessitating category of law. history is not an automatic movement, but a march that elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 20 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría must be interpreted from the point of view of the dislocation of the social body, its continuity and the internal modification of the possibilities of the social body itself. it is a matter of rejecting every fatalist perspective (ellacuría, 2009, p. 282) and determinist (ellacuría, 2009, pp. 299-302) within a historical reading of reality, of rejecting historicism in favor of a living historicity, which is action of the individual in the social body. 3. the relationship between the “how” of life-history dynamism and historical reality ellacuría does not reject the dialectical process in an absolute sense, but the idea that it can represent the unity and dynamism of all that is, in its passage from logic to reality: “for ellacuría, negativity is based on the dynamic reality of things and is the result of a judgment and human action on a concrete situation or on a certain processual configuration of historical reality that hinders, prevents or limits the real and effective giving of a reality” (samour, 2003, p. 181). what comes to be rejected, therefore, is a merely dialectical reading of reality, both in the hegelian and marxian sense, as it clearly emerges in a text written between 1974 and 1975. the text is elaborated after ellacuría attended, in january 1974, zubiri’s course tres dimensiones del ser humano: individual, social, histórica, and is propaedeutic to the posthumous work filosofía de la realidad histórica on which the jesuit has been working since 1972; “history – he writes – is not born from the absolute spirit. […] history is born from personal individuals, insofar as they form a social body […] hegel intends the absolutization of history as substantialization; he hypostatizes history. […] hegel and marx differ in the determination of the historical dialectic, but are similar in the substantiation of the process” (ellacuría, 2001, pp. 91-91). history, moreover, as per zubiri: “is not the system of social forms insofar as they are real, but insofar as they are principles of possibility of modes of being in reality. it is then that we have history. the dynamism involved in history is not social dynamism, but the dynamism of possibility” (zubiri, 2006, p. 90). one of the elements that then must be defined is the nature of this dynamism; the impersonal place that is the social body has among its characters the: “processual dynamism. since all reality is structural, all reality is also inherently dynamic, and in the case of material realities this dynamism is processual” (ellacuría, 2007, p. 254). reality in its being a whole of form and matter is absolutely dynamic, the category of estado in reality is always to be considered as a “limiting concept”; this is the case of that elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 21 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro “being” proper to the social body, which is among the objects of sociological analysis: “the social state is a kind of limiting concept of a reality that by its nature must ‘be’, but to whose being one must proceed; and this not only because society includes innumerable dynamic elements that drive the process, but because it itself, as a whole, is dynamic, since it assumes in a larger unity the dynamic components that compose it” (ellacuría, 2007, p. 254). that of the social body, therefore (if we speak in sociological terms, society) is a processual and structural dynamism, which implies its very unity. this is because the social body as a place that “has” history is composed of a somatic part, which has to do with humanity as a species biologically understood, and a formal part that is the dimension of the other. this emphasis on the relationship between historicity and the social body is also due to the different zubian source used by ellacuría to talk about the category of possibility; if in natura, historia, dios in fact, history is the place of the appropriation of possibilities, in the anthropological writings is more marked the active role of man in the construction of possibilities as a moment of opening and, therefore, realization of the historicity-history relationship. the possibility is such only if there is another in whom it is actualized, so that the simple biological life can unfold historically in the social body: “if it is essential for man for his very structure to have a social body in which he lives impersonally, it is no less essential for him to have a social body in which he lives in communion. it is absolutely chimerical, impossible, to find people who in one way or another do not live in personal communion with each other” (zubiri, 2006, p. 59). ellacuría further clarifieszubiri’s thought, “the social body is thus the precise concept of human society, which has its roots in the species and its formal character in the habitus of personal otherness” (ellacuría, 2007 p. 255). what we call society is nothing more than the simplification of this process that takes place in each individual human with his coming to life. it is transmitted genetically, but the ways of being in reality are handed down: it is because there is tradition, that human life does not start from scratch. this is the reason why the problem of the movement of reality has to do not with its origin but with the “how” of the movement itself. human life is such in its becoming by living: “to live is precisely to possess oneself, to truly possess oneself as reality. life as a course is but an argument of life, because in life man possesses himself dynamically and transcurrently, but this course is life only because in it man possesses himself ” (ellacuría, 2007, p. 348). in this regard, the lemma estado within philosophy assumes a relevance greater than that of the same zubirian texts from which it comes: “things, including the living being, modify the vital elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 22 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría state and the living being responds to this modification, thus acquiring a new state” (ellacuría, 2007, p. 317). in the wake of zubiri, the state cannot be considered immobility; on the contrary, it is a reversible and modifiable dynamic equilibrium. this modifiability and reversibility of being that characterizes the living prevents, clearly, to consider the “how” in the dialectical sense, since the latter is always progressive; at the same time, however, it is not about the act-power “dynamism” of aristotle that does not allow any reversibility as zubiri had already pointed out in estructura dinamica de la realidad (zubiri, 1989, p. 49). therefore: “it is true that life has to do with movement – whatever philosophical interpretation one gives to movement – and therefore has to do with time. all bodies in the universe, however, are affected by movement, but there are very different forms of being in movement and very different forms of movement itself ” (ellacuría, 2007, p. 402). there is a material history, affecting the cosmos and genetically affecting human beings, formally due to the poder of matter, an inherent and natural unfolding of an evolutionary nature (zubiri, 1996, p. 447), but then there is human history as an unfolding of possibilities, for which man is an active living reality: “this activity is certainly processual, because the living reality is always ‘passing’ from one state to another, so that the very concept of state is only a limiting concept, since the activity of the living is always in transition and progressing from one state to another” (ellacuría, 2007, p. 316). this vital dynamism is contextualized and “liberated” by unfolding as a historical processuality in the social body characterized in the form of a permanent transition: in each of its moments – one should discuss what is the appropriate temporal measure of the social moment – society remains in a certain state, but the social state is itself a permanent transition from one state to another. […] if we combine, then, the structural and the dynamic character of the social body, we conclude the dynamic-structural character of the social body: the process of society is a structural process. […] what can be said is that the intrinsic dynamism of society is a processual and structural dynamism, which implies the unity of the social body, the totalization of the subsystems in a single structural system, and the processual and totalizing dynamism of this unitary whole that is the social body. (ellacuría, 2007, p. 254) it is a material dynamism but not materialistic (as in marx), vital (zubiri, 1989, p. 150) but not vitalistic (as in bergson), liberating but not finalized (as in hegel). it is the determination of that plan of action that allows the passage from life to historicity, determined primarily by the power of the present: “everyone is a child of his time. the ‘today’ discovers a formal dimension, which constitutes the ‘historical level’. […] the power of the present constitutively implies a version of the past and is a prospective elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 23 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro power, because possibilities are constitutively prospective” (ellacuría, 1999, pp. 344-345). ellacuría’s is not presentism, but the recognition of historicity as the first projectuality of life: “man is not historic because of what he knows, but because of what he is as reality, insofar as he is a sentient intelligence. his historicity does not consist in the relativism of the forms of the logos, but in the character of open essence that gives him, with respect to a social body, his dimension of sentient intelligence, in the course of time. […] settling in a social body, man is more than what he would be as a pure individual. but, because of his historical dimension, he can be different in every situation” (ellacuría, 1999, p. 347). history as betraying transmission according to zubiri’s idea, is realized in its making within the social body, and that making happens now because it is within a dynamic process: “without history, without the historical process, ellacuría argues, not only would man, in the sense of humanity, cease to realize himself, but he would probably even leave his most proper and most splendid aspects without realization or actualization; and the very being of humanity would be truncated” (samour, 2003, p. 81). that intrinsic movement that is life, therefore, is as such because it is dynamism, thus a realization of possibilities that are human creations, but in their concrete situation, in that situation that is given to man in a concrete moment and as such is susceptible to concrete variations that can vary from one moment to another. if the biological movement of human life is linear, birth-death, the course of life is a continuous transition, a constant oscillation. the movement of reality as history can only be thought of as functional, not substantial, and is closely connected to the biography of each individual, as the same intellectual and personal path of the jesuit demonstrate: “ellacuría’s philosophy stems from a personal experience framed in this historical context, and his reflection would not be intelligible without taking it into account” (samour, 2003, p. 211). the very question of the relationship between zubiri’s philosophy and ellacuría’s must be read not under the problem of origin but of the “how”, of a philosophical form, zubiri’s, being transmitted into ellacuría’s: it is not a process of mere transmission of ideas, but of transmission of forms of philosophical reality. in this regard, a final historiographical consideration, in order to better frame what has been reconstructed here, should be made starting with some suggestions from a 2018 essay by ronald carrillo (carrillo, 2018). if héctor samour in voluntad de liberación, a valuable guide to move in ellacuría’s thought, highlighted the jesuit’s dialogue with marx (samour, 2014) and hegel as a determining element to understand his thought, carrillo’s text emphasizes the link of some passages of the jesuit with existentialism, particularly (in some ways unexpectedly) with the elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 24 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría philosophy of the frenchman – considering the readings of heidegger and sartre as secondary funds –. as for sartre, according to ellacuría, the man is a project, and in the case of the jesuit it finds its actualization in historical reality. in this respect, the life-historicity dynamic is propaedeutic to the liberation movement as the very horizon of history (savignano, 2014), not within the universality of history, an idea that still operates in zubiri, but within the individual biography that becomes historicity of the social body, where only freedom can be authentically affirmed. references barroso fernández, ó. (2004). filosofía de la historia y moral en zubiri. claves para la interpretación iberoamericana de su filosofía. revista de filosofía de la universidad de costa rica, 42(105), 87-99. brito, m. (2020). génesis y evolución de la categoría realidad histórica en ignacio ellacuría. revista realidad, 155, 17-46. carrillo, r. (2018). el sentido filosófico de la vida en el pensamiento existencialista. una lectura desde ellacuría. teoría y praxis, 32, 29-44. ellacuría, i. (1999). escritos filosóficos, tomo ii. uca editores san salvador. ellacuría, i. (2001). escritos filosóficos, tomo iii. uca editores san salvador. ellacuría, i. (2007). filosofía de la realidad histórica. uca editores san salvador. ellacuría, i. (2009). cursos universitarios. uca editores san salvador. espinoza lolas, r. (2000/2001). el logos nominal constructo en el pensamiento de zubiri. the xavier zubiri review, 3, 121-132. pelegrina cetrán, h. (2002). experiencia y vivencia (desde la antropología de xavier zubiri) / simple experience and conscious experience. archivos de psiquiatría, 65(4), 265-290. samour, h. (2003). voluntad de liberación. la filosofía de ignacio ellacuría. comares. samour, h. (2014). el diálogo de ellacuría con marx y el marxismo. revista realidad, 140, 157-183. savignano, a. (2014). la filosofía de la liberación. el testimonio de ignacio ellacuría. logos, 47, 321-329. ureta morales, f. j. (2020). la noción de la realidad humana en zubiri. revista guatemalteca de educación superior, 3(1), 97-115. vargas abarzúa, e. (2009). estudio de la vida en zubiri. un breve recorrido desde sus primeros cursos extrauniversitarios hasta inteligencia sentiente. pensamiento, 65(246), 713-735. zubiri, x. (194410). naturaleza, historia, dios. alianza editorial. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 25 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa tommaso sgarro zubiri, x. (1982). siete ensayos de antropología filosófica. universidad santo tomás, centro de enseñanza desescolarizada. zubiri, x. (1986). sobre el hombre. alianza editorial. zubiri, x. (19892). estructura dinámica de la realidad. alianza editorial. zubiri, x. (1996). espacio, tiempo, materia. alianza editorial. zubiri, x. (2006). tres dimensiones del ser humano: individual, social, histórica. alianza editorial. zubiri, x. (2008). sentient intelligence. edited by ó. barroso fernández and p. ponzio. bompiani. riassunto ignacio ellacuría viene brutalmente ucciso il 16 novembre 1989 per mano delle forze armate di el salvador; dieci anni, dopo nel 1999, sarà pubblicato all’interno del secondo volume che raccoglie gli scritti filosofici del gesuita, uno “schema” riassuntivo e di approfondimento dell’antropologia di xavier zubiri, che egli aveva utilizzato per un corso tenuto tra luglio e agosto 1968 al centro de estudios superiores para el desarrollo (cesde) di medellín. lo “schema” raccoglie molte di quelle tesi che, sviluppate in un serrato confronto con il pensiero del grande filosofo spagnolo del quale fu allievo e collaboratore, sono alla base della sua opera più importante, e uscita postuma, “filosofía de la realidad histórica” (1990). la ricostruzione storiografica dei passaggi salienti della ricerca di ellacuría sul rapporto tra storicità e storia nel più ampio contesto antropologico zubiriano, permette di evidenziare alcuni aspetti peculiari del pensiero del gesuita, che non si limita solo ad offrire una nuova e differente linea interpretativa del pensiero di zubiri. la preminenza dell’idea di storia come transizione all’interno del corpo sociale, caratteristica dell’esperienza umana, offre una prospettiva inedita, tutta interna alla filosofia della liberazione ibero americana, e al contempo permette di rintracciare nuove e differenti fonti nella produzione filosofica di ellacuría. copyright (©) 2022 tommaso sgarro editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: sgarro, t. (2022). the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 13-26. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-sgar elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 26 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-sgar https://www.ledonline.it/elementa sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 105 the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment anna daniela savino università degli studi di bari “aldo moro” (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-sava annadaniela.savino@uniba.it abstract what is profoundly under question, especially today, in the aftermath of the pandemic, is on one hand the phenomenon of desire, on the other hand the experience and capability of desiring of the human being. taking a look at the social situation of the country – recalling first the investigation of the 44th censis report 2010, the contents of which in some ways are re-proposed in a naturally volved way in the following one of 2020 –, we are given an image that relaunches our thought owards a need to deepen the ontology of desire and a possible educational pedagogy about it. our society is depicted as “with no inner desire”: a crisis of desire emerges, in the sense of a crisis about the power of having a vision about the future and capacity of planning with excitement. in this paper, recalling kant and his transcendental productive imagination as well as the new path of affective neurosciences perspective, going through the theory of attachment, i aim at opening a possible way to overcome this impossibility to desire arguing a different hermeneutics in comparison to what the tradition, especially that of j. lacan, left us about this important and vital faculty of the human being. keywords: affective neurosciences; attachment; desire; faculty of desiring; productive immagination. 1. the “desireless society” and the “irrational” society before even thinking about the construct or concept of desire, what is profoundly under question, especially today, in the aftermath of the panelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-sava mailto:annadaniela.savino@uniba.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 106 demic, is on one hand the phenomenon, on the other hand the experience and capability of desiring of the human being. taking a look at the social situation of the country – recalling first the investigation of the 44th censis report of 2010, the contents of which in some ways are re-proposed in a naturally “evolved” way in the following one of 2020 –, we are given an image that relaunches our thought towards a need to deepen the ontology of desire (censis, 2010). our society, in italy, is depicted as “with no inner desire”: a crisis of desire emerges in this relationship, in the sense of a society deprived of the capacity of planning. in 2010, the social situation of the country was reported as “flat”, without “thickness and vigor adequate to the challenges we have to face”; a society in which “we are no longer able to identify a basic device – central or peripheral, moral or legal – which regulates behaviors, attitudes, values” and which “even flattens all the subjects present in it, in particular their subjective capacity and vigor” (ibid., p. xiii). the iard report shows a sort of weakness within the intentionality of young people as one of the most evident trait of the “waning of desire” and along with it, the crisis of the idea of vocation in the liquid society: “[…] they perceive themselves first of all immersed in the present. almost as if it were the only ecstasy of time and according to a conscientious modality that we would define as punctual” (bellingreri, 2014, pp. 16-18). fear, distrust in the future and a sort of a distance of oneself from the past are “specters” that in some way have caused young people to “proceed by expedients, surviving with a sort of navigation by sight” (buzzi, cavalli, & de lillo, 2002). in the 2020 youth report of the toniolo institute we read: “young people need solid references, even more when everything around is uncertain and changes rapidly” and in fact the only stable reference is the original family “which however combined with the weakness of all the rest, tends to accentuate social inequalities, even more exacerbated by the impact of covid-19” (istituto giuseppe toniolo, 2020, p. 7). so, another hermeneutic instance accompanies the others: it is that of contradiction which, naturally, gives rise to the disorientation of our times. the youngsters seem to be deprived of tension, of planning, of creativity, of orientation and therefore of desire. but we find something special in reading the same reports on the country’s social situation: conversely, 10 years later, in the 55th censis report, our society is portrayed as “irrational”: it seems, in fact, that the “rational reality”, symbolically embodied but also physically embodied, by adults such as politicians, teachers, caregivers, has somehow betrayed, in italy, the expectations of young people and families, disappointing promises and expectations; “this depends on the fact that we have entered a new elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 107 cycle, that of diminishing returns on social investments. and this determines a vicious circle: low economic growth, reduced returns in terms of tax revenue, therefore the triggering of the spiral of public debt, widespread social dissatisfaction, therefore the rejection of the rational paradigm” (censis, 2021). lacan writes: “[…] we must distinguish the function of the question from desire” and again “its problematic nature is precisely the role played by the question” (lacan, 2016, p. 98). the “what do you want?” it is a question – continues the author – which actually answers (ibid.). desire therefore has something to do with demand and question. and we know that the question has to do with meaning. with reason. the design creativity that makes up desire, which is lacking in the society of 2010, is anything but irrational. it has a reason, rather it is endowed with meaning, orientation and form – as erik fromm (2020) affirms in his essay on creativity. therefore, an abandoned society, “deprived” of desire, lacks planning, vision, creativity, commitment to act, and as it has been said, becomes and evolves in an irrational sense. looking at desire from a univocal point of view, while maintaining a certain contradiction or paradoxicality, or even mystery, perhaps does not give back us this important phenomenon of the human nature in all its breadth and depth, which rather reveals a strong link with planning, vision, creativity, theoretical-moral tension, energy and orientation. 2. ontology of desire: from unconscious phenomenon to transcendental faculty there is also a “multiverse” of the psychological tradition that deals with desire: it seems to be composed of various studies that essentially focus on the concept of “motivation”, distinct and in some ways included, with that of “need”. these constructs, in the light of the reflections that we will carry on here, could be “absorbed” in a certain sense by the broader and deeper concept, phenomenon and experience of desire itself. indeed, j. lichtenberg, f. lachman and j. fosshage, among others, write: what is a motivation? […] understood as an instinctual drive […] involves a complex intersubjective process from which affections, intentions and objectives emerge making a dense discussion that suggests precisely that desire is in some way “capable” of encompassing these aspects within itself, while distinguishing them in the different characters. (lichtenberg, lachmann, & fosshage, 2012) elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 108 nonetheless, it seems to be a common experience to find oneself with a desire that, in fact, seems to surpass one’s own will, just as the phenomenology of erotica shows in the reception of classical greek philosophy and poetry. renaud barbaras, a french phenomenologist, brings the experience of desire back to that of a “passivity” of the human being: […] on the contrary, it is constituted as a priori of passivity and as a condition of the transcendence of the world. the world strikes us beyond desire and necessarily delimits its movement […]. (barbaras, 1999) every desire shows up on the scene of “my world” and, therefore, characterized by this first contradiction, it defines human being’s identity and at the same time transcends and limits it; equally contradictory is the origin of its nativity: every new life, every new creature that emerges into the world, certainly carries within itself “the ability” to desire, as an assigned heritage, a kind of innate gift but it is mainly configured as a “passivity”, a capacity “in its potentiality” that can, in some way, be actualized only thanks to an action or initiative. this action first comes from the other, from outside of the self, as if it were an inheritance received from the other (negro, 2012, p. 507). there is no doubt, however, that the most representative author with regard to the studies on desire, understood as an unconscious phenomenon, was, as said, j. lacan: ambivalent, marked by contradiction, paradoxical, the tradition of psychoanalysis, mainly lacanian and freudian one, offers an image of desire as belonging to the realm of the unconscious, the irrational. lacan, precisely highlighting a dialectic that brings with it divisive traits, states: “[…] from what do we defend ourselves if not from our own desire?” (lacan, 2016, p. 16). still on the paradoxicality of the phenomenon m. recalcati proposes a sort of overview of desire by tracing its portraits and affirms that it is “the most proper” of the subject; but at the same time we are not the master of our own desire: “the experience of desire is never an experience of mastery […]: it is not ‘i’ who desires but it is the desire that desires beyond myself ” (recalcati, 2018, p. 36). it has to do with the other, it comes from elsewhere but at the same time it seeks appropriation, it is transcendent and immanent, it is the most “mine”and at the same time it surpasses me. while defining my essence, at the same time it is “a lack of essence”. another characteristic of lacan: “desire is a metonym even if the human being makes fun of it” (lacan, 2016, p. 16). however, agreeing with the thought of the authors mentioned, i want to argue about a fundamental assumption, regarding the correlation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 109 between “desire” and “division of the subject”: it would seem, in fact, that one’s experience of identity vanishes, giving way to another identity precisely when one’s own desire “emerges”. that is, despite being born in the context of an identity, desire, in its coming to light, would bring about a “loss” of identity, from the same identity that has generated it: desire, despite being an “experience of an otherness […] always carries with it a share of a loss of identity, a disidentity, a non-coincidence […] a division of the subject” (recalcati, 2018). desire would have a force of disintegration, it would cast identity, rather than a self-strengthening by virtue of self-awareness; in a dissociation or division, in fact, it would be “the experience of a sliding, of a stumble, of a slip, of a loss of mastery, of a fall of the self ” (ibid.). what, then, is desire, in its many forms, between the unconscious and awareness, one might ask. is it possible to trace an outline in order to be able to clarify its structure and function for human life, overcoming or deepening its contradictions? however, lacan (2016) writes: “[…] we must distinguish the function of the question from desire” and again “its problematic nature is precisely the role played by the question”. the “what do you want?” it is a question – the author continues – and every question actually answers. desire therefore has to do with demand, meaning, reason. it is worth investigating its ontological structure and seeing if it is not possible to move from the study of the phenomenon of desire to that of the “faculty” of desiring: this passage would allow us to think of a pedagogical action aimed at the development of desiring understood as a faculty/ability, as the cognitive and non-cognitive skills. it is in the anti-oedipus that we find a suggestion. deleuze and guattari refer to the critical revolution: they affirm that there is a sort of specific machine that stages desire, this machine is only theatrical […] while desire appears as what produces the phantasm, doubling the lack, making it an incurable insufficiency of being. hence the presentation of desire as supported by needs (propping theory). (deleuze & guattari, 2002, p. 28) the main ontological character of desire, in this vision, is an “acting” essence: desire stages another reality, it is therefore in some way “productive”. the authors affirm: “we must say thanks to kant since he brought about a critical revolution with regard to desire” (ibid., p. 27); in the critique of judgment kant states that desiring is “the faculty of being through elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 110 one’s own representations, the cause of the reality of objects in such representations” (kant, 2019, p. 28). in the kantian sense, then, desiring is that “faculty of being” capable of producing representations of objects whose reality is given by its own representative activity: that is, the reality of the objects, of the contents of the representation is not “real” but, in some way, “staging”, built from the representation itself (ibid.). the concept of representation now becomes central to the analysis of desiring. lacan himself in one of his seminars on desire refers to a particular experiment which clarifies the power of representation as a human faculty: the psychologists of that school which was called the school of marburg […] conducted with great perseverance all sorts of experiments on a kind of insights they called thinking without images. it was about thinking without images. (lacan, 2016, p. 128) a representation (vorstellung) on one hand, understood in kantian terms, constitutes the function of the intellect in general and appears to be not only the product of the productive imagination but also, in some way, the function of the intellect; on the other hand it combines intellect and sense. therefore, desiring could have to do with both of these functions, sense and intellect. on one hand, then, imagination is a necessary ingredient for the composition of knowledge as it is involved in the perception of reality; on the other hand, it is not limited to “reproduction” alluding instead to one of his production works. in addition, the imagination has, in some way, a capacity of “synthesis”. imagination is therefore productive, it belongs to the faculties linked to perception, it cooperates with knowledge in a creative sense and it is synthetic. the productive imagination, then, while it operates a cognitive synthesis between the multiplicity of sensitive data and the intellect, on the other hand it creates new ideal contents, not limiting itself to a bare reproduction, producing as well a sort of “effect” on the soul. this “effect” is precisely the key point of this study: this “effect on the soul” could be seen as the trace of a synthetic connection that the imagination produces between a faculty of a gnoseological order, of a cognitive type and a faculty of an emotional order (kant, 2019). a theory of desire could therefore be based on a triple paradigm: • “critical thinking”, linked to the productive imagination which culminates in a discernment, on one hand; • “feeling”, as an effect on the soul and sensation of this effect, on the other hand, this sensation could be interpreted as a feeling an emotion, a sort of an emotional “charge” recalled by the representation, as new content elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 111 linked to the dynamics or the game – to use a kantian expression –, between the two faculties that operate in the desire, intellect and sense; • “relationality”, since desire is driven by relationality, coming from the other and directed towards the other. 3. the gift of desire from the neuroscientific perspective the affective neurosciences offer relevant support to this hypothesis by framing desire in the structure of the fundamental emotional systems. we owe to jaak panksepp a first complete vision of the fundamental emotional systems understood as “primary affective processes” which have an original archetypal and primary influence on the “faculties of our mind” (panksepp & biven, 2020). the basic emotional system which offers a new vision and in some ways seems to justify the setting of the “transcendental nature” – that we have argued for in the usage of the productive imagination as a structural key element of desiring –, is called by panksepp, precisely, “seeking system”, “system of searching” or “system of desire” (ibid., p. 93): “seeking” is the english expression used to designate this system and actually in its semantics is possible to grasp the “movement” of the system itself, in a meaningful way: referring to the exploration typical of behavior of secure attachment mentioned by bowlby and ainsworth in the strange situation in relation to the famous attachment theory (bowlby, 1976) it renders the sense of projection into the future and recovery of the past. in the middle of the last century, the seeking system was practically unknown and behaviorists – such as skinner –, were interested in studying the “sense of reward” that some experiences gave, by mainly observing and concentrating – in laboratory experiments on rats –, on the associations of this reward with the restoration of homeostasis. sensory and homeostatic gratifications seemed to be, for researchers and for the twentieth century, the same “engine” of desire so as to hypothesize a name for the system identified as “expectation”: “food, water, heat, the sexual act, and so on, were considered gratifying experiences as they restored homeostasis to the body (a key idea for drive-reduction theorists)” (ibid.). but, in this paradigm the search for food, water or heat could be explained without recourse to affective or emotional states, so much so that skinner came to believe that it was a gratifying experience in itself, self-conclusive, understood as aimed only at the “reduction of drives”. however, the scholars noted and believed that, in relation to the learning of the behaviors that “lead” to obtain those rewards – i.e. the sensorial properties of the rewards such as elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 112 quality, quantity or even the delay of the rewards – the so called “incentive properties” “were much more important in controlling the learning than changes in homeostatic states of the body” (ibid., p. 90). this observation was of greatest importance because behaviorists understood that the better the “quality” of the reward was, the faster the tested animals would “learn” that behavior leading to the reward; hence, the deduction for which “the reduction of drives” as the only source of gratification that would have justified the “research”, by itself, was not effective. panksepp, starting from the 1990s onwards, came to elaborate, interested as a neuroscientist in brain functions rather than behaviors, the seeking/research or desire system. located “in neuronal circuits originating from lower regions of the brain, including the ventral segmental area vta and the lateral hypothalamus” (panksepp & biven, 2020, p. 94) the system (from now on called mfb-lh) “generates an energetic exploration and search” along with the accompanying affects described as “euphoric excitement” rather than the simple feeling of reward or pleasure behaviorists had spoken about. furthermore, involving the cognitive level, the feeling is that of “anticipatory longing” which is charged with a “sense of waiting”, simultaneously generating “expectations” (ibid., p. 90). taking up kant’s transcendental analysis and grafting it into the neuroscientific discourse, we could say that, precisely at this point, in the encounter between the emotional level and the cognitive level, the productive imagination can be activated, charged with images and anticipatory figures on one hand and on the other hand with noetic contents, in the form of critical thoughts and choices, that could generate that “internal state” of “euphoric excitement”. these considerations lead panksepp to affirm a fundamental assumption: “the mfb-lh system is more activated when people are in a state of homeostatic need and there are opportunities to find good sensations in the environment” (ibid., p. 91). therefore, for the system of desire to be “activated”, and so to begin to desire, we would say, it seems that two elements are needed: on one hand a state of need, even in the homeostatic regard, and on the other hand the “opportunity to find good sensations in the environment”. it seems that what we can learn from the contribution of the study of neurosciences is that is necessary for the raise of desire to be in a “state of need”, so to “lack” of something, on one side; at the same time, on the other side, it is needed, as a counterbalance to “negative sign”, so to speak, a state of “positive sign”, that is a positive hypothesis of “finding” what one is looking for and feels the need of. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 113 “the conclusion”, panksepp succinctly states, “is inevitable. cognitively, the mfb-lh offers affective gratification in the form of a general euphoric state of anticipation, initially even without having any particular goal in mind […]. accordingly, people also feel more interested in the world and in making plans for the future clearly when they are in a state of considerable expectation” (ibid.). 4. a propaedeutic for desire through the attachment theory: a possible pedagogical hermeneutic for the contemporary age in the light of the reflections carried out so far, let us try to think about a possible reflective path for men and women of our age who want to regain, in some way, the “gift” of their own desire. the “first movement” of transformation can therefore only turn to the interiority: it is the “inner space” that must be questioned, encountered and regained. inner space, dialectics and hermeneutics can be the general traits and vectors of a path of metacognition on authentic desire and the authentic ability to desire that intertwine with the sense of good and vocation, with particular regards to for the teachers of our time. so far, it has been defined that desire/desiring could be understood starting from its structure as within the faculty of reason and characterized as transcendental, as a thought “charged” with emotion, as discernment and as founded on the capacity of representation, by virtue of the productive imagination; it therefore stands as “creative” since it is capable of producing new ideal contents; it is relational, since it is capable of relating, in accordance with several faculties simultaneously; this dynamic also seems to be potential precisely by virtue of its dependence on the capacity of representation. representation now is the key element to come to a deeper understanding of the nature of desire: in fact, seen as a faculty – the ability to produce representations – it could be developed at different degrees or even not, depending on the attachment relationship. j. bowlby (1976) in the famous attachment theory speaks about the internal working models – iwm –, meaning with these mental structures capable of creating representations of the self and the other. iwm are capable of providing the growing child with an orientation map precisely towards the self and towards the other. mary ainsworth’s research around bowlbian’s theory of attachment and the strange situation brought further clarity to the definition of the nature and structure of iwm: it was believed that their structure was such as to allow children “to adapt to elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 114 changes in the environmental context expanding the behavioral repertoire at their disposal” (bowlby, 1988, p. 68) and emphasizing their dynamism highlighting “the intrinsically relational character of the processes that are the basis of behavior. the term model in fact indicates that the structure of representation is relational and that it originates from the relationship with the real world, while the working term underlines the dynamic quality of the models” (ortu, pazzaglia, & williams, 2013, p. 68). what is clear, therefore, is that on the basis of and starting from the early dyadic relationship, from the “interactive dance” of mother and child, and on the basis of the responsiveness and sensitivity of the mother to the emotional needs of the child, models are built: they are such structures and representations in which to understand, precisely as referring to a conceptual paradigm, the self, the external world and the others; they also help the individual to predict and understand his/her environment, promoting behaviors that ensure survival, such as “maintaining closeness to another clearly identified person, deemed capable of coping with the world adequately” (ibid.) and they establish a sense of security for the individual. in fact: once constructed, mental representations of oneself in relation to others tend to be relatively stable over time, thus allowing predictions about future evolution to be made, and to self-perpetuate, since each person is inclined to recreate congruent with its own relational history. (ibid., p. 61) i.e. each model acts as a filter for future relational experiences and will unknowingly select to experience only those relationships which will confirm the conceptual paradigm of reference in which the same models were formed, hence the character of self-perpetuation. intimately linked to mental representations, it can be said that the models create “the internal onto-gnoseological-ethical and emotional environment” of reference for the subject, within which to understand a total vision of the world, of the self and the other, a general weltanshaaung. we could therefore deem that it could be useful to plan a project at the service of contemporary humankind in this sense: educating to “desire” in the sense of being able in a meta-cognitive sense to appropriate the knowledge and functioning of one’s own desire: a wonderful “transcendental synthesis” and interdependent link between cognitive level – in the forms of higher cognitive functions related to discernment and decision-making –, as well as learning, an emotional-affective and ethical-relational level, making desiring a mittelstellung: a “bridge” faculty among others, capable of being an orientation tool of great power for human beings. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 115 such a path on the knowledge, on the function and on the “selfconscious-aware-deliberate” use of the faculty of desire could therefore be placed as a “propaedeutic” to the contemporary teacher training and also as a support for parenting: a deepening of this “middle faculty” between critical thinking, imagination and emotional-affective capacity, suggests that it can constitute a valid metacognitive and operational tool, also functional to re-understand the ultimate goal of all educational activity, to be framed as always “in situation”. we would understand this propaedeutic in the context of a multifactorial preparation: while kant introduces us into a hypothesis of interpretation of desire that is complementary to that of psychoanalysis, especially the lacanian one, referring to the importance of the faculty of the productive imagination which constitutes a pillar of the architecture of desire by founding its representative capacity, bowlby’s contribution on the transmission of iwm, brings the educational relationship back as the focus of our discourse, as a vehicle of representations and research/desire. both of these contents suggests, through the precious contribution of the findings of affective neuroscience, that a pedagogy of desire could, with its elements, constitute a possible hypothesis to guide the disorientation and irrationality widespread in our time. 5. desire as a regaining of the “fundamental evidences” luigi giussani identifies a basic matter with regard to the various educational emergencies of the whole of human existence: the primary needs of reason (borghesi, 2015, p. 45). what he means with it is that these needs is a complex of needs which could be understood also as existential desire which moves all the other particular desires; this complex is also defined as “criteria of judgement”: in fact, it is through these criteria that one’s own experience is evaluated, under all aspects. according to the author, there is a specific dynamics that occurs within the reason: through a comparison of the complex of needs with the specific reality that impacts with one’s own reason – which call for a sense of fullness, totality and satisfaction – the human being could carry out a sort of asceticism towards his own liberation; he writes: normally, in fact, everything is faced according to a common mentality: supported, propagated by those in society who hold power. (ibid.) what happens is that the tradition that permeates the context in which we grow up – the whole of society –, but above all starting from the bond of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 116 attachment relationship, when it is characterized as “abusive”, do nothing but embody a sort of power and settle over our original needs and constitute a sort of a great incrustation which alters the evidence of those first meanings. therefore, if one wants to contradict or critically judge by virtue of an uneasiness one feels, one has to face a difficult task since she/he finds himself having to challenge public opinion. (borghesi, 2015, p. 44) it is paradoxical to think, as we have seen, that precisely those formative places essential to human life – the family, communities, religious communities, schools – can, contrary to the authentic nature of which they are made for and for which they were born, contradicting the intrinsic value that they have, run the risk of implementing an “alienating” type of education instead of a generative and restorative one for human flourishing, manipulating and altering identities and desires. the boldest challenge to that mentality that dominates us […] is precisely that of making our judgment of everything habitual in the light of our primary needs/evidence and not at the mercy of the most occasional reactions. (ibid., p. 14) this is how the warning sounds, the existential fascinating solicitation of the author, who carries on saying: it is always necessary to pierce these images induced by the cultural climate in which one is immersed, to get down to picking up one’s own needs and original evidence and on the basis of these judge and evaluate every proposal, every existential suggestion. (ibid., p. 54) and it is precisely on the basis of this solicitation, on the comparison of everything with elementary-primary needs or evidences, on their “practice”, that one can “realize” if an alienation is in the place; the alienating work, as we said, which every type of parent, caregiver, teacher or community, society can realize is done when they bring into play a relationship of power: this “abusive” relationship can induce images, thoughts and therefore desires on the man and woman, the child, the student, the faithful, precisely at the level of representations of the self/other/world. in fact, in an experiential way, existential desire does not arise as a construct of a judging rational a priori, precisely because of its emotional-affective relational nature, configured as a criterion of judgment, endowed with the characteristics of an internal working model, coincides with “that radical commitment of our ego with life, which is documented in these questions”; thus embracing the emotional-affective and ethical level, exactly by virtue of the modality in which it is formed, it takes shape in the affective relationship. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 117 by the word and concept of “heart” we mean an interior place of a “polarity” between ratio and affectus: it is a space in which this convergence, always required, is declined in a tension between a converging polarity of feeling, drive, emotional aspects and reason, cognitive-rational aspects with a non-diverging or cartesian tension, as documented by the affective neurosciences that moves in a systemic and integrated perspective of the different spheres of the human being. the heart is the beginning. the beginning of the spirit. according to its nature of first “spark”. therefore, the complex of needs, the existential desire cannot be resolved in the reason, nor in the drive. the author mentioned talks about a “tension” between this polarity of desire as based in the ratio-affectus, but we do not even think this is about a tension, as we want to interpret it – by the virtue of all different authors we refer to – within an holistic approach. it is affirmed, in fact, that the heart in the ratio finds its exemplary expression, not resolving itself into reason: the “criterion of judgment” is always about and made of an affective knowledge, in which the emotionalaffective element originates from the cognitive ability. in fact, in the division of the two human matrixes, synthetically speaking the cognitive and emotional one, or in their paradoxical usage which has been spoken of, lies the seed of alienation. indeed, l. giussani stated: why call it heart instead of reason? because the heart is the place of affectus, but affectus is not antithetical to reason, it is the ultimate aspect of reason, of reasonable dynamics. (borghesi, 2015, p. 55) in conclusion, one could almost say that when facing the reality, a specific situation, always a desire comes up, and if one uses the desiring as the “middle faculty”, as we have defined it, one can truly judge one’s own existence with authenticity. it’s about a feeling in the first place, then a judgement that helps to identify the situation and what a person aims at, giving clarity to one’s life path. existential desire, the desiring ability or faculty, which takes the form of the ability to feel and judge, as a deeply “affective judgment criterion” based on primary needs or evidences – that primarily consist of raw emotions – “arises from the tension between the vires appetitive (instinctive) and ratio control” (ibid., p. 57). the final point, therefore, intended as a “nerve”, since it is exposed to the risk of alienation, on which we intend to offer a dialectical contribution to what giussani argued is exactly this: in the light of the reflections made, above all, of the origin of the faculty of desire so intertwined between emoelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 118 tional and cognitive systems, in order to be able to use the desire seen as a “system of evidences” it is necessary to clarify the nature of this system of evidence. intending desire as a system of evidences allows us to identify it as originator of identity, that can make humankind truly free since it offers that criterion of judgment which restores woman and man to her/his authenticity. “the religious sense is an infinite desire for truth, i.e. reason, and for happiness, i.e. freedom. reason and freedom are the form of a desire that is not anarchic but inclined towards a satisfaction that exceeds its measure. it is the natural impetus that moves reason and will towards the end to which, consciously or not, they aim” (giussani, 2000, p. 83): by virtue of the intimate connection of the ontological-structural aspects that seem to unite desire and the religious sense, which we have plumbed through all the reflections made in this paper, we could transfer what in these analyzes emerges as referring to the religious sense to desire – existential desire –, emphasizing its value as a fundamental experience for the existence of the human being, free from its particular expressions: we are therefore referring to desire, understood in its synthesis as the value of the spirit, at the bottom of the soul, using an expression dear to guardini (1976). going further: what is this vis capable of ? it takes the form of a question and its inclination, its vis, its ability is the question itself. indeed the “complex” of questions; at the same time, existential desire is also the criterion of judgment for the search for the answer, namely: in the verification of this correspondence between the self/subject and the original notion of experience lies at the center of giussani’s reflection. for it, a position is all the more reasonable the more it corresponds – conforms – to the inner imprint that lies at the root of the self. (borghesi, 2015, p. 57) this correspondence, therefore, is generated by the coincidence of the existential desire with what the subject impacts on: that complex of needs that make up the existential desire is simultaneously a question, it has been said, but also a criterion of judgment, a point of comparison with which to judge whether what you come across corresponds to the primary needs themselves. it is interesting to note the correspondence of these reflections with the movement of the child who observes his parent in his relationship and naturally “judges” him/her: the child is endowed with that complex of needs, which correspond to his existential desire, which is simultaneously developed starting from the early relationship with his/her parent-caregiver and depends on it – as seen – but at the same time it is the criterion that the child him/herself uses to protect him/herself ! (even by the parent-caregiver, developing a series of defensive cognitive-emotional-behavioral strategies!). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 119 6. conclusions this pedagogy is intended to be framed within the context of teacher education as well as parenthood support, which certainly require a “multifactorial” education: while kant introduces us to a hypothesis of interpretation of desire complementary to that of psychoanalysis, especially the lacanian one, referring to the importance of the faculty of productive imagination which constitutes a pillar of a sort of architecture of desire by founding its representative capacity; while bowlby’s contribution on the transmission of iwm, brings the educational relationship back to the “centre” as a vehicle of representations and of “feeling” the search or desire; both of these knowledges suggest us, through the precious contribution of affective neuroscience, that a pedagogy of desire could, with its elements, constitute a possible solution to the disorientation we experiment in our time. consequently, such knowledge and competence that could embrace the emotional-relational skills of the teacher and parent should not be missing in a path of preparation for the contemporary teaching profession and parenting. in the same way, the parent or caregiver, increasingly “struggling” in their educational task that characterizes these roles by nature, could benefit from a path of this type in the commitment of care the children. men and women, the parent and the caregiver, the educator and the teacher, responding to the educational emergency of the search for reference points, stability and certainty, in this propaedeutic, focusing, first of all for themselves, their own faculty of desiring, could in turn intercept the opaque points of the children/pupils/teens in this faculty which is so fundamental and driving for all the others, of a cognitive and non-cognitive type – as mentioned in this paper –, when the youngsters seem to be demotivated, disinterested, distracted, ethically empty or disrespectful. this is the sense of such a pedagogy: offering the tools – the system of evidences – to verifying the “goodness” of one’s own desires expressed and communicated, in a guided dialogue by the adult, oriented towards the good and well-being of all family members or school students, from a systemic-relational perspective. on a closer view, we truly believe that this “practice” of the pedagogy of desire in the family and school, conceived in this way – as a path of knowledge –, could also turn out to be a valid tool for the rebuilding of the intra-family/classroom relationships at the same time when they are dis-functional hindering the same well being of all members of a community. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa anna daniela savino 120 references barbaras, r. 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(2002). l’antiedipo. torino: einaudi. fromm, e., may, r., rogers, c. r., maslow, a. h., & mead, m. (2020). la creatività. a cura di d. simeone. brescia: morcelliana scholé. giussani, l. (2000). l’autocoscienza del cosmo. milano: rizzoli. guardini, r. (1976). la coscienza, il bene, il raccoglimento. brescia: morcelliana. istituto giuseppe toniolo (2020). la condizione giovanile in italia, rapporto giovani 2020. bologna: il mulino. kant, i. (2019). critica della ragion pura. roma bari: laterza. lacan, j. (2016). il seminario, libro vi: il desiderio e la sua interpretazione, 19581959. a cura di a. di ciaccia. torino: einaudi. lichtenberg, j., lachmann, f., & fosshage, j. (2012). psychoamalysis and motivational systems: a new look. new york: routledge taylor and francis group (trad. it. i sistemi motivazionali. bologna: il mulino). moè, a. (2020). la motivazione. teorie e processi. bologna: il mulino. negro, m. (2012). percezione e desiderio. rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica, 2/3, 507-516. ortu, f., pazzaglia, c., & williams, r. (2013). la psicologia contemporanea e la teoria dell’attaccamento. roma: carocci. panksepp, j., & biven, l. (2020). archeologia della mente. origini neuroevolutive della mente. milano: raffaello cortina editore. recalcati, m. (2018). ritratti del desiderio. milano: raffaello cortina editore. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment 121 riassunto ciò che è profondamente in discussione, soprattutto oggi, all’indomani della pandemia, è da un lato il fenomeno del desiderio, dall’altro l’esperienza e la capacità di desiderare dell’essere umano. dando uno sguardo alla situazione sociale del paese – richiamando innanzitutto l’indagine del 44° rapporto censis 2010, i cui contenuti per certi versi vengono riproposti in modo naturalmente evoluto in quello successivo del 2020 –, ci viene data un’immagine che rilancia il nostro pensiero verso una necessità di approfondire l’ontologia del desiderio ed elaborarne una possibile pedagogia educativa. la nostra società viene dipinta come “senza desiderio”: emerge una crisi del desiderio, nel senso di una crisi della capacità di visione del futuro e di una capacità di progettare con entusiasmo. in questo contributo, richiamando kant e la sua immaginazione produttiva trascendentale nonché la prospettiva delle recenti ricerche delle neuroscienze affettive, passando attraverso la teoria dell’attaccamento, in questo studio propongo una possibile via per superare questa impossibilità di desiderare sostenendo un’ermeneutica diversa rispetto a quella che la tradizione, soprattutto lacaniana, ci ha lasciato riguardo a questa importante e vitale facoltà dell’essere umano. copyright (©) 2023 anna daniela savino editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: savino, a. d. (2023). the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 105-121. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102sava elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-sava https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-sava https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being francesca finestrone learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-fine francesca.finestrone@unifg.it abstract this contribution aims to offer food for thought on the ancestral role of music for mankind, considering its potential, transversal to different areas of interest, including psycho-pedagogical, clinical and didactic, as a heterogeneous expression of cultures, communities and characters. in spite of the fact that music education is compulsory in secondary schools, not in all contexts the activities are structured and carried out taking into account the positive implications on pupils’ psycho-physical well-being, rehabilitative potential and increased motivation to learn. just as the possibilities for dynamics and time in music are manifold, so too is the horizon of options that looms over the sky of educational action, intersecting also with the world of technology, which puts innovative tools such as serious games at the service of education. keywords: gamification; inclusion; music and learning; serious game; well-being. 1. introduction since ancient times, music has played a significant role in the life of man, sometimes assuming a cathartic and thaumaturgical value, others a more deceptive and feral one. it is equally true that in the greece of socrates and plato the dialogue on music has become denser and more articulated and we recognize precisely in the works of the latter the formative value of music in the education of young people, a value that goes beyond mere aesthetics and transcends ethics, which orients to the καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθός. the art of the muses dear to poets and cicadas (plato, phaedrus, 259) is understood as an art capable of promoting education, culture, training elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 85 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-fine mailto:francesca.finestrone@unifg.it francesca finestrone and that favors the composition of the καλόι λόγοι, in a context of harmony of thought and form; in fact, often a speech was considered well orchestrated in the presence of rhythm, agreement between the parties, dynamics and blooms. at a time when knowledge is entrusted to oral tradition and music becomes the depository of memory, the music-word-memory synod appears very evident: the same aedi, artisans of the word, accompanied the verses with the sound of the zither, which marked the prosody of poetic texts and it was the task of the singer to remember the founding works of a civilization, covering not only an amateur role, but also a political and social one. the story was always supported and punctuated by chords and melodies, evoking the past, emotionally involving the listener, an involvement linked to the sense of identity and community. quoting a thought of the master ezio bosso “music, like life, can only be done in one way: together”, it is appropriate to underline how one of the main functions of music is collective and communitarian: that of bringing individuals together by establishing a bond between them. if to live music as a social activity we used ἀγορά (from ἀγείρω = gathering, gathering) or θέατρον (from θεάομαι = i observe, i look), today this is no longer configured in the same way and the mass media, as well as social media, in the illusory perception of sharing, actually trap us in a substitute for the community, which is the network and the ever-increasing individualism is fluidly alienating us from a social fabric, (unconsciously) hungry for sociality. 2. a question of rhythm anthony storr, in his book music and the mind emphasizes precisely the community value of music and how among the participants in the same musical event a sort of “neurogamy” is established and this link is sanctioned precisely by the rhythm, which makes listening an active and motor process and produces in the participants a sense of collectivity and shared emotionality, it creates a sense of belonging, induces prosocial behavior, and strengthens cohesion. ensemble music is born precisely from the need to participate in the community. in addition, recent research shows that the text is remembered more easily and for a long time, if accompanied by music, this is because the brain areas responsible for music are adjacent and different from those of language, but the modular paths follow similar and partly communicating elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 86 music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being ways and the right temporal upper lobe, implicated in memory, operates an important music-language association. therefore, what was automatically implemented and sine studio, today finds a scientific and empirical explanation, teaching children nursery rhymes set in a defined rhythm or administering songs considered pleasant by them, in order to favor the memorization and internalization of new words. and if these activities are carried out in groups, with others, the development of social skills will also be positively invested. the usefulness of music in storing large amounts of information and in being able to draw memories from our brain (es. singing the nursery rhyme of the months to remind us how many days one of them is composed of ), especially in oral cultures, has certainly favored the flowering of the musical abilities of our species, as well as the only species able to replicate, reproduce and imagine the rhythm (the monkeys, from which we descend, are not in possession of such abilities) and this is reflected in the brain, observable through neuroimaging techniques and concerns the activation of subcortical areas in the basal ganglia and cerebellum, in addition to the activation of the motor cortex and subcortical systems. this “simulation of action for auditory prediction” (asap) would be based on the connections that the dorsal auditory pathway possesses with the regions of motor planning through the parietal cortex. patel and iversen (2014) hypothesize that these connections are stronger in the human species than in the other primates due to the evolution of the phono articulatory capacity, strictly based on rhythm and this could explain the ability of tapping, which characterizes man. on the other hand, the practice of putting words into music has played an important role in the lyrical, liturgical and narrative tradition, just think of the iliad and the odyssey, for centuries recited and handed down orally thanks to the rhythm marked by the zither and the metric of the verses. in fact, the correlation between rhyme and rhythm not only unites language and music but is also sanctioned by a common greek root -ρυ which indicates precisely the flow, the movement, the articulated flow of a melody, of a prosody. according to piaget’s theories of emotional learning. vygotsky, bruner and bloom, affectivity proceeds in parallel with the development of cognitive functions, affects learning processes and, experiences without emotional appeal will be perceived as less engaging and motivating, will not promote curiosity, which is the driving force of learning and this will be less significant. in addition, the strength of memories is closely linked to the degree of emotional involvement that characterizes them: it is more likely that a very sad / very happy event will be remembered, this is because an important involvement of the brain structures that are part of the limbic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 87 francesca finestrone system, such as the amygdala and the orbito-frontal cortex, has been highlighted. that music was a vehicle of emotions, an expression of feelings and movements of the soul is a widespread and shared opinion (strollo, 2011), but that it could even be preparatory to the improvement of skills apparently distant from it, is a recent theory and for which only in recent years research and resources are being employed. and this new approach, more scientific and empirical, is well intertwined with a type of relational and laboratory teaching, in which learning is transversal, multimodal and emotional. since ancient times the word-music relationship has always been problematic, and language was a musical instrument of ideas. the poet, the speaker and the philosopher composed and played grammatically. music, as ars combinatoria, allows the production of a great cosmic network of equivalences and correspondences and manages to convey the truth beyond the logic of linguistic experience, in its essence of meta-knowledge, because it creates a gap of spontaneous communication between sensitivity and reason (brancacci, 2019). the question has often been asked: was music or the word born first? darwin leaned towards giving primacy to music (singing), spencer to speech, mithen, more democratically believed that they had developed simultaneously. patel, in a 2006 article, did not believe that music was a side product of the word, but that it had followed an independent development process and demonstrated this by analyzing a common aspect, both to music and to speech: rhythm. the rhythmic pulsation of music is regular, and this regularity of perception and synchronization are not shared by the linguistic rhythm, which is an artifice of words, accented irregularly and subject to the socio-cultural context. therefore, it is much more likely that music, more natural, has used a fast track. it is believed that homo neanderthalensis sang before it even spoke and created wind instruments with the bones of animals, such as the famous flute found in divje babe, slovenia.; it was unable to speak due to the baseness of the larynx (as in newborns). according to the protolinguistic theory of steven mithen (2005), hominids communicated holistically, modulating tone, duration and prosody of certain sounds, and musical phrases differed in height and rhythm. from an evolutionary point of view, therefore, the ability to sing precedes the ability to speak, so our brain is shaped on this expressive ability; in fact, in patients with broca’s aphasia (they cannot articulate a elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 88 music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being period fluently), as well as people with stuttering or other disorders in the articulation of language, they are still able to sing or show less difficulty in this activity (merrett et al., 2019). this is due to precise reasons related to the neural circuit underlying the language, which differs in part from the one dedicated to the control of singing, set in a very complex way. 3. music, as a tool of fragility during the last decade, there has been a growing interest and progress in the adoption of music as a therapeutic tool in neurological rehabilitation and many new music-based methods have been developed to improve motor, cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social deficits in people suffering from a debilitating neurological disease, ranging from childhood-adolescence as in cases of autism (geretsegger et al., 2014) and dyslexia (flaugnacco et al., 2015), up to adulthood with cases of stroke patients (bradt & dileo, 2010; rodríguez-fornells et al., 2012; altenmüller & schlaug, 2015; särkämö et al., 2016), parkinson’s disease (nombela et al., 2013; bloem et al., 2015) and dementia (baird & samson, 2015). in healthy patients, listening to music improves neuronal connectivity, while musical activities, such as learning to play an instrument, promote brain plasticity and induce changes in gray and white matter in different brain areas and especially in frontotemporal ones. numerous studies support and demonstrate this thesis, according to which neuroplastic modifications due to musical practice can occur, especially if the onset of musical studies was early (nakada et al., 1998; gaser & schlaug, 2003; musacchia et al., 2007; yang, 2015). recent studies have shown that hearing is the first of the five senses to develop during gestation; in fact, the fetus is able to perceive noises and sounds through the amniotic fluid (e.g. heart rate) and here we can see a primitive form of communication, which should be processed and developed from the first years of life, educating the ear to listen and, subsequently to musical practice, fundamental in cognitive, motor, but also affective development, for reasons that will be addressed below and in which we see the close correlation between music and psycho-physical well-being. the pedagogist rosa agazzi has often reiterated the importance of singing and voice education in motor and language development, confirmed by the studies of t.r. miles, improving reading skills in children suffering from dyslexia, according to which the positive outcomes achieved are directly proportional to the precocity of musical training. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 89 francesca finestrone in addition, it raises the level of people’s emotional life (sloboda, 1988) and promotes the integration of all personality components (perceptualmotor, cognitive and affective-social) contributing to the psycho-physical well-being of all students; music also favors the acquisition of rhythm and grace in movements, both in body and soul in order to obtain a beautiful, strong and well-shaped body that becomes an emblem of physical wellbeing and at the same time of the harmony of the psyche (barker, 2005). some research has shown that participation in musical activities also has positive effects in people’s health and well-being (macdonald, 2013) and the creation of a positive and relational climate also positively affects the motivation to learn (cottini, 2017). music is open to interactions, contaminations and different languages (being itself a symbolic language free from contextual limits), finding ourselves in the era of pluralism. music teaching acts as a guarantor of freedom, equality and equity in respect of the differences of all and the identity of each one, promoting a condition of general well-being, which invests in particular students with disabilities and with bes. in line with what is established in the 2030 agenda, music is a common good, a universal language that connects people and creates generational and cultural cohesion, acting as a glue and as a “bridge” between the individual and the community and, for this reason, access to music should be promoted to minorities and subjects in a situation of economic and socio-cultural disadvantage to avoid cases of early school leaving, emotional alienation and depression (fancourt & finn, 2019). being a form of intelligible language without the need for any translation or mediation, it places itself in an elitist communicative condition, transcending aesthetics and investing ethics, while remaining, in fact, free from education, history and society and, therefore, transversal. as the american ethnomusicologist alan p. merriam says, music performs ten primary functions, which relate both to the personal sphere of the individual and to the social sphere of the community, as a symbolic element capable of shortening the distances between the personal ego and what is other, tuning them to the same frequency, which has much deeper and ancestral origins than a consonance of ideas and values. musical thinking can help to recover the ways in which we listen to the living environment and, consequently, the ways in which we produce sounds. in the study by cajola, rizzo and traversetti (2017) we highlight the possibility, in this regard, to structure interdisciplinary playful-musical laboratories and design them as a space or a didactic strategy that supports the inclusive processes in the class curriculum and the presence of a special elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 90 music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being needs teacher-musician contributes, bringing his expertise, to the realization of a sustainable development of the school community, specifically within the class. as revealed by recent research, the musical activity determines a development of various areas of the person: motor, cognitive, social and adaptive and therefore the executive practice stands as a facilitator of learning, but also as a promoter of social skills and soft skills, facilitating communication and emotional expression. it is no coincidence that among the brain areas that are activated during listening to music there are not only auditory areas, but also motor ones (proverbio, 2019) and that musical training is involved in the processes that slow down cognitive decay and that support people with neuroevolutionary and neurological disorders and this highlights the preventive and sometimes therapeutic function of music, used with patients suffering from various forms of dementia, parkinson’s, autism, as well as an elitist tool in case of specific learning disorders and patients suffering from williams syndrome, in whom the strong reactivity to music is associated with a spontaneous pro-sociality, a marked talkativeness and an unusual mastery of language (sacks, 2014). what’s more, listening to music for two to three hours a day in the aftermath of a stroke facilitates the recovery of verbal memory, stimulates the ability to concentrate and improves mood by preventing depression (särkämö et al., 2016). according to dalla bella et al. (2015) these effects of rehabilitation would be due to compensatory brain mechanisms involving the cerebellum-thalamo-cortex circuit. since music manages to permeate different aspects of human life, detecting its function as a facilitator, both in the conquest of verbal and paraverbal communication skills, and in the cognitive sphere, it is an inclusive medium and promoter of well-being, useful above all in a didactics of laboratory imprint. the democratic component of music allows each student to take part in it according to their personal possibilities; it also leaves room for self-expression, which connotes artistic activity, supporting motivation for learning, personal exposure and socialization. the learning of the musical language also promotes the learning process understood in a global sense, facilitating a functional development in accordance with the principles of health and well-being (fontana, 2020). in particular, the process of learning musical skills allows to exercise and enhance cognitive, emotional, social and relational skills and competences of all students. these skills, learned in the course of musical workshops, can be transferred beyond the school walls, in everyday life, in a chain reaction of improving processes also in elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 91 francesca finestrone spatial and motor skills. creating ensemble music workshops, in which the teacher assumes the role of “director” promotes the acquisition of musical skills, but also prosocial, relational and emotional. to play together it is necessary to listen to each other, be in tune, follow the rhythm and adapt one’s own to that of others, to be all at the same time and produce a fluid and harmonious syntax. in this setting the anxieties are amortized and the weight of the error is felt in a less oppressive way and therefore increases the perception of well-being and self-confidence and the perception of selfefficacy, which are, in fact, the objectives that the educational action aims. playing together in the orchestra or in musical workshops in the school environment, allows children to grow while having fun and developing skills, feeling an active and significant part of a group, offering opportunities for maturation in a plurality of dimensions. in addition, the possibility of learning to play an instrument and establishing a significant bond with it, which becomes an alter-ego, an extension of the personality, takes on very interesting connotations about self-expression: one has the possibility of communicating one’s emotional experience to others, through a non-verbal code, but one can also sublimate negative emotions, a sort of instrument-mediated catharsis. taking up a quote from e.t. hoffmann, he wrote about instrumental music “it is the most romantic of all the arts: one could even say the only romantic art”, precisely because it is an intangible art capable of expressing melancholy, burning passions and walks through the paths of interiority, sublimating them. emotions and moods, common to all cultures, as demonstrated in a study by paul ekman in 1971, which is why, listening to one of chopin’s twenty-one nocturnes, one is overwhelmed by a universal and sensitive poetry, regardless of one’s geographical location. according to this principle, schools in which the use of a multicultural repertoire, known to all and close to the experiences of the students and the use of composition to convey shared emotions and meanings, has been envisaged, has resulted in a greater level of inclusion and affective attunement and therefore a condition of psycho-social well-being. in recent times and especially in the last two years, harassed by the covid-19 health emergency, adolescents have manifested a psychological discomfort that has conditioned their existence and social relationships with the peer group and has strongly impacted on communication, cooperative and socio-emotional skills. for this reason, it is even more urgent to promote an inclusive and generative dimension of welfare (fancourt & finn, 2019) in an ethically and aesthetically usable multimodal experience to rediscover the pleasure and usefulness of playing together. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 92 music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being the pandemic, however, has also accelerated a process of technological transition in educational institutions, forcing the school world to interact with innovative teaching strategies and novel devices in order to continue to guarantee the right to education, armed with digital (not always adequate) and psycho-pedagogical skills. although this parenthesis seems to have come to an end, returning to a purely traditional didactics would be anachronistic and countercurrent. in fact, various doors have been opened to different frameworks of learning, especially with regard to the gamification of learning through the use of serious games, which gunter, kenny and vick describe as games that set educational objectives with a fun background. serious games and game-based learning contribute to a variety of learning outcomes (behnamnia et al., 2020; sailer & homner, 2020; van gaalen et al., 2021), most of which are cognitive in nature, especially in children with frailty, who require support from the special needs teachermusician. precisely for these children, the syncretism of music, play and technology could prove to be very fruitful and enable an improvement in deficits. 4. serious game and rhythm training the special needs teacher-musician succeeds in combining disciplinary skills with psycho-pedagogical skills and would be a valuable tool in the service of didactics and the most fragile students in the school environment. training and informing special needs teachers-musicians of the potential of music on neural plasticity and its consequences would be a resource for the school institution, but it would also be a real asset for individuals with disabilities, specific learning disorders and neurodevelopment disorders (es. dyslexia or adhd). setting up music workshops in each school could bridge the gaps in the inclusion process and thus in achieving well-being at school. current trends bring together therapeutic and rehabilitation value with the digital transition that has affected not only our society, but also educational programming. indeed, incorporating ict in the school environment has proven to be a real possibility for promoting inclusion, autonomy and motivation. technology has pervaded many spheres, not even leaving behind the arts (often eclipsed) and leading to the creation of serious games centred elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 93 francesca finestrone on the music-therapeutic potential of music training and, in particular, rhythm training that takes place in a fun, playful but educational way. interestingly, the ability to track rhythm has been associated with other cognitive abilities such as working memory, sustained attention or language and reading skills in children (tierney & kraus, 2013; woodruff carr et al., 2014). 5. special education transition current trends bring together therapeutic and rehabilitation value with the digital transition that has affected not only our society, but also educational programming. with today’s rapid developments in technology, mobile devices, including the ipad and related software applications, are gaining popularity as an educational tool. has been found rhythmic deficits are associated with poor performance in language, attention and working memory tasks. the retraining of rhythmic skills may therefore provide a promising avenue for improving these associated cognitive functions (begel et al., 2018). reflections on the implications of such educational tools on students with adhd and dsa appear spontaneously, even though the educational terrain is still rather immature in this regard (goh et al., 2021). since rhythm training appears to cause improvements in several areas not exclusively related to musical performance skills, devising and testing a new rhythm training protocol, implemented as a serious game exploiting new mobile technologies in the school environment, could open up several scenarios for educational intervention. serious games can involve the use of commonly used mobile devices, but also have visors or consoles to play in virtual reality (vr) to make the experience even more immersive and the game even more engaging. two very interesting and multi-sensory 3-d serious games were developed using state-of-the-art vr: rhythm workers and addventurous rhythmical planet. in virtual reality (vr) of addventurous rhythmical planet, players use a drum to create a rhythm, which is then transformed into a game action visually represented in vr space. in the game, the protagonist is an alien who can only continue his journey with increasing difficulty if the player correctly plays a rhythm. the levels become increasingly difficult and can be played either in single player or multiplayer mode. the game’s storyline encourages children to play with each other and to switch from single to multiplayer mode. when playing in multiplayer mode, the elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 94 music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being rhythm is created together, all players collaborating in playing the correct rhythm. this game requires vr headsets, a drum module capable of transmitting information to the vr system, and computer systems capable of running the vr system. children, students are encouraged to create music in order to overcome the mission and receive an immediate reward, provided by the game’s narrative. rhythm workers is a serious game that has two modes and the game objective to be achieved is to construct a building. when the musician accurately beats the rhythm (tapping version) or correctly detects whether the percussion sounds are aligned with the rhythm (perception version) the building components appear better structured (e.g. more symmetrical), richer and more aesthetically appealing than when the player’s performance is not good. in the proof-of-concept pilot study by bégel et al. (2018), high participant motivation during the game was found to be maintained throughout the two-week training protocol. this finding is very encouraging because the players’ motivation attests to the fact that the game is engaging and thus stimulates users to achieve satisfactory scores and thus to achieve positive rhythmic skills. the interest of policy and educational institutions could provide an incentive for researchers to want to develop the game using less expensive and more readily available equipment (davis-temple et al., 2021). 6. conclusions strengthening the interaction between technology, music and education provides an opportunity to concretely help pupils with special educational needs, as the results produced using serious games in environments away from school are encouraging and deserve more attention and experimentation in the familiarity of the school context. in the light of the promising results of the recent research, it is plausible to hope for a future in which didactics, music and technology are intertwined, providing school professionals with significant expertise capable of addressing the special educational needs of pupils from an inclusive perspective, where making class means making community and music is no longer a niche art or a sideline discipline, but a real resource for personal and cognitive growth, connecting all the actors involved. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 95 francesca finestrone references altenmüller, e., & schlaug, g. 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(2012). the involvement of audio-motor coupling in the music‐supported therapy applied to stroke patients. annals of the new york academy of sciences, 1252(1), 282-293. sacks, o. (2014). musicofilia. adelphi. sailer, m., & homner, l. (2020). the gamification of learning: a meta-analysis. educational psychology review, 32(1), 77-112. särkämö, t., altenmüller, e., rodríguez-fornells, a., & peretz, i. (2016). music, brain, and rehabilitation: emerging therapeutic applications and potential neural mechanisms. frontiers in human neuroscience, 10, 103. sloboda, j. a. (1988). l’esprit musicien. la psychologie cognitive de la musique. éditions mardaga (vol. 177). strollo, m. r. (2011). musica e parole. un progetto pilota. quaderni di didattica della scrittura, 8(1-2), 99-114. tierney, a. t., kraus, n. (2013). the ability to tap to a beat relates to cognitive, linguistic, and perceptual skills. brain and language, 124(3), 225-231. van gaalen, a. e. j., brouwer, j., schönrock-adema, j., bouwkamp-timmer, t., jaarsma, a. d. c., & georgiadis, j. r. (2021). gamification of health professions education: a systematic review. advances in health sciences education, 26(2), 683-711. woodruff carr, k., white-schwoch, t., tierney, a. t., strait, d. l., & kraus, n. (2014). beat synchronization predicts neural speech encoding and reading readiness in preschoolers. proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 111(40), 14559-14564. yang, p. (2015). the impact of music on educational attainment. journal of cultural economics, 39(4), 369-396. riassunto questo contributo intende offrire spunti di riflessione sul ruolo ancestrale della musica per l’uomo, considerando le sue potenzialità, trasversali a diverse aree di interesse, tra cui quelle psicopedagogiche, cliniche e didattiche, in quanto espressione eterogenea di culture, comunità e caratteri. nonostante l’obbligatorietà dell’educazione musicale nelle elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 98 music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being scuole secondarie di primo grado, non in tutti i contesti le attività sono strutturate e svolte tenendo conto delle implicazioni positive sul benessere psico-fisico degli alunni, sulle potenzialità riabilitative e sull’aumento della loro motivazione all’apprendimento. così come sono molteplici le possibilità di dinamiche e tempi in musica, altrettanto ampio è l’orizzonte di opzioni che si staglia lungo il cielo dell’azione didattica, intersecando anche il mondo della tecnologia, che mette al servizio dell’istruzione strumenti innovativi quali i serious game. copyright (©) 2022 francesca finestrone editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: finestrone, francesca (2022). music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 85-99. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-fine elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 99 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-fine elementa_2-2022-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey nature and pandemic elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 33 nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas pontificia universidad católica de valparaíso (chile) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-espi ricardo.espinoza@pucv.cl abstract the article shows how the covid-19 pandemic is not only a matter associated with nature, but it is an essential topic in order to understand humanity today, because at the beginning of the pandemic it was immediately shown that nature was behind this disaster, because it was, in a certain way, taking revenge on the humans. after all, the very conception of nature that we use today is a human conception, created from the subjectivity of the self, that goes hand in hand with the modern creation of the nation-state. nature, nation-state, etc., are creations of the self and in this way nature is understood as something objective, but at the same time the human subject treats himself as an object. here lies the very problem, because neither the self nor the nature behave in an objective way, but both moments are made visible from a dynamic articulation of the movement of one in the other. this vision was part of the conception of the ancient greeks and by nietzsche and other current thinkers such as žižek. keywords: greece; nature; nietzsche; objective; pandemic. introduction: “nature” since the pandemic what is behind what is designated as “nature” from the labyrinth of modernity in europe? what is behind, in these days of quarantines and confinements in different regions of the planet, when you talk about a virus or water or climate or the countryside or the sea or the mountains? did the invention of the modern european “i” need a concept of “nature” as a tension moment for its own constitution? why is “nature” seen as something “good” (minus, obviously, the sars cov-2 virus), and the human as toxic? why does everyone flee the cities to take refuge in “nature”? why be https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-espi ricardo espinoza lolas elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 34 able to touch our pets, such as dogs, and not our loved ones because they are human and infect us? why does capitalism today dress up and change from patriarchal to “matriarchal”, that is, to a “maternal” capitalism of care and soft loans for the good of countries, companies and humans? why is “nature” understood as feminine, as an ancient pagan goddess or, for latin american catholic believers, as the virgin mary, a great mother? why this “pachamama” fashion, which for many south americans expresses “nature”? why is capitalism dressed now, in a new mutation, as a maternal goddess who takes care of us for our good? and if we ironically and see that there is a before covid-19 and surely there will be one after that pandemic, as there has been with every pandemic throughout history: “spanish” flu, cholera, bubonic plague, etc. we realize that we are stranded in bc-19/ad-19 or, simply put, before the pandemic / after the pandemic (ap/dp). i cannot stop thinking about that dialectical moment, to call it somehow, in which we are, in the types of “deniers” and also of “idolaters” of the virus. what is interesting is what they “lie or think” about nature. and it does not matter if they are atheists or believers, scientists or philosophers, rationalists or delusional, sane or crazy, learned or ignorant, etc.; what i see is almost always a kind of somewhat naive dialectic between the human and the natural. between two moments of the same, but apparently not recognized as such. the “nature”, by some and others, is understood as something alien to the human and in itself “good” and/or finished in and by itself. said in a more academic and rational tone: as if the concept of “nature” agrees with itself. and everything blurred, defective, hazardous, contingent, precarious, unfinished, or simply wrong would fall on the side of the human. it is a scandal that in the xxi century we continue to maintain this perspective and even more so in the middle of the pandemic. what i want to investigate in this article are two ideas that are present around “nature” that are opposed to the general vision. simply put: • the human is naturally natural. the human being is a type of animal, among other higher primates, that formally constitutes its own nonspecific “hole”. it is a hole in which the human animal feeling is structured. human feeling is a very open stimulus feeling, next to that of other animals, and it is this openness that we call “intelligence”. xavier zubiri is very blunt and tells us that “man is the hyper-formalized animal” (zubiri, 1998, p. 29). an animal materially open to itself; that character of “hyper” is what lies that radical “hole” of our animality (espinoza, 2017). intelligence operates in that structural opening of our animality. • it is the natural that is itself open and unfinished. this is the bottom line. nature is labyrinthine in its own design and totally open to chance. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa nature and pandemic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 35 therefore, nature is never something finished, nor clear, nor different, nor closed, nor systemic. nature is neither mechanical, nor organic, nor teleological, nor feminine, nor divine, nor mythical; or anything at all. nietzsche is brilliant and was very clear as early as 1882 about the problem of understanding nature in this way, not even mechanistic scientists succeed. in section & 373 “‘science’ as prejudice” of la gaya ciencia, the philosopher is totally resounding and very current: the same thing happens with that belief with which so many materialistic researchers of nature are now satisfied, the belief in a world that must have its equivalent and its measure in human concepts of value, the belief in a “world of the truth” which could be definitively accessed with our square and small human reason – what? do we really want to degrade existence in this way to an exercise of calculus servants and to being locked in a cabinet for mathematicians? above all, one should not want to strip it of its polysemic character: good taste demands it, my lords, the taste of respect for everything that goes beyond your horizon! that only an interpretation of the world in which you have legitimacy is legitimate, in which it can be investigated and continue to work in a scientific way in your sense (– do you really mean mechanistically?). a sense that admits counting, calculating, weighing, seeing and touching and nothing else, is rude and naive, assuming it is not a disease of the spirit, an idiot. (nietzsche, 2014, pp. 887-888) nature is “less than nothing”, as zizek would say following the old greek materialists (like democritus). it is precisely the recognition of that elusive nature of nature, of the multiplicities of meaning suggested by the processes involved with it (natural laws, morals, romantic dreams, passions, art, mathematical laws, viruses, etc.) that leads to žižek to declare that nature is “less than nothing”. hence the potentiality of an empty notion that is beyond good and bad, of everything ethical, aesthetic, spiritual, individual, social and historical; even beyond the mechanical, the calculation and the algorithm. and it is “beyond”, because i repeat, it is “less than nothing”. this is an introduction. 1. the question about “nature” the old and “romantic” question “idealized” by “nature” in times of the covid-19 pandemic, with so many documentaries, films and news daily, all online, seems a really valid and necessary question. the nature associated with the four seasons and our childhood is remembered, as something unique and that it left us, that it will not return. the “romantic” question about “nature” goes hand in hand with a certain melancholy, namely, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricardo espinoza lolas elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 36 as freud would say, a “mourning” for what is gone (freud, 1993). and this for a reason that connects us with what is most typical of 20th and 21st century thinking; with that thought about the earth as gaia that has appeared very strongly and that has its roots in german romanticism, english empiricism, italian renaissance, amerindian environmentalism, american and european complexity sciences, planetary citizen movements, anti-capitalist ideology, greenpeace, heideggerianism, naturists, vegans, old eastern texts and practices, orientalized westerners, ancient greeks, ecologists, jakob von uexküll’s multiple disciples, ecosophers. it is a thought that we find in many longing radical clusters of gods who are lost in the labyrinth of modernity, in that tremendous european human creation that has been the “i”. and all this today is updated and returns with the pandemic in a more sloppy and politically correct way. the reason is what i see now in many places (especially in academic circles and, also, in communication media and, needless to say, in the squares of many parts of the planet where deniers are against government measures to stop the pandemic): the discussion about how “nature” that is good, true and beautiful, is destroyed by the abominable “man”. it is often said that “the virus came to put things in their place; for the pride of man will be punished by ‘wise natur’”. stated ironically, it is fundamentally a patriarchal logic that in what is called innocently and naively “nature” means something of its own that can be shaped by the human, something that is at the service of the human. i explain. that dual logic that separates the human into man and woman is a patriarchal logic, the same one that separates nature from man. in this patriarchal logic of the modern european self, this patriarchal duality acts in a reduplicative patriarchal way: the human as a man who abuses women, and, in turn, as an abuser of “nature”. man is understood as an abuser of “nature”; even as a “rapist” of her (that human-man who has destroyed “nature”, especially in the last 50 years and has destroyed her due to that phallic character of sovereign domination). the catalan philosopher laura llevadot explains it very correctly: in all its metaphysical polarities (essence / appearance, culture / nature, man / animal, life / death, logos / writing, or masculine / feminine…), the difference does not indicate the opposition, as the very idea of ‘sexual’ difference that is hoisted itself wanted to do. it is, on the contrary, the first term of the opposition the one that needs to affirm its identity to rank and differentiate itself from what could contaminate it and, therefore, put its dominance in question. (llevadot, 2020, pp. 100-101) today it is necessary to overcome this metaphysical duality, which always brings a complex and ideological trap, because an essential differential relationship is used as an “in itself ”, as something fixed, and, furthermore, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa nature and pandemic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 37 one of the terms is always anchored to another. in this perspective, i listen to speeches all day, from environmentalists to scientists, talking about how the good “nature” is deforesting, drying up, intoxicating because the human-man does not do what he should do, that is, “take care of it”. we are today more than ever immersed in the logics of care; this logic is perfect for the new capitalism that was born in the pandemic (the “matriarchal” capitalism that wants to put aside the cold patriarchal capitalism in the face of human anguish, fear and insecurity). capitalism is transforming the concept of “nature” to get out of the crisis: that capitalism, not only as a “father”, but now as a “great mother” come to “save us” from all that pain and destruction. it is what has been seen today in 2020. capitalism itself mutates into being “our mother” who protects us, takes care of us and returns us to some “normality” symbolic and “created and invented” for the “children”. capitalism mutates and from being a brutal patriarchy it becomes a generous mother who “loves” us. and so, she becomes more powerful (a). (espinoza, 2021) and if man cares for “nature” (man as “shepherd of being” paraphrasing heidegger), “nature” will also take care of him. it is like a perfect capitalist economic transaction for the creation of added value, efficient and utilitarian: we should take care of “nature” because she will take care of us all! and thus we will be able to continue generating and producing capital, values and successes in the midst of capitalism. the “nature” will take care of the human-man (and by default the human-feminine). ultimately, she will take care of him. it is a matter of thinking about all the advertisements that are in the middle of the banking pandemic, the stock market, etc., advertisements where we are told that everything will change for the better because they are there to help us in times of crisis 1. what i don’t like about this circular logic is almost everything, but i can summarize it in a double moment. on the one hand, that “familiar” game that exists between “nature” and man. this patriarchal logic of the heterosexual marriage of mrs. “nature” with mr. man is unacceptable and no longer gives more of himself. in addition, he returns to that relationship with the chant that she is passive and he is active. in greek texts, like hesiod’s theogony, it is quite clear that the earth is active-passive; a passive essential femininity cannot be applied to the earth goddess: “to chaos” comes from the verb chaskein and lies open her mouth wide. chaos in the initial sense does not imply something substantive, and less divine, but the open itself 1 véase, por ejemplo, este anuncio del banco santander: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4couwi0e5p0. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4couwi0e5p0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4couwi0e5p0 ricardo espinoza lolas elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 38 that makes it possible for the “‘earth’ ‘to give itself ’ to heaven” (gigon, 2000). chaos is like an abstract initiality that expresses that fissure, that opening, that exit that starts the theogonic system itself so that the “earth” is whatever it is, “gives of itself” everything. the passive “earth” has nothing, it is phallic, it is active power, it gives of itself to “heaven” itself so that it covers it and they can carry out sexual intercourse and this is prior to any sexual difference of an ontological and ideological nature (espinoza, n.d.). and now, in this new modern european logic, “nature” must be cared for by man, a “bad” man who brings hidden intentions of domination. this is very unserious. and, on the other hand, there is in that ideological discourse (inverted patriarchal logic) another factor that i cannot accept either. the idea that there are some “beautiful souls” among men who do know how to take care of “nature”; and these are, in particular, the active and brave ecological voluntarists, accompanied by the profound scientists of algorithms and the profound philosophers of concepts (as in a science fiction film, soderbergh’s contagion, 2011 or nolan’s interstellar, 2014). they are the ones who really know how to take care of that sick “nature”; and they also know how to be able to give back to “nature” it’s real and true status: it will be the great cosmic lady (divine) who “is there” to support us as mother-matter in our active lives (this is the serious error of the essentialist feminism); because we are connected to it by a certain “umbilical cord” (as well as in the ancient greek myth of anteo son of gaia or the film avatar by cameron, 2009). 2. not to the “objective” but the most wrong thing about this approach is something that some philosophers know very well, such as hegel in his phenomenology of the spirit, nietzsche in die fröhliche wissenschaft, heidegger in sein und zeit, zubiri in inteligencia sentiente, deleuze in logique du sens, zizek in the sublime object of ideology, etc.; and i refer to the typical repetitive epistemological and, therefore, ontological (and maliciously: “ideological”) tale, of the modern rationalist european horizon of problem analysis. it is a very superb horizon that never wants to step aside, that always comes back again and again with another face (it is like hegel’s “bad infinity” or schopenhauer’s “eternal return” which is the one nietzsche attacks); there is always the “mantra” that you want to impose on everyone’s “common sense”; the sense most constructed by the ideology of the day that is in sovereign power. for it is from this horizon, absolutely modern and european, where nature remains as “the objective” and the human-man as “the subjechttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa nature and pandemic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 39 tive”. and, furthermore, one hangs on the other, one as lord and the other as servant; and without any reconciliation, only domination and injury. the self not only creates the need for “nature”, but also the structuring of the nation-state, and of capitalism as the very motor of the entire system of the self. and here also the ways in which this can be understood do not matter (there are several ways throughout the centuries) (espinoza, 2018). the interesting thing is to highlight the very duality in which this type of analysis is placed from this logic: man on the one hand and “nature” on the other; the subjective and the objective were born and there is no way to eliminate them. everything that was possible then becomes necessary, as hegel wisely sees it as early as 1830 in his lessons on the philosophy of history: “that which at first seemed only accidental and fortuitous, thanks to repetition becomes something real and confirmed” (hegel, 1970, p. 338). (this is the text that marx paraphrases in louis bonaparte’s the 18th brumaire.) and so, there is no way to de-structure it from the system. and in this one does not see or, what is worse, does not want to see the obvious, that the human is by himself and nature. it is something that many thinkers throughout history point out, to name just two, apparently very different: nietzsche and zubiri. what would an unnatural human be? what happened to the europeans with the human to formally “remove” it from nature, leave it without the land of it; expel him from paradise? a human who is not human? zizek shows how capitalism works with its operation of extraction of the essential: “our consumerism is organized like this: we want sex, but for sure; beer, but without alcohol; coffee, but without caffeine; chocolate, fat free. we want to play safely” (žižek, 2015). a human himself without humus? is it possible for a piece of earth, an earthling, that does not realize that its meaning is to be a sense of the earth? immanence and nothing but immanence we are as humans; earth humans. deep down in this extraction of the human, capitalist ideology is also operating since its modern beginnings (espinoza, 2019). in this game of marking “nature” and man as two moments that are related, it is clear that the dominant ideology operates in which one of the terms is above the other; and operates as the first analogous: the man who has told us the ideology that we are in the image and likeness of god, but apparently not of an immanent god, but transcendent (what would that be?), is the one who cares for the earth, the one who is mandated to take care of it or, conversely, is the one who constantly stains it. it is like a total dual character, of radical bipolarity in which the human moves; almost like a villainous batman character: like a joker. then, the human, as man with “nature”, performs multiple functions: he is the one who protects it, the one who saves it, the one who redeems it, the one who gives it its light, its https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricardo espinoza lolas elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 40 meaning, its concept and its purpose. it is the one that reduces it, experiences it, ritualizes it, historicizes it, narrates it, metaphorizes it, represents it, deconstructs it, signifies it, capitalizes it, measures it, murders it, produces it, cultivates it, educates it, apprehends it, it ideologizes it, the subjective one, it spiritualizes it, exorcises it, wants it, loves it, deifies it, expresses it, makes it audible, makes it visible, imagines it, remembers it, explores it, seduces it, outrages it, uses it, manipulates it, etc., etc. in short, the human as a man has become a delirious madman with the female “nature”: he loves her and destroys her at the same time. “however, he moves”; that is, nature is not “there” in front of us, neither in a categorical way, nor in an empirical way, but neither in an ontological way. nature is nothing that “is there” with respect to man, in any respect. and this, among other things, because man is not “there” for nature either, it is not what is subjective about her, nor is nature what is objective about him. this logic prevents us from seeing what nature is, supposing that it is “something”, because perhaps it is not even a “something”; it is “less than nothing”. 3. and if “nature” is an immediate expression of the “nation-state” so, if nature is not opposed to human and human is not opposed to nature: what is nature? from the outset, you do not have to write it in capital letters or even in quotation marks. for now, if there is no opposition between the two terms, these terms will fall by their own weight, since each one depended on the other. as nietzsche emphatically says: “we have eliminated the true world: what world has remained? is it the apparent one?... no! by eliminating the true world, we have also eliminated the apparent world” (nietzsche, 2000a, p. 52). not only does “nature” have to step aside and, as hegel would say, it must “commit suicide”: “nature’s destiny (ziel) – it says there – is to kill itself (sich selbst zu töten)” 2, rather, man himself must die in order to be reborn, as nietzsche says over and over again at the end of his sane life. if the dual metaphysics “nature and man” ceases to be what it is, then why ask about “nature”? why not ask for the “man”? ah, but let’s not forget “this one” also fell and it is essential that it should fall; somehow you have to de-construct and de-sediment the modern european self, in that heidegger is right, but his solution is obviously not (it is not an extreme environmentalism either; to live in and by “nature”). that self is part of 2 enz., § 376, zusatz (w. 9, 538). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa nature and pandemic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 41 the very problem of everything that happens to us today. better not to ask about either of the two, and even less about the metaphysical articulation “nature-man”. so, what can we ask, reflect, criticize? it is interesting to note that the term “nature” always expresses a “birth” from latin, even in the device that europeans invented, the state, to which the adjective “nation” is attached. the state is itself a “nation-state”, a state in which those who are born in it give it their identity; and, therefore, its borders and limits, both inward and outward. the invention of “nature” was not enough, it was also necessary to invent the “nation-state” for the “i” to rule as its lord (and without forgetting that the “heaven of god” had to be invented, where we are going or we are not going to stop depending on our actions in life, and the “unconscious”, the place par excellence where we are governed without our realizing it). the nation-state is one of the best gadgets, together with capitalism (they go hand in hand) that europeans have invented to be able to dominate sovereignly whatever it is: now empirical territories, now virtual territories, and unconscious territories. it is a logic of war and domination. the state in its “nature” (“nation”) is like a great totalitarian monster, in the style of leviathan; it is the war machine par excellence that has been invented to hegemonize the planet and tame it for a few. with the pandemic it has become clear that the only one that has won is capitalism; this is worthy of analysis for feminists, lacanian psychoanalysts and critical materialist theorists (not for honneth and his current frankfurt school which always plays for european social democracy and therefore to keep everything the same: gatopardism!). what if nature had nothing to do with a certain constitutive identity birth of “inside and outside”? that is, of the metaphysical logics of the patriarchal rational european ideology built from the self. the greeks of the mysteries, of the cult, of the tragedy, of heraclitus, etc. they were forging their words, their myths from the experience in which they were immersed, in the same polis. therefore, for them, as for the amerindians, orientals, etc., it has never been about “nature” and, consequently, not about “man” either. what is it about? of something as simple as the dionysian. 4. a nature with a small letter for human, simply human the greek physis so important not only for philosophers (this is another modern rationalist and patriarchal european deformation), but for the ancient greeks, it expresses something other than nature, at least to this one that we have made visible in this text. nietzsche spoke of the “dionysian vision of the world” to better understand the greeks in his masterpiece https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricardo espinoza lolas elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 42 die geburt der tragödie aus dem geiste der musik and zubiri, always more formal, of the “horizon of movement” in los problemas fundamentales de la metafísicos occidental. that greek, which is hidden in the figure of the god, expresses the dance of the god; and a dance that in turn is the very tension of everything human, things and gods. this dance is life-death tension (joy-silence, birth-death), that is why the god expresses himself in the masks and, in the tragedy, they are his heroes: antigone, hippolytus, oedipus, agamemnon, medea, etc. (but the mask was also present in the cult and in different parts of the polis). the great thinker philologist walter otto in his beautiful book dionysus tells us many features of the god, for example: “[…] the infernal roar that announces and accompanies the god reveals the phantasmagoric nature of him, especially because of what he suddenly leads to: a silence mortal” (otto, 2000, p. 105). that tension in dance is what allows to configure what there is (apollo), namely, the polis itself, without holding onto any transcendent plane. without any support, everything starts to move dynamically and returns again and again; and the polis is recreates and realizes and forges a destiny. in all this we already see what is understood by nature and human in the greeks. in the dionysian, something like movement is expressed, but where we do not have a motive (as something in and of itself ), nor a beginning or an end (as an absolute origin and end), it is like a movement in movement, itself, with partial starts and closings, selfcontained; as well as “waves in the sea”. physis expressed movement with dynamic density within itself; with internal material tissue, never nothing, because on the greek horizon there is no space for any creatio ex nihilo, typical of the semitic horizon that pierces europe. and that “creation” is behind modern metaphysics, its theology, its science, its technique, its war, its city, its capitalism, its nation-state, its “nature”, deep down, behind that “i” that rises from nothing in the image and likeness of the semitic god. theological metaphysical nothingness is always a condition of possibility, the limit from where everything starts to move. on the other hand, in the greeks, this material fabric in the movement itself gives of itself the different modes of things, from the simplest to the most complex; they are different forms of tissue with their different consistency planes (espinoza, 2020b). it is a dynamic fabric that organizes itself in material densities, in precise and random material patterns. behold: things, plants, animals, humans, cities, gods, to call them somehow. nature is either “less than nothing” or it is simply another “monster” of the labyrinth of modernity; and it has to be “less than nothing” because it cannot respond to anything that has to do with nothing, that is, with the metaphysical-theological characteristic of medieval and modern europe. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa nature and pandemic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 43 zizek is very clear in his voluminous book dedicated to hegel less than nothing: nature is not a conglomeration of dispersed phenomena, but a connected whole. afterwards, this whole is not immobile, but in a state of constant change and movement. afterwards, this change is not only a quantitative gradual increase, but also implies qualitative jumps and breaks. finally, this qualitative development is not a question of harmonious unfolding, but rather it is propelled by the struggle of opposites. (zizek, 2015, p. 63) only from the theological metaphysical plane does the self “happen” and as an addition it is necessary to postulate that “nature”, that nation-state, that capitalism, that unconscious, and so on. in nature as “less than nothing”, like that wise “void” of the atomists like democritus, we are in a thought in which it is not shown in the verb “to happen”, but in the “to arise”, “to emerge”, “to be”, “dance” of things to each other so that the jovial sense emerges as a whole: already from the polis, already from the gods (and thus democracy was born in greece and never in any semitic people). zizek is very clear and shows us that nothingness is a condition of possibility of modern metaphysics, but the emptiness of the materialists that is “less than nothing”, in its own fleeting materiality, already gives everything in its own materiality: “the distinction between nothing and emptiness. nothing is localized, as when we say ‘there is nothing here’, while emptiness is a dimension without limits” (zizek, 2015, pp. 61-62). in nature we are cast to the fate of materiality in its representational emptiness that does not allow itself to be trapped by the self in any way; in this is that richness of being “less than nothing”, because by being so, one is in the very fragility of life. and that fragility lies in nature, namely, the very nature of animality, of human animality, of things, and of all those things that we value. that a-signifying fragility, as deleuze thinks in thousand plateaus, lies that nature of which we are parts, nothing more than that. nature is like a simple “remainder”, schelling would say, an “immediate” feature always open as hegel would say, namely, the dionysian that in its own tension and fleeting fragility allows us a certain always dynamic stability to create, as nietzsche says in his zarathustra: “[…] one must still have chaos within oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star” (nietzsche, 2000b, p. 39). conclusion that greek physis gave the polis and its participatory and differential democracy; on the other hand, european “nature” has given the nationhttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricardo espinoza lolas elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 44 state and its current totalitarian capitalist democracy (because of the representative and liberal democracy there is also very little left). for the same reason, it is not minor to rethink this issue of democracy, but not because of the “water cycle” or because of the covid-19 pandemic, because the matter is simpler and deep down more radical. joseph h. stiglitz, the nobel laureate in economics, makes an intelligent critique of thomas piketty and his famous book sold by the thousands, le capital au xxie  siècle: “the main question we must ask ourselves today is not about capital in the 21st century, but on democracy in the xxi century” (stiglitz, 2015, p. 147). stiglitz is right, because it is not about discussing what capital will be or what it is in our century and from there giving multiple solutions to generate a more just, reliable and transparent society, but what it is about is democracy. it is necessary to rethink how we want to organize ourselves. it is about rethinking society politically so that then we can talk about how capital is distributed and produced in a more dignified way for all. therefore, what i want to express in this text is that obviously we have a serious problem with our planet that is expressed, for example, in its climate change, but the solution is not to discuss the “water cycle”, but how we organize ourselves politically in order to be able to “dissolve capitalism”. a capitalism that ultimately we are ourselves: we are the capitalists of the self who are destroying the planet because in advance we destroy ourselves (from scientists to philosophers, from believers to atheists, from right to left, from rich to poor, from the from north to south, from wise to ignorant, from poets to politicians, from citizens to zombies, from men to women, from gods to demons). in that destruction is the basis of the current pandemic. and it is that we do not even know how to feed ourselves. this is well pointed out by christian drosten, the german government’s scientific advisor for the whole pandemic issue: coronaviruses try to change host organism when the opportunity presents itself. through our use of animals, contrary to the principles of nature, we create that opportunity. farm animals are in contact with wild animals. the way they are stored in large groups amplifies the spread of the virus between them. the human being comes into intense contact with these animals, for example, through the consumption of meat. that represents a possible trajectory of coronavirus outbreaks. and it is clear that we always try to do business and generate efficiency and high capitalization even in what we eat (espinoza, 2020a). hence that simple and fragile nature of itself to a miserable virus, which as such is nothing or almost nothing, and simply being almost nothing has already caused so much pain to millions of humans on this global capitalist planet. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa nature and pandemic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 45 only with a possible dissolution of capitalism is it possible that we can, with the multiple knowledge and practices, open a planet together so that we are viable in the best way. it is that “nosotros” (we/others), which is no longer mere “us” (because that is capitalized and is based on the self ), which is called to re-politicize the very plane of immanence in which we are dynamically fabric socio-historical, visionary and virtual. references espinoza, r. 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(2021). reseña de libro c. balbontín & r. salas (eds.), evadir. la filosofía piensa la revuelta de octubre, 2019. santiago de chile: libros del amanecer, 2020. revista de humanidades de valparaíso, 17. hegel, g. (1970). filosofía de la historia (póstuma, apuntes de lecciones recopiladas por 1ª vez en 1837). trad. de j. m. quintana. ediciones zeus. llevadot, l. (2020). jacques derrida. democracia y soberanía. gedisa. nietzsche, f. (2000a). crepúsculo de los ídolos. trad. de a. sánchez pascual. alianza. nietzsche, f. (2000b). así habló zaratustra. alianza editorial. nietzsche, f. (2014). la gaya ciencia. en f. nietzsche, obras completas, vol. iii: obras de madurez i. tecnos. otto, w. (2000). dioniso. siruela herder. pérez, a. e. (2021). reseña de libro l. llevadot, jacques derrida. democracia y soberanía. barcelona: gedisa, 2020. enrahonar: an international journal of theoretical and practical reason, 66, 222-224. stiglitz, j. e. (2015). la gran brecha. qué hacer con las sociedades desiguales. taurus. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricardo espinoza lolas elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 46 žižek, s. (2015). menos que nada. hegel y la sombra del materialismo dialéctico, vol. 83. ediciones akal. zubiri, x. (1998). sobre el hombre. alianza editorial. websites abc (november 17, 2014). interview with s. žižek by i. m. rodrigo https://www.abc.es/cultura/cultural/20141117/abci-entrevista-slavoj-zizek 201411171214.html the guardian (april 28, 2020). interview with c. drosten, director of virology at the charité hospital in berlin, german government advisor https://www.eldiario.es/theguardian/christian-drosten-principal-coronavirushundiendo_0_1021548406.html riassunto l’articolo dimostra come la pandemia di covid-19 non sia solo una questione associata alla natura, ma sia un tema essenziale per comprendere l’umanità oggi, perché la pandemia ha mostrato fin da subito come dietro questo disastro ci fosse la natura e come essa stessa, in un certo senso, si stesse vendicando dell’umanità. del resto la stessa concezione della natura che usiamo oggi è, in fondo, una concezione creata dell’umano, dalla soggettività dell’io, che va di pari passo con l’altra creazione moderna, quella dello statonazione. la natura, lo stato-nazione e altri concetti simili, sono creazioni dell’io: in questi concetti, la natura è intesa come qualcosa di oggettivo, ma al contempo il soggetto umano tratta sé stesso come un oggetto. questo è il vero problema, perché né l’io, né la natura si comportano in modo oggettivo ma entrambi i momenti sono resi visibili da una articolazione dinamica del movimento dell’uno nell’altro. questa visione fu presente sia nel pensiero degli antichi greci che in quello di nietzsche, fino a quello di altri pensatori contemporanei come žižek. copyright (©) 2021 ricardo espinoza lolas editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: espinoza lolas, r. (2021). nature and pandemic. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 33-46. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/ elem-2021-0102-espi https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://www.eldiario.es/theguardian/christian-drosten-principal-coronavirus-hundiendo_0_1021548406.h https://www.eldiario.es/theguardian/christian-drosten-principal-coronavirus-hundiendo_0_1021548406.h https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-espi https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-espi elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio editorial elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 7 editorial pierpaolo limone learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-limo pierpaolo.limone@unifg.it the university of foggia has been investing in training innovation for decades, dealing with the study, research and implementation of new transmedia learning environments in schools, academies, companies and organizations, aiming at the psychosocial well-being of users. to this end, the university has set up the learning science hub (lsh) centre in foggia, located in via arpi at the department of humanities. the centre intends to respond to the innovation needs of learning design and hence promotes interdisciplinary research on the effects of digital media and technologies on motivation, self-determination and selfregulated learning, through the most recent research methodologies in the psychological and neuroscientific fields. the objective of the laboratory intersects with the mission of the cnr institute of neuroscience: to promote global knowledge of the organization and functioning of the nervous system and the application of this knowledge in the prevention and treatment of psychosocial disorders. regarding its activities, the laboratory focuses on both basic and applied research, which is why the cognitive goals produce a scientific, technological, social and economic impact not only for the scientific community but also for the players in the educational and training context. studies are aimed at solving pedagogical problems, the innovation of teaching tools, the prevention of psycho-pedagogical difficulties and the promotion of effective and motivated learning. the learning science hub also operates through psychometric surveys in the field. it measures psychosocial variables, assesses the needs and requirements of users and studies the effects of learning environments, using standardized tests or the validation of new tools. the results of these studies determine a participatory community of practice that monitors and implements innovative educational contexts while respecting the psychosocial dynamics and perceptions of all those involved in the training process. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-limo pierpaolo limone elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 8 finally, the structure is also a reception centre for students and trainees who are interested in research and intend to deepen and develop skills in the field of learning design and cognitive neuroscience. a distinctive feature of the centre is its multidisciplinarity wherein scholars, professionals and expert scientists of pedagogy, educational sciences, computer science, psychology and neuroscience co-participate. lsh has various professionals such as university professors, researchers, doctoral students, fellows and trainees. it also hosts scholars with different types of training, some from foreign countries, who collaborate in the implementation of the established projects. and it is precisely in this perspective of multidisciplinarity and interconnection of knowledge that the new journal of the university of foggia elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspective is born, online, peer-reviewed, biannual, engaged in the publication of articles, studies, texts, notes, discussions and reviews, which compares and directly connects the world of philosophy with that of pedagogy. for each issue, we propose to critically explore a theme within the contemporary philosophical debate and the main epistemological reflections; this philosophical investigation will then be the empirical basis for applied research in the psychological and educational sector. in fact, as stated by the editor-in-chief of the journal, prof. paolo ponzio, elementa attempts to propose an epistemological and scientific dialogue between experimental, philosophical and pedagogical disciplines, and between conceptual instances and tools of educational epistemology, in order to arouse interdisciplinary interest in issues of contemporary life. issue 1 of the magazine collects contributions capable of critically framing the different philosophical, epistemological, educational and psychological perspectives on the theme of identity/otherness. specifically, the issue is divided into two sections. the first section, of a philosophical nature, deals with the history of philosophy, the history of ideas and epistemology (from ancient to contemporary thought) as essential parts of contemporary discourse on human sciences. the contributions in this section are edited by: slavoj žižek, entitled the vagaries of the superego, which, starting from the distinction made by lacan between “ideal ego” and “super-ego”, structured by the imaginary-symbolic-real triad, investigates how it is possible to distinguish the a-sexual social space from the domain of libidinal-bad interactions. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa editorial elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 9 ricardo espinoza lolas, entitled nature and pandemic, which aims to demonstrate how the covid-19 pandemic is not only an issue associated with nature but also an essential theme for understanding humanity today, as the pandemic has demonstrated how nature caused this disaster and how nature itself, in a certain sense, was taking revenge on humanity. paolo ponzio, entitled mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you, which specifically addresses the theme of otherness, crossing the theme of the mask that performs its function precisely in the dialectic identity/otherness. daniela savino, entitled “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion, which aims to investigate the so-called “interior space of conscience”, especially when it happens that it is “violated” voluntarily or unconsciously. francesca r. recchia luciani, entitled the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy that analyzes the “r-existence of sexiness”, or that stubborn rejection of distinct and different bodies to the homologation and uniformity of the identical and identity shared by “trans-feminism”. the second section, of a pedagogical nature, represents the pragmatic and applicative element of the theoretical reflections that emerged in the first section of the journal, trying to build a bridge between the theoretical formulations and practical and educational applications. the contributions in this section are edited by: martina rossi, entitled universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives, which aims to reflect on the didactic and methodological changes brought about by distance teaching, focusing particularly on the concept of inclusive teaching. marco ceccarelli, entitled a historical account on italian mechanism models, which tells the italian story about the collection of mechanical models that have been used and can still be used in design, teaching and research activities, not only therefore limited to research and development of mechanical systems. giusi antonia toto and alessia scarinci, entitled cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet, which analyzes the socially and culturally constructed value assumed by the media in the cyberbullying movement. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa pierpaolo limone elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 10 luigi traetta and federica doronzo, entitled the super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten, which aims to retrace the evolution of the super-ego, in the psychoanalytic and phenomenological fields, describing its repercussions, starting from the formation of individual morality, in the educational field. federica doronzo and gianvito calabrese, entitled functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics, which aims to investigate the neural correlates that regulate the cognitive system, through a dual neuropsychological-mathematical interpretation. guendalina peconio and giuliana nardacchione, entitled peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching, which aims to investigate the theoretical references that literature offers with respect to the scaffolding principle and the peer tutoring methodology defined in an inclusive perspective. copyright (©) 2021 pierpaolo limone editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: limone, p. (2021). editorial. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 7-10. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-limo https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-limo https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2021-0102-limo elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 85 the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani università degli studi di bari (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-recc francescaromana.recchialuciani@uniba.it abstract the philosophy of sexual existence as a mode of expression of the “con-being”, pivotal in his book “sexistence”, occupies a relevant space in jean-luc nancy’s late philosophical production. in this text, the body, the touch, the sex are protrusions that dot a conceptual map that is the result of a long philosophical militancy marked by an authentic “haptic ontology”, a sign of a thought of relationality, interdependence and “sexistencial vulnerability” that connotes the bodies in contact that we all are. but nancy goes so far as to elaborate a “trans-ontology” through which the “r-existence (resistance) of sexistence” is manifested, that is to say that stubborn rejection of distinct and different bodies to the homologation and uniformity of the identical and of the identity shared by “trans-feminism” which makes its strong point of the inexhaustible combinatorics of the sexes. thus, both for the sexistencial approach and for the transfeminist one, at the heart of every theory are the lives and practices of distinct and different sexual bodies in relation. keywords: body; haptic ontology; jean-luc nancy; sexistence. 1. for a philosophy of sexual existence insofar as a man exists, he is, insofar as he exists, already transposed into other men, even if in fact there are no other men in the vicinity. to be there of man, to be there in man means therefore – not exclusively, but among other things – to be transposed into other men. to be able to transpose onehttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-recc francesca r. recchia luciani elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 86 self into other men as to compete with them, with being-ness in them, has always been the case by virtue of man’s being-ness – as being-ness. in fact, to be there means: to be with others, and precisely in the manner of being there, that is, of existing with. (heidegger, 1992, p. 265) the “being-with-others” is for heidegger the foundation of a philosophy of “being-with”, in fact, after this passage, he makes it explicit and precise: “‘being-with’ [mit-sein mit] belongs to the essence of man’s existence, that is, of each one as an individual” (heidegger, 1992, pp. 265-266). this peculiar inclination of dasein, the heideggerian “being-there”, declined according to the instances of the “formation of the world” and of the porosity, indeed of the “penetrability” that characterizes human experience as the “continuous growth of what man relates to” (heidegger, 1992, p. 251), is the distinguishing mark with respect to the “formation of the world”. also is the distinguishing mark with respect to the animal, since the human being appears marked by the ontological relationality of “beingthere” in its constitutive link with other human and non-human alterities and with the “world”. co-ontology, or “ontology of the with”, which jean-luc nancy has placed at the center of his reflection, focusing on the existential praxis that involves humans, decentralizes this “being-with” with respect to the metaphysical order: in a certain sense, the onto-theoretical fundamentalism of the second heidegger had condemned it. such a shift of co-ontology along with the inclined plane of the lived life, which is concrete, acted by the human-beings-in-relationship that cohabits the social space is the philosophical figure of nancy’s most recent reflections: this involves a decisive shift, full of consequences, from the metaphysical plane to the physical-existential one, just in the sign of a porosity and penetrability of the “being-with”. this move is the keystone of sexistence, an essay published in france in 2017 and in italian translation two years later (nancy, 2019), which develops along a trajectory in clear continuity with nancy’s deconstructive positions on the body (nancy, 1995) and love (nancy, 1992, 2009a e 2009b); which are particularly relevant and innovative in the context of contemporary thought insofar as they represent a further piece of a thought that thinks ontologically about human relationships in their concrete factuality, in their giving themselves in the lived life of each and all as an experience of “with”: with-living, with-being. thinking about sex as an existential fact boldly pushes itself to the elaboration of a sexual ontology (apter, 2019) that takes seriously the “singular plural” erotic vulnerability that human beings experience in their existence. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 87 in this book, the precise and insistent propensity to investigate the “being” of sex precisely as a relationship that invests, crosses and touches living beings in the course of their time shared with others, restores philosophical dignity to an object as central to human experience as it has been neglected by traditional theoretical thought. sex here, understood as experienced and practiced by the “singular plural being” that we are, in the existential pragmatics that marks the experience of each through the relational openness that builds every identity from its encounter with otherness, does not suddenly appear in the thought of the strasbourg philosopher. it progressively becomes a relevant object of investigation starting from some not negligible interweaving with the centrality of touch and concontact in nancy’s thought, a real leitmotif of a philosophy centered on the body and on its worldly and existential disposition. to the point that, reread through the lens of a reflection all hinged on the “being-with” and on the “in-common” (nancy, 2001), the body, the touch, the experience of the body and the experience of the communal, touching, sex are nothing but protrusions, sharp reliefs that punctuate and enliven a conceptual map that is the result of a long philosophical militancy marked by an authentic haptic ontology. a marking figure of a thought of relationality, interdependence, erotic vulnerability with respect to the being-with-others/and that constitutes the singular plural being-ness that we are. with respect to her previous reflections on the body and on love, sexistence (nancy, 2019b) is equivalent to a further stage of a thought that travels far and wide, while maintaining the tension between phenomenology and ontology, the territory of “sex” not as a mere object of theoretical speculation, but rather as an event that owes its importance in human life to being practiced, lived, experienced and performed. the theme does not appear in nancy’s bibliography unexpectedly, in fact, the essay dedicated to sexistence is preceded by some relevant reflections that find considerable space in various texts scattered in a long theoretical path marked by the philosophical commitment aimed at understanding the dynamics of the most intimate relationality (from il c’è del rapporto sessuale to la nascita dei seni, to the collection del sesso, up to the interview granted to a. van reeth published under the title la jouissance). a signpost on this journey is the irreducible protagonism of sex in the lived experience of living beings, a centrality that returns to be reaffirmed in the 2017 book precisely because the sexistential lens (sex understood precisely as an essential event of existence) allows the transcendence and overcoming of both its biological reduction in function of the reproduction of the species, as well as of the sociological: this limits itself to appreciating exclusively the quality of instituting social gender roles, but also of the https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesca r. recchia luciani elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 88 psychoand sexist one that considers its specificity in the constitution of the subjective, bodily and psychic individuality on a conscious and unconscious level. nancy’s intention is clear and wants to make sex a contemporary object of philosophical thought, bringing into play a sexual ontology that fully assumes the value of existential fact, irreducible to disciplinary epistemologies or scientistic approaches, in the awareness that sexual relationships change and transform historically, just as they produce mutations and transformations at the level of individual and collective histories. sexual relations are, in fact, actively transformable, transformed and transformative, the object and subject of radical alterations and changes in the “i”, the “we”, and the “with”. in the articulation of the philosophy of sexed existence that animates, runs through and strikes sexistence (nancy, 2019b), nancy’s successful attempt to think of sex as a fundamental and inalienable category of the very thinkability in a holistic, complex and multifaceted key of the human being-in-the-world as being-with opens new perspectives of meaning that can be declined by understanding sexism as a form of r-existence. on this side, such a vision, inevitably crossing the conceptual and pragmatic outcomes of historical feminism, which has posed a priori and with unprecedented radicality the question of the embodied body as a sexed and sexual body, opens up to an irremediable question regarding the connections that, as a fertile contemporary perspective, an anthropology hinged on sexism can have with the current gender, transfeminist and queer (bernini, 2017) philosophies. nancy’s perspective, however, with respect to this acquired kinship with feminism, on one hand centered on the sexed body, on the other on the performative dimension that directly invests it and on which both insist, is distant from it: as apter has pointed out, it does not imply an explicitly political position, even though its assumption is in fact political (recchia luciani, 2019); in fact, while it is true that “sexistence deals with bodies in pleasure rather than with bodies demonstrating to demand justice in the streets” and moreover “touches only superficially on the long history of the debate on sexual difference”, “this does not mean that sexistence is not political. it contains a politics of recognition – of difference as such” (apter, 2019). recognizing the radical difference of the other is a possibility opened up by sex in its making and unmaking between acting subjects, in the performative dimension that upsets and overwhelms them, that opens up the otherness of the other’s body to the unexpectedness of a recognition that is given in carnal contact. the body reveals here, precisely in the circumstances of the sexual encounter, its multiple characteristics, forcing us to abandon the corporeal signifier in order to question ourselves on the https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 89 meaning of the body in itself and for itself, on its plural singularity, on the sense of acting-with that crosses it and that shakes it, shakes it, moves it, gives it a performative/transformative action that radiates towards the whole of existence. what is more common than bodies? “community” means first and foremost the naked exposure of equal, banal, evidence that suffers, that enjoys, that trembles. (nancy, 1995, p. 42) being is singular and plural at the same time, indistinctly and distinctly. it is singularly plural and plurally singular. (nancy, 2001, p. 43) we are the one-the one for the other-the other-each in ourselves and in the other, for ourselves and for the other, through ourselves and through the other. neither solitude nor fusion, or one as the other: never so much alone as reunited, confused, indistinctly distinct. (nancy, 2019, p. 97) the singular and plural being of bodies in contact is the beating heart of nancy’s tactile and sexistential ontology, a singular plural sexuality that is beyond any obvious duality or banal binarism, beyond any supposed essentialism of sexual difference as such. for this reason, nancy’s move to overturn lacan’s assumption according to which “there is no sexual relationship” by concentrating, on the contrary, precisely on the instance of meaning and on the ontological consistency of that “there is”, and thus vigorously asserting that “there is” (nancy, 2007, 2013) is not a sexual relationship. and thus vigorously asserting not only the phenomenological reality of sex, but also its powerfully pragmatic, relational and anthropologically performative/transformative dimension, shows deep affinities, all to be investigated, with the radically feminist and then queer approach that focuses on the body that performs and on sex acted out as con-being the very meaning of its own reflection and action, political and theoretical at the same time. this is why the interweaving between these theories and positions and the co-ontological posture of the strasbourg philosopher is so fruitful. in his capital text being singular plural, he has elaborated the idea of an institutive “being-with” that binds and connects human beings, generating the “we” and giving life to an irreducible dimension of singular plural con-being. that being is, absolutely, being-with: this is what we must think. with is the first trait of being, the trait of the singular plurality of the origin or origins in it. […] the “with” remains between us and we remain between us: nothing but us, but nothing but an interval between us. (nancy, 2019, pp. 26-27) the recourse to “being”, here understood in the radicality of a being-incommon, that is, of a being-with, takes place in the sphere of practiced https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesca r. recchia luciani elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 90 and performed sexuality, which is the object of sexistence, mobilizing on the philosophical level, as emily apter has noted, “a theory of sexual ontology”, insofar as that text is, more or less explicitly, dedicated to recording “the ‘happening’ of ‘being’ in sexual acts” (apter, 2019). and the kind of “being” which is given, that happens in sexual intercourse is originally, ontologically, constitutively the being-with, or the with-being of a we without which the being of sex neither gives itself nor happens. the sense of a performative inter-relationship that constitutes us as loving subjects, in the very act of making love. “sex is an abyss and a violence: through the latter, which we undergo, we fall into the former, where we understand nothing” (nancy, 2016). paraphrasing kant, nancy describes in this way the acceleration imposed by the uncontrollable and unmotivated drive that pushes individual entities to face each other and unite in the common space/interval, to meet on the ground of the “with”, to share in the expansion of an “us” the primordial condition of being singular plural. sex happens as the dense and intimate form of a relationality that is built starting from the “incommune” that it implies, in that area of contiguity and sharing, in that common place, where the “we” actively but transiently inhabits. there, the relationship takes place in the form of an unreconcilable dialectical tension between interiority and exteriority, which is the distinguishing feature of practiced, inter-acted sex, itself a territory of interconnection and exchange; an (erogenous) zone of the innumerable possible variants of sexual relations (beyond and beyond every possible genre), in which those acts occur under the species of an oscillation between i and we, between inside and outside, between an inside and an outside, always on the threshold of the other’s otherness. nancy writes: “touching the limit, that’s the question of relationship” (nancy, 2016, p. 40) – in this fulminating phrase, two philosophical objects capital in the reflection we are going through are condensed, as in the fusion point: touching and relationality. but nancy goes even further and adds immediately afterwards, “and also that of touching as such, and sexual intercourse is the epiphany of touching: of kissing, of making love” (nancy, 2016, p. 40). this interweaving, with its palindromic nexuses, of relationship and touch, indelibly marks the all-bodily experience of con-being with other(s), materializing the carnal thickness of the haptic ontology within which sexuality is placed as one of the limits, one of the thresholds to which we tend, that flux, that flow in which relationship becomes motion and transport in the dynamic tension of desire. why, then, sexistence? why a neologism to say what has always pushed (a drive, an impulse, a momentum) human beings towards the https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 91 “we” of “with”, of relationship, of relation? what does that peculiar kind of rap-port “bring”? nancy answers: “never therefore a support, at the most a transport: the relationship is supported only on its transport” (nancy, 2013, p. 27). what is implied by this is that action, in that special type of rel-action, is above all a movement, a motion “from” and “to” a place; it is the action of bodies that are acting, active, moved; it is the performance (nancy, 2016, p. 18; nancy, 2017, p. 14), the performative of coming into contact, of touching and touching. it is good to specify, however, with nancy, that the performative element of making love is analogous to sexual performance only and exclusively with respect to a “doing”, that is, to an act or a work that induces one to try “to think and to say in some way the actuality of this act”; it is this last phrase that describes with a certain accuracy the central argument of sexistence, that is, to think and say sex in its making. even when the action in the sexual relationship is only co-action to repeat, conditioned reflex, stagnation of the gesture that replicates incessantly, it consists in a movement of bodies and between bodies. the space of between is an area of tra(n)-site, it inaugurates each time a tra(n)-section – and a tra(n)-sation: the between becomes trans – that is, in the interval between the bodies one can already in (tra)vidify their meeting, the exchange, the union, the overlapping and the tra-sposition, that tra(s)port that animates and gives life to the rap-port. in this sense, then, bodies “gendered”, and their genderedness is revealed through “distinction” (nancy writes: relationship “is the distinguishing”, the “opening up of the between-two through which there is two” [nancy, 2013, pp. 24-25]) and through “difference” (in nancy’s words, “the difference of the sexes” [is] “the difference of sex, insofar as it differs from itself ” in its “relating” or again in the “ajar of the between, of the ‘between us’ or intimacy: the sex that differs is the spacing of intimacy. intimacy is the superlative of interiority” [nancy, 2013, pp. 31-32]). sexistence is therefore between the self ’s descent, between the self and an outside that estranges it from itself, spacing between interior and exterior, between inside and outside. the connection of meaning between sex (a “violence” that drags in the “abyss”) and existence (“existence exists in the plural, it is singularly plural” [nancy, 2001, p. 79]), which can be given only in their intertwining and reciprocal referral, remains unspeakable and indescribable otherwise than as sexuality, that is, as the declination of a philosophical eroticism that articulates and unravels an ontology of desire, a philosophy that takes charge and focuses on sexual existence. nancy’s theoretical gesture is clear and decisive: the sexist questioning forcefully poses the ontological question of, about, around sex as a relational experience of con-being on the part of distinct https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesca r. recchia luciani elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 92 and different bodies that tra(n)sit towards the event that inaugurates for them an active contiguity, a becoming proximity in the space-time of the encounter and the con-contact, in an “incommune” in which being coincides with singular plural sexism. nancy loves playing with words, dissecting and connecting, in order to put them in tension, creating resonance between them, echoes of meaning, and the jeu de mots that sums up sexiness is this: “i = sex. i s’it, you s’they, we sexist” (“je = sexe. je s’exe, tus’exes, nous sexistons”). a whole “alchemy precedes this complex montage” (nancy, 2019, p. 47). much more than a mere calembour, this combination re-takes, that is, re-takes, rap-takes, tra(ns)-takes and tra(ns)-duces (echoing here yet another transition) the intimate pulsation (its internal rhythm) that is needed to conjugate, à la nancy, the newly coined verb s’exister (in italian “s’esistere” – or also, slightly unfaithful but more evocative, “s’es(s)istere”). this is how thinking and philosophically speaking about sex lays bare, in the game of references and cross-references to words and deeds, the sexistential vulnerability that connotes us as human beings: bodies in contact that in the exposure to the otherness of others, in which each and every one of us experiences the epiphanic giving of the touch of the relationship, come to touch the intangible limit of the other. 2. trans-ontologies in the multi-sexual juncture in which we wander, it is an ontology in transit that takes the stage (“primary”, freud would say here); almost a conceptual oxymoron since it denies and disavows itself by failing and disowning in itself the very stability presumed and claimed by every ontology. in fact, an ontology in transit, or that transits by becoming transitology is already a post-ontology, an ontology that has gone beyond itself in the systematic rejection and reversal of its own stabilization/essentialisation, in an unconditional acceptance of its own status of transit, movement and crossing, which contrasts ab origine and semel pro semper the static vocation, understood as immobile stability and identical to itself, of traditional ontology. can there be, then, an ontology disseminated, dislocated and dynamic? the greek δύναμις is equivalent to “force”, active energy, and such a trans-ontology in the field of genderedness seems to correspond to what the “poet, feminist, black, mother, warrior, lesbian” audre lorde calls “erotic power”, unstably placed – she writes – “between the beginning of our sense of self and the chaos of our deepest feeling” (lorde, 2014, p. 129) a “reserve of strength”, of self-renewing joy, because when it has been expehttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 93 rienced once, it wants and knows how to re-initiate itself, relaunch itself, reiterate itself as a force of con-division. it is on this metamorphosing, transformative and instituting erotic power of new relationships, each time engaged and put into action by sex, that a first decisive encounter takes place between nancy’s dynamic ontology or sexual “trans-ontology” and the “erotic power” declined in the vocabulary of audre lorde’s intersectional feminism. on this possible parallelism is played the possibility of adopting the sexist view as a hermeneutic option and conceptual key also for the contemporary trans-feminism and intersectional feminism r-existence. in sexistence (nancy, 2019b), on the other hand, a theoretical approach is clearly explained that thinking about sex with the “value of an existential” gives it a sense (in the double meaning of meaning and perceptual apparatus) that invests everyone, no one excluded, indeed it includes, through them, the hetero-sex as the homo-sex, the trans-sex as the poly-sex, precisely because it transcends the genders and the subjects themselves involved in the sexual relationship and looks only at the bodies in the performativity (in turn scattered, dissociated, divided, dispersed) of being-with and of the “incommune”, however transitory and regardless of any orientation, regardless of its sense or lack of sense. this difference from oneself, this dissemination and demultiplication of sex constitutes the deepest and most difficult lesson of the study of gender. (nancy, 2019, p. v) remember what freud says: there is feminine and masculine in each individual, biologically and socially determined. this coexistence of feminine and masculine in each person, should not be thought of as two chromosomes against each other, but as an interrelationship, as a complexity itself infinite. (nancy & van reeth, 2014, pp. 38-38) at stake here is rather a trans-sex as a crossing of sex and the meaning of sex, whose vital thrust pulses beyond identity, gender, orientation, sexual preferences, practices and erotic tastes. this path, which connects genderedness to feminist experiences of r-existence (lonzi’s, lorde’s, butler’s and preciado’s, for example) points out not insignificant affinities – first of all, the centrality of the gendered body – between the most recent feminist orientations (post-binary, trans-gender, gender-fluid, non-heteronormative) and nancy’s position with respect to sexual ontology and its purely performative dimension. significant points of overlapping and similarity are found in the common propensity to distance from any metaphysical hypostatization, including heteronormative and exclusionary binarism, and to philosophically take charge of sexual practice; since the set of those radically liberating experiences that involve embodied and desiring bodies https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesca r. recchia luciani elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 94 in rel-actions whose characteristic is the growth and accumulation of transformative and revolutionary “erotic power”. sex is thought of both by feminism (think at least of carla lonzi’s “clitoral woman” [lonzi, 1972], anne koedt’s [koedt, 1970] considerations of the “myth of the vaginal orgasm” and, much more recently, paul b. preciado’s [preciado, 2018] ideas about the orgasmic revolution and “anal terror”) and by nancy of sexistence primarily and substantially as a doing, a performance, a relational experience of ontological/existential con-division, of spacing between con-tiguous bodies that experience individually and together, in contingency or continuity; in con-tact and distancing, the inside/outside of their inhabiting, positioning and dislocation in the world according to their desire. orientation, positioning, direction, spacing and movement open up to a geometric and geographical representation of the phenomenological object of the sexual transitology; what comes to be drawn is a fluid map in which the crowded landscape of dense, fleshy bodies witnesses their mutual tangency, the variations of touching and con-contact and the infinite possible intersections as well as transitions, crossings, encounters, interlockings, an infinite “dissemination” (to quote derrida) of desire. another affinity between r-existing trans-feminism and s-e(s)sistenttransontology lies in the reference to that ontological vulnerability which, intrinsic to the open and relational nature of the singular plural body, shows it for what it is – a place that can be travelled over, crossed and traversed. but not in the sense of impoverishing, debilitating a “social vulnerability” (so often noted and focused on by j. butler), but rather as a perspective of availability to the intersection that consists precisely in preparing for the encounter with the body of others, or the intimacy of crossing and being crossed / / and. in the infinitely “disseminated” unfolding of sex as a relationship of “opening to the world”, the body undertakes the search for an unattainable exteriority otherwise than through rel-action – it is the only possible action of escape from the self and from its own. it is in this closure of the experiential universe of the self to every possible variable, to every a-going intersection, to every possible nuance of con-being that the flesh becomes vulnerable, takes the risk of intimacy with the otherness of the other’s body, of the mutual exposure of nudity, of the double con-contact of touching that touches and is touched, to a tactile and haptic experience of shared desire. in this expansion, sexistential vulnerability comes into play in sexual performativity, taking on the risk of eros, love, pleasure, and jouissance (žižek, 2001) – trans-ontological, relational, and intersectional vulnerability that, in unfolding in the union of singular plural bodies – separate, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 95 distinct, and different – in sexual action, creates the conditions of their spacing, within and beyond every possible encounter, within and beyond every plausible distance and detachment. intersectionality is then also a method, a theoretical aptitude that considers and assumes bodies starting from their carnal thickness, from their performative materiality, from their unrepeatable uniqueness and from their reciprocal inter-actions through which metamorphoses and transforms subjects, rel-actions and the world. intersectional sexuality is connoted, therefore, both as a relational ontology realized in acted and performed sexuality, “erotic power” that is triggered between bodies through sex and enjoyment (nancy & van reeth, 2014), as a social fact and socially relevant that impacts on the human world by modifying it. it is yet confirmed, in this way, an element already pointed out by freud, also later by over fifty years of feminism, as well as by foucault’s monumental project, unfortunately unfinished, on the history of sexuality, that is, the sex practiced among living beings is not a private fact. in other words, that sex practiced among living beings is not a private, intra-subjective and individual fact, but, on the contrary, a very important and influential social and political (bernini, 2017) event that indelibly marks community practices, transforming and altering them over time, as well as group interactions, collective ways of acting, precisely because it is an integral part of the shared public sphere. in this sense, the “incommune” of sex is the “incommune” of the community 1. that same powerful tra(n)sformative element, powerful matrix/motor of what in the words of audre lorde is the “erotic as power”, is specifically equivalent to what sexual acts, exchanges and customs, radically changing over time, especially as social practices put into being, constituting themselves as a specific revolutionary sphere, both individually and collectively (for example, being more or less stigmatized and censored, more or less accepted and legitimized), depending on the historical periods (here, too, the historical foucault of sexuality remains the cornerstone of a reinterpretation of the entire social organism sub specie sexualis). the socially relevant element of sexuality, addressed by both psychoanalysis and feminism since the “second wave” of the sixties and seventies, in europe and the u.s., was also articulated around a deep awareness of the diversity of drives and desires that drive different subjectivities to sexual encounters, to the point that, in a certain sense, it can be said that the philosophical, anthropological and political claim of “sexual difference” (starting with 1 i am infinitely grateful to jean-luc nancy for discussing this issue with me at length while we were revising together the italian translation of sexistence (nancy, 2019b). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesca r. recchia luciani elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 96 irigaray [irigaray, 1985]) corresponded to a sexual revolution that invested the female body, also thanks to the diffusion of contraceptives and legally recognized and protected abortion practices. in a changed cultural climate we understand how the feminist discovery of the “clitoral woman” by carla lonzi (lonzi, 1972; malabou, 2020) has played a decisive role, making explicit the paradigm that has imposed universally that rigid norm, all male, of sex and pleasure that has entailed the millenary patriarchal deprivation/oppression/negation of female sexuality, basing it on its identification exclusively with the reproductive sphere, which has deprived women of the possibility of experiencing the free power of sex as a decisive experience of self-determination and “empowerment”. in more recent times, yet at the heart of the feminist “third wave”, butler’s “performativity of gender”, which constitutes the definitive abandonment of sex as a category of belonging, triggers an ontological turbulence that reflects the relational vulnerability of human beings, allowing a definitive overcoming of the essentialism of sexual difference, with all its associated limitations. butler in deconstructing feminist thought by denaturalizing the notions of male/female gender intends to deconstruct from inside the patriarchal phallologocentric power system, facilitating a proliferation, a dissemination of gender identities that disarticulates subjectivity by opening it to a potentially infinite range of sexual, social, political, discursive choices, etc. homosexuality is, in this logical-political context, a decisive piece of this deconstruction of gender, starting from its alleged biological bases, as well as binarisms and dichotomies typical of the western logos that accompany all the traditional narratives regulating sexuality (butler, 2004, 2006, 2011). in this complex critical horizon, the philosophical task today is also that of thinking about sex and the vigorous drive energy that it conveys, capable of transforming all of existence with its power, inducing those experiences of metamorphosis that, by crossing separate and distinct individual bodies (their surfaces, their folds, their orifices), open up the possibility of new experiences of co-division, new declinations of human life as sexuality. a condition that is beyond, then, the difference or – better – the sexual differences at work in the constitution of subjectivities (undifferentiated entities constitutively political), and that invests instead, with the burning magma of an incandescent desire and an engendered and irrepressible drive, the individual bodies – unique, unrepeatable, scattered and different, in their plural pluriversal singularity. here, embodied and vulnerable bodies are caught in the original, primordial, founding experience of “being-incommon” – when beyond and beyond the endiad interiority/exteriority we reach the common place of intimacy, that making/taking of enjoyment, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 97 in the pleasure of contact and exchange, in the very act of breaking the monadic envelope to meet the split that breaks forever the atomized singularity and founds the dawn of a community. trans-ontology and trans-feminism – as 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(2001). il godimento come fattore politico. raffaello cortina editore. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://www. uniba. it/ricerca/centri-interdipartimentali/cultura-di-genere/immagini/indicefascicolo https://www. uniba. it/ricerca/centri-interdipartimentali/cultura-di-genere/immagini/indicefascicolo https://www. uniba. it/ricerca/centri-interdipartimentali/cultura-di-genere/immagini/indicefascicolo the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 99 riassunto nella più tarda produzione filosofica di jean-luc nancy occupa uno spazio rilevante la “filosofia dell’esistenza sessuata” come modalità di espressione del “con-essere”, centrale nel suo libro “sessistenza”. in questo testo, il corpo, il toccare, il sesso sono sporgenze che costellano una mappa concettuale frutto di una lunga militanza filosofica contrassegnata da un’autentica “ontologia aptica”, cifra segnante di un pensiero della relazionalità, dell’interdipendenza, della “vulnerabilità sessistenziale”, che connota i “corpi in contatto” che tutti e tutte siamo. ma nancy si spinge sino ad elaborare una “trans-ontologia” attraverso cui si manifesta la “r-esistenza della sessistenza”, vale a dire quel rifiuto caparbio dei corpi distinti e differenti all’omologazione e all’uniformità dell’identico e dell’identitario condiviso dal “trans-femminismo” che della combinatoria inesauribile dei sessi fa il proprio punto di forza. così, tanto per l’approccio sessistenziale che per quello transfemminista, al cuore di ogni teoria vi sono le vite e le pratiche di corpi sessuati distinti e differenti in rel-azione. copyright (©) 2021 francesca r. recchia luciani editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: recchia luciani, f. r. (2021). the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 85-99. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-recc https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-recc elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 43 the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don jacques t. godbout institut national de la recherche scientifique, university of québec (canada) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-godj jacques.godbout@inrs.ca abstract the author rereads mauss’ “essay on the gift” to focus on the essential differences between the archaic gift and the modern gift, the first of which is the separation between people and things. in fact, if in so-called primitive societies the gift is a “total welfare” (religious, economic, social, political), in modern societies the circulation of things becomes autonomous and we find the gift in the sphere of primary ties and, only partially, in those of the market and the state. the paradox of the gift, which mauss emphasises, is its being a mélange of obligation and freedom: why do we in turn give when we receive something as a gift? this aspect – reciprocating the thing received – in māori society is referred to as “hau” and contains the identity of the giver: the gift encloses, in a way, the self of the giver. for mauss, even in modern society, presenting something to someone implies presenting something of the self. even when it comes to the gift between strangers, such as the gift of blood or the gift of organs, it expresses the social identity of the giver and the recipient, since it can be perceived as society’s recognition of a general gift or of the recipient’s belonging to this society. keywords: gift as a link between people; gift as freedom and obligation; gift as positive indebtedness; gift as total social fact. how can we think about the gift today? two models seem radically opposed: that of the archaic gift and that of the modern gift. for many authors, mauss’ thinking on the gift applies to archaic societies, it cannot be used to understand giving in our own. it is true that in his seminal essay, first published in 1924, he writes: “we believe we have found one of the human foundations on which our societies are built…” (mauss, 1990, elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-godj mailto:jacques.godbout@inrs.ca https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jacques t. godbout 44 p. 42). but this is a conclusion most authors reject. as goux says: “one cannot jump from potlatch to social security so blithely” (goux, 2000, p. 283). “mauss wants to extend his observations to our own societies, as if they were two manifestations of a single phenomenon, or at least of the same order. mauss is blinded by his discovery” (piron, 2002, p. 134). the archaic gift is obligatory and reciprocal, the modern gift, free and unilateral; “anonymous and impersonal” adds titmuss in his renowned work on blood donation (titmuss, 1972). the argument goes that early societies relied on coercion to make their society work: they forced their members to give. how can we possibly apply a forced donation such as this to our society, the solidarity of which, in durkheim’s words (tarot, 1999), is “organic”, where freedom to act plays a larger part? this is what is at stake in the passage from archaic to modern giving. when we think of giving in society today, we spontaneously bring to mind a particular type of gift: philanthropic, humanitarian. the gift is defined as free in the sense of requiring no reciprocity: “what one gives to someone without receiving anything in return”, says le petit robert dictionary. this way of seeing the gift is opposed to the dominant view in the social sciences, where it is reduced to aelf-interested exchange, tending towards equivalence; unilateral gift on the one hand, exchange tending towards equivalence on the other. let us note that these two positions, while opposed, nevertheless share a common trait: definition of the gift as a comparison of what circulates between the donor and recipient. these are the two simplistic approaches that – until recently – have characterized donation. the last fifteen years have seen a change. for the first time, the word “gift” has appeared as an entry in the dictionnaire de sociologie (boudon et al., 1999). and in an article by alain testart it is defined in the following way: it is the legal aspect that allows us to distinguish the two phenomena [gift and exchange]: the right to demand a counterpart/return characterizes the exchange and is missing in the gift. to give is therefore to deprive oneself of the right to demand something in return. (boudon et al., 1999, p. 68) this definition conceptualizes the gift in a way that distinguishes it from the two simple approaches – the common understanding and that of the social sciences. crucially, it fails to assert that there is no return (the common conception), and it also fails to assert that the return is equivalent (the social science conception). this definition, in other words, fails to make any statement at all about actual return. return is not its starting point. as a consequence, the gift is no longer defined by the terms of the previous definitions, i.e. simply that which circulates. because from the elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 45 moment we acknowledge that we voluntarily deprive ourselves of the right to return, we cease to define the gift by the fact that there is, or is not, a return. and we take into account its relationship with the social bond. we recognize that giving is influenced by the nature and intensity of that bond between giver and receiver. we define ourselves by our ties, and the more intense the bond the more of it circulates through the gift. it is possible to establish certain relationships between what circulates, and the nature and intensity of the bond, by examining the meaning of what is in circulation. this is what many authors have done, sahlins as the best known: “the social gap between the parties conditions the mode of exchange” (sahlins, 1976). this general rule establishes a relationship between the bond and that which is in circulation. note that denying the right to return does not mean that there will be no return. there may or may not be one. the essential point is that the gift is no longer defined by this criterion. it is certainly a negative approach: to deprive oneself, to voluntarily renounce. but it is not difficult to turn it around; for if there is no requirement of return, if there is no right to return, we can deduce that any return will be free, in the sense that it will not be made by virtue of an obligation, contracted by the recipient. we could therefore propose, starting from this definition, but using its complementary proposition, that giving makes the receiver free to give. or that giving is a form of circulation of things, a form of transfer that frees the partners from the contractual obligation to give something in exchange for receipt of something else. conversely, we could define the contract as the fact of depriving the other of the freedom to give. this reverses the usual way of posing the question: rather than asking why one gives, one asks why it might be good to deprive the other of their freedom to give. with such a definition, we take the gift gesture away from a contractual meaning, the commercial or legal. we move away from conceptions of giving that are extreme but have in common with them the comparison of that which circulates. why is this fundamental? because this definition forces us to take into account the meaning of the gift; it opens the way to meanings that are multiple. the meaning of what circulates is no longer a given. it is to be discovered, even in cases where there is a return. with this definition, we break away from the dominant model explaining what circulates – the market – and can now penetrate to the heart of the phenomenon of the gift. it is an indispensable entry to the world of giving. and it is what allows us to think of the modern gift and the archaic gift in the same way. this is precisely what marcel mauss did in his essay on the gift. instead of simply observing and comparing what was flowing in one direcelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jacques t. godbout 46 tion and then the other, he asked himself the question of the meaning of the relationship between those who were giving. 1. mauss’ mixture this is the thesis i wish to put forward and it is a proposition that is far from obvious. for if we now return to mauss, we begin by getting a shock. such a conception seems to radically contradict the opening of the essay on the gift. in archaic societies, the gift, mauss says at the outset, is apparently free and disinterested, but in reality it is constrained and self-interested. mauss speaks of the “[…] apparently free and gratuitous, yet coerced and self-interested character of these services” (mauss, 1990, p. 147). and how does he demonstrate that the facts contradict appearances? by observing that there is, in fact, a return. in other words, mauss proceeds exactly as i have just tried to suggest that one ought not to! instead of focusing on the meaning of what circulates for the actors, he observes what circulates and concludes that since there is a return, the gift was self-interested. thus begins the essay. many authors stop their reading or their understanding of the text here. but one must continue, because it becomes clear that mauss allows himself to be immersed in and inf luenced by what he observes, and little by little, modifies his position. the further he gets into his investigation, the more he seeks to understand the gift’s meaning, the more he focuses on its spirit, its atmosphere. thus mauss says of the potlatch that it is: “noble, replete with etiquette and generosity; and, in any case, when it is made in another spirit, with a view to immediate gain, it becomes the object of very marked scorn” (mauss, 1990, p. 37). and then we notice that mauss, because he looks for the meaning of the gesture he observes, makes fewer and fewer oppositional comparisons between the constraint of the archaics and the freedom of the moderns. he modifies his theoretical conception. his questioning remains the same, but his quest shifts. its emphasis on the contrast of the ideal (pure gift; malinowski, 1989, p. 238) with the reality (the obligation to give) moves to a documentation of the mixture of both (obligation and freedom). this is shown in the formulas he uses to describe giving: “in disinterested and obligatory form at the same time” (mauss, 1990, p. 33), “obligation and freedom intermingled” (p. 65), “to go out of oneself, to give, freely and obligatorily” (p. 71). this displacement is fundamental because it constitutes the gift as a social fact. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 47 2. the gift as a social fact why is this so important? first, because, with his focus on obligation, mauss begins by breaking with pure giving and constitutes his object of study as a sociological phenomenon. as mary douglas notes, the notion of the pure unilateral gift: “puts the act of giving outside any mutual ties” (douglas, 1990, p. 7). mauss introduces obligation and interest: without these dimensions, the gift is an unrelated transfer, a non-social, individual act. any return, or even idea of return, signals its condemnation, its negation. such a gift… cannot exist: neither as an affective relationship nor as a moral experience. it represents at most an advertising gimmick, or the mystique of a narcissistic [and ultimately despotic] self-confirmation of its own selfsufficiency. (sequeri, 1999) but it is not only by introducing obligation, and opposing it to the pure gift, that mauss makes the gift a social fact. it is also by reintroducing freedom. for the gift as pure constraint is not a “complete” social fact either. human society is not a society of ants. in his essay, mauss gradually moves from the classical ethnological conception of the archaic gift as a determined compulsory system to one of freedom 1 or, more precisely, of obligation mixed with freedom. the gift becomes the expression of the symbolic nature of human communication (tarot, 1999). and there is no symbolism without freedom. in bringing this to light, mauss decompartmentalizes the archaic gift and makes possible a general reflection on the gift. mauss does not fall into the trap of reciprocity-equivalence on the one hand, pure gift on the other. he frees himself from the obsession with equivalence, in the short or long term, which often characterizes the study of the gift among ethnologists. mauss asserts that the return may not exist, and that this risk is, in fact, one of its necessary conditions: the gift is uncertain. this is why it seems to me that to make the obligation to return a necessity, as many readers have done in order to remain true to his point of departure, is to deny the spirit of the essay on the gift and the point at which mauss ends up. 1 i admit that mauss remains ambiguous. for example, on page 180, while he speaks of “determined partners in a determined sense” his description does not correspond to something determined, and he adds that we do not know the precise rules that guide it (mauss, 1990, p. 184), nor do we know the sanctions that would follow its contravention (p. 185). finally (p. 186), he speaks of uncertainty. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jacques t. godbout 48 3. mauss recognizes the differences but if mauss gradually leaves this initial opposition behind, it does not prevent him from recognizing the essential differences between archaic and modern giving. the most important, for him, is the appearance of the separation between people and things. we now live in societies that strongly distinguish […] persons and things. this separation is fundamental: it constitutes the very condition for a part of our system of property, transfer and exchange. but [this distinction] is foreign to the law we have just studied (i.e., that of archaic societies). (mauss, 1990, p. 47) this idea runs throughout his essay, as does the insight that the: “coming and going of souls and things that are all intermingled with one another” (mauss, 1990, p. 49) constitutes the fundamental explanation of the archaic gift, at the same time as it explains the primary difference between them and us. to get to modern society, we have passed from a system of “total welfare” or the unity of social spheres to the appearance of law or “rights” as a sphere unto itself. the dynamic established between the gift and law will become an essential element in the understanding of modern society and that which circulates within it. this difference explains the characteristics of the modern gift, and in particular, the fact that it is found principally in primary ties, even if it exists to some extent in the spheres of the market and the state. but these spheres have different regulating principles. this is how mauss invites us to think about the gift in its unity and its differences. systems of circulation of things, previously confused, have become autonomous. does this mean that the mixture of gift and rights, freedom and obligation, no longer exists? no, but it takes different forms, more obligatory here, freer elsewhere. the change leads to a higher degree of potential freedom overall, as the gift is not as closely involved with everything circulating in society. this reflection on the mixture of obligation and freedom will lead mauss to a key idea of the essay, that of the gift as an expression of social identity. how can we explain the force that leads one to give back when one has received? this is the question that mauss asked himself about the gift. and he answered it by way of the indigenous notion of hau, as presented by a māori sage, and which he interpreted as signifying a transfer of identity: “even when abandoned by the giver, [the thing received] is still something of him” (mauss, 1990, p. 12); “[…] to make a gift to someone is to make a present of some part of oneself ” (p. 12). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 49 4. the modern idea of “hau” this is the most controversial part of the essay and the one that has been most commented upon. “how can one give oneself through the gift of a thing?” wonders goux (2000, p. 267). “how can someone transpire in something?”. or again: “how can a finite thing… embody the being of the giver? there lies the mystery or the paradox of the gift. transpiration of the being in the having, presence and existence of other in the finished thing”. for many authors, the answer given by mauss is unacceptable, even scandalous. why does one give when one has received? because of the hau of the thing received, answers mauss, which contains the identity of the donor. many authors have proposed their own interpretation of the words of the māori sage, among the most famous, lévi-strauss (1950); firth (1959); sahlins (1976); godelier (1996). what was wrong with this great thinker, such a modern mind, asks firth (quoted by sahlins, 1997, pp. 206207)? does one need the involvement of spirits to explain the return of the gift, when the fear of sanction, the desire to receive again – in short, social control or interest – are sufficient to account for the phenomenon? for his part, lévi-strauss concluded that mauss had allowed himself to be entangled in the indigenous theory, rather than adopting the necessary scientific distance. since then, while recognizing mauss’ genius, those in his orbit never cease to return to the theory of the hau and mauss’ supposed error. thus, babadzan (1998) entitles his article pour en finir avec le hau (to put an end to the hau) and laments the fact that mauss believed in spirits. two questions spontaneously come to mind. first, how could a sociologist and anthropologist unanimously recognized as possessing such breadth and rigor have committed such an elementary error, one which mauss himself undoubtedly taught generations of students to avoid? and why, more than 70 years later, are we still motivated to comment on the passage so often if it is so obviously wrong? how have we not moved on? personally, i don’t know whether mauss was right to interpret the māori hau in this way. perhaps sahlins, or lévi-strauss, or firth, or some other author, is closer to what ranapari, the māori sage, really meant. but in any case, the answer to the question accounts neither for the popularity of the concept nor for the fact that it has appealed to so many authors (most recently iteanu, 2004). for my part, i am inclined to believe, with graeber, that: […] in his interpretation of the hau, mauss himself created a kind of myth, and as with all myths, mauss expresses something essential, something that would have been difficult to express otherwise. otherwise, his explanation would have been long forgotten. (graeber, 2001, p. 155) elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jacques t. godbout 50 mauss’ interpretation put his finger on a fundamental phenomenon, on a dimension of the gift that affects us all: that it affects the identity of the partners. this idea: “of the power that is given to the other contracting party by anything that has been in contact with the party proposing the contract” certainly belongs to the archaic world, since as mauss writes, it is: “a direct consequence of the spiritual character of the thing that is given” (mauss, 1990, p. 48). but far from being solely archaic, we find it surprisingly central to our current conception of the gift. “this vase, it is my aunt”, says an heiress while showing her apartment to anne gotman (gotman, 1989). and what do we find when we observe people who have been given a gift that is not in the least primitive, made possible by the latest refinements of modern medical technology: organ transplantation? it is the fear of losing one’s identity (godbout, 2000). more generally, it is the idea of “giving of oneself ” that is found at every turn in modern thinking on donation and which explains the danger than can accompany it, and why it is not always desirable. it is also the idea of recognition, which marcel hénaff tends to reserve for ceremonial giving (hénaff, 2002). often, in the gift, writes mauss about the brahmans: “the bond established between donor and recipient is too strong for both of them” (p. 59). this danger explains why it may be preferable to go through the market. money allows things to circulate without transporting the identity of the giver, as montaigne wrote when he exclaimed that he would rather buy a royal office than have it given to him, for: “by buying it, i give only money; otherwise, it is myself that i give” (quoted in davis, 2000, p. 74). when objects pass through the world of the gift, everything happens as though they still had a soul. and one can even wonder if, far from having been fooled by the indigenous interpretation as lévi-strauss believes, mauss did not, on the contrary, project a modern idea onto the archaic society. for this is a constant theme in writings on the gift in our society. rings and other jewelry are not real gifts but only pretend to be… the only present, the only gift is a fragment of yourself. it is a gift of your blood that you must give me. (emerson, 2000 [1844], p. 131) it is therefore worth taking seriously mauss’ most controversial theory. when objects pass through the gift, it is still as if they have a soul, even in societies that have relegated animism to those considered unor underdeveloped. mauss’ most controversial idea, the one closest to indigenous thought, according to lévi-strauss, joins the family of beliefs we call common sense. “after having cleared the indigenous theory, it was necessary to reduce it by an objective criticism that would allow it to reach the elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 51 underlying reality” (lévi-strauss, 1950, p. 38). but what is mauss’ underlying theory when he speaks of hau? what if it is the current theory of giving in our society (hénaff, 2002)? indeed, what is mauss saying? let us return to the beginning of the essay. he says there that what we observe in archaic societies takes the form of a gift, looks like a gift, but is not in fact a gift because it involves a return and an obligation to return (lévi-strauss, 1950, p. 3). to conclude that it is not a true gift, mauss refers to gratuity and disinterest, that is to say to the common conception of the gift in his own society. at the beginning, he radically opposes what one observes in archaic societies – the obliged return – to his reference conception – the true gift – the one not only with the form, but (because it is free and gratuitous) the reality of it. the observed gift has the form, the appearance of a true gift, but in actuality it is not one. thus for mauss the true gift must be free and disinterested. to say that it has only the form but not the reality, is at the same time to define the gift as free and gratuitous, to maintain this definition as a reference. this is his initial position. but gradually he ends up mixing the two, thus modifying both his theoretical conception and his interpretation of what he observes. what he observes is a mixture of freedom and obligation. in the essay, the moral foundation is shifted from the idea of free and gratuitous to one of transfer of identity through the hau: to the idea that a true gift is a gift of oneself. it is impossible not to recognize oneself in the maussian notion of the gift. this is why the idea of the hau has been so frequently commented upon: because it is ours. the essay constantly speaks of the “true gift”, the ideal gift, without saying so explicitly. contrary to lévi-strauss’ belief, the maussian conception of the hauis typically western, it is the idea of giving of oneself that spontaneously comes to the mind of the modern individual when one speaks to them of the gift. let us add that the model of circulation of the archaic gift developed by mauss, based on his three moments (to give, to receive, to return) is found nowhere, as such, in the societies he observed. even though it is certainly an eminently valid interpretation of what mauss (or more precisely the ethnologists read by mauss) observed, it corresponds to no actual representation of the behavior of early people. on the other hand, we do find it historically in western society, first of all in seneca “[…] a benefit is a service given by someone who would have been free, so it is just as well not to give it” (sénèque, 1972, p. 77); “there is no gift because it could not have been given” (caillé, 2000, p. 201). the model itself is therefore not indigenous, and probably reflects our own society’s preoccupation with the gift. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jacques t. godbout 52 5. identity and giving to strangers we find the same phenomenon when we look at the modern gift par excellence: the gift to strangers. the experience of donation by organ recipients cannot be explained by interest or fear of sanctions, but by the obligation to give back or risk, not only a transformation of one’s identity, but possibly even an attack from the donor’s identity (godbout, 2000). the tendency to personalize giving in philanthropy has also been noted, as silber points out: “[in philanthropy], far from being separated from the gift, the identity of the donor retains its imprint and remains attached to the gift” (silber, 1999, p. 143). in this regard, she quotes one of the greatest american philanthropists: it is neither expected nor desirable to find the principle of competition in the most judicious use of surplus wealth. what matters most to the trustee [donor] is the best use for him, for his heart must be in his work. (andrew carnegie, quoted in silber, 1999, p. 142; emphasis added) “[there exists] a deep connection between giving and the identity of the donor” (silber, 1999, p. 141; pulcini, 2001). radley and kennedy (1992) reach the same conclusion after comparing the philanthropic behaviors of three social groups (entrepreneurs, professionals, and workers): charitable giving reflects both the identity that donors ascribe to themselves as a group and the identity that they ascribe to recipients as a group. but aid for developing countries could equally highlight this phenomenon – with its negative dimensions. “even more than through the market, it is through unreturned gifts that dominated societies end up identifying with the west and losing their souls”, says economist serge latouche in l’occidentalisation du monde (latouche, 1992). giving, even between strangers, can reinforce or threaten the recipient’s identity. but what about blood donation, which titmuss considers characteristic of modern donation in his famous 1972 book? for titmuss, the two primary differences between modern and archaic donation are anonymity and the consequent fact that the donation does not create a personal bond, does not entail reciprocity: unlike gift exchange in traditional societies, there is in the free gift of blood to unnamed strangers no contract of custom, no legal bond, no functional determinism, no situations of discriminatory power, domination, constraint or compulsion, no sense of shame or guilt, no gratitude imperative and no need for the penitence of a chrysostom. (titmuss, 1972, p. 239) not only is this gift given to strangers, but it is even possible to believe, as the author points out, that if they knew each other: “both givers and elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 53 recipients might refuse to participate in the process on religious, ethnic, political or other grounds” (mauss, 1990, p. 74). titmuss contrasts mauss’ model of the tight community with what he calls “the community of strangers”. on the face of it, titmuss completely deconstructs mauss’ conception of donation by applying his schema to the modern donation of blood. but is blood donation representative of giving to strangers in modern society? on the contrary, couldn’t it be thought to represent an extreme case, where the manipulation of blood by intermediaries ends up transforming the gift into a product of some kind for the recipient, thus rendering “the gift of blood” incomplete, unable to be received as such? the donor gives, but the recipient receives, not a gift, but a product often broken down into its elements, which they would have great difficulty “identifying” with the donor. little research has been done on blood recipients, but a recent survey points in this direction. most of the recipients received it as just one product among others. “it’s part of a package with other medications”, said one interviewee (henrion, 2003). blood donation is exceptional (anderson & snow, 1994). in most other cases, as we have just seen, even when donors and recipients do not know and will never see each other, we observe in the donation to strangers the phenomena and characteristics specific to donation analyzed by mauss, and in particular the play of identity, positive or negative. and even in the case of blood, the phenomenon of personalization is not completely absent. in her survey, henrion encountered two cases (out of ten) where the phenomenon of identification with the donor occurred despite everything. “i am convinced that since the transfusion, i have been influenced in my evolution by this foreign body”, says an interviewee (henrion, 2003, p. 103). in addition, some types of blood product (platelets or leukocytes) are not sent to a blood bank, because they cannot be stored; they must go directly from the donor to the recipient even if they don’t know each other. in this case, the usual characteristics of donation are present, including: “an emotional relationship between the donor and the patient. if the patient dies from the disease, it may cause an emotional shock to the donor. the responsible institution will have to support the donor” (hagen, 1982, p. 42). this is why it seems that in general, and contrary to what titmuss asserts, donation to strangers also embodies social identity: that of the donor and that of the recipient. the specific characteristics of blood donation are readily explained by the fact that the recipient does not receive the blood as a gift. a māori concept, the hau, as interpreted by mauss, is also a modern concept. in our societies: “to make a gift to someone is to make a present of some part of oneself ” (mauss, 1990, p. 12). “to accept a gift is [at least elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jacques t. godbout 54 in part] to accept an identity, and to refuse a gift is to refuse a definition of oneself […]. gifts are one of the ways in which others convey to us the image they have of us” (schwartz, 1967, p. 8). giving, even between strangers, can reinforce or destroy the recipient’s identity. it is true that this threat can be mitigated by the presence of organizational intermediaries; this is a fundamental role in society. the function of these intermediaries is to depersonalize the donation, to anonymize the recipient and thus to reduce its harmful character in cases where the recipient considers themself incapable of giving in return. doctors attempt to do this in organ transplantation by hoping to convince the recipient to adopt a mechanistic model (a heart is only a pump, a liver is only a filter), which neutralizes the gift of life by turning it into an object. mauss’ fundamental distinction becomes relevant again here to an understanding of the workings of transplantation. the gift can then be seen as general and societal, as a recognition by that society of the recipient’s inclusion and belonging. 6. the postulate of donation the gift to strangers certainly constitutes the most important challenge for thinking about the gift in its most general form. but mauss’ question retains the whole of its meaning. even if it is easy to understand the force that pushes us to give when the link is personal, it nevertheless also pushes us to give to strangers, the fact that the push is increased when we are offered something, even something small, remains in part an enigma. this phenomenon, at the core of mauss’ essay, is still very much with us today. philanthropic organizations useit routinely, if not systematically. they accompany their request for a donation with a small symbolic gift. and it has been found to be very effective. the discussion of giving doesn’t end with the model of the obligatory and reciprocal (i.e. equivalent) ritual of early societies on one hand, and the pure and unilateral gift of the moderns on the other. on the contrary, it begins here. couldn’t there be a common source to all of these forms of giving, which we will one day better grasp, without erasing their differences? this is how we understand mauss, who ended up asking himself whether the gift, far from being archaic, wasn’t actually the “rock” of society, of any society. “we touch upon fundamentals” (mauss, 1990, p. 70). and didn’t the “need” to give come from the fact that we are all, in the beginning, in a state of debt, and isn’t our identity built by making active what we have received, by giving in turn? elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 55 references anderson, l., & snow, d. a. (1994). l’industrie du plasma. actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 104, 18-23. arrow, k. j. (1975). gifts and exchange. in e. s. phelps (ed.), altruism, morality and economic theory (pp. 13-28). new york: russell sage foundation. babadzan, a. (1998). pour en finir avec le hau. la revue du mauss, 12: plus réel que le réel, le symbolisme, 246-260. boudon, r., besnard, p., cherkaoui, m., & lécuyer, b. p. (1999). dictionnaire de sociologie. paris: larousse. caillé, a. (2000). l’anthropologie du don. paris: desclée de brower. davis, n. z. (2000). the gift in sixteenth-century france. madison, wi: university of wisconsin press. derrida, j. (1991). donner le temps. paris: galilée. douglas, m. (1990). foreword: no free gifts. in m. mauss, the gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies (pp. ix-xxiii). new york london: w. w. norton. emerson, r. w. 2000 (1844). dons et présents. dans r. w. emerson, la confiance en soi (pp. 129-135). paris: rivages poche. firth, r. (1959). economics of the new zealand maori. wellington: government printer. godbout, j. t. (2000). le don, la dette et l’identité. montreal paris: boréal la découverte (new ed. lormont: le bord de l’eau, 2013). godelier, m. (1996). l’énigme du don. paris: fayard. gotman, a. (1989). “le vase c’est ma tante”. de quelques propriétés des biens hérités. nouvelle revue d’ethnopsychiatrie, 14, 125-150. goux, j.-j. (2000). frivolité de la valeur. essai sur l’imaginaire du capitalisme. paris: blusson. graeber, d. (2001). toward an anthropological theory of value: the false coin of our own dreams. new york: palgrave. hagen, p. j. (1982). blood: gift or merchandise. towards an international blood policy. new york: alan r. liss inc. hénaff, m. (2002). le prix de la vérité. le don, l’argent, la philosophie. paris: seuil. henrion, a. (2003). l’énigme du don de sang. approche ethnographique d’un don entre inconnus. liège: université de liège, faculté de philosophie et lettres. iteanu, a. (2004). le hau entre rituel et échange. la revue du mauss, 23: de la reconnaissance. don, identité et estime de soi, 334-352. latouche, s. (1992). l’occidentalisation du monde. paris: la découverte. lévi-strauss, c. (1950). introduction à l’œuvre de marcel mauss. dans m. mauss, sociologie et anthropologie (pp. 9-52). paris: puf. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa jacques t. godbout 56 malinowski, b. (1989). les argonautes du pacifique occidental. paris: gallimard. mauss, m. (1950). essai sur le don. dans m. mauss, sociologie et anthropologie. paris: puf (quadrige). mauss, m. 1990 (1924). the gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. new york: w. w. norton. piron, s. (2002). une nouvelle morale du don. argument, 4(2), 132-137. pulcini, e. (2001). l’individuo senza passioni. individualismo moderno e perdita del legame sociale. torino: bollati boringhieri. radley, a., & kennedy, m. (1992). reflections upon charitable giving: a comparison of individuals from business, ‘manual’ and professional backgrounds. journal of community and applied social psychology, 2, 113-129. sahlins, m. (1976). âge de pierre, âge d’abondance. l’économie des sociétés primitives. paris: gallimard. schwartz, b. (1967). the social psychology of the gift. american journal of sociology, 73(1), 1-11. sénèque (1972). des bienfaits. paris: les belles lettres. sequeri, p. (1999). dono verticale e orizzontale. fra teologia, filosofia e antropologia. in g. gasparini (a cura di), il dono. tra etica e scienze sociali (pp. 107155). roma: edizioni lavoro. silber, i. (1999). modern philanthropy: reassessing the viability of a maussian perspective. in w. james & n. j. allen (eds.), marcel mauss: a centenary tribute (pp. 134-150). new york oxford: berghahn books. tarot, c. (1999). de durkheim à mauss, l’invention du symbolique. paris: la découverte (mauss). titmuss, r. (1972). the gift relationship: from human blood to social policy. new york: vintage books. riassunto l’autore rilegge il “saggio sul dono” di mauss per mettere a fuoco le differenze essenziali tra il dono arcaico e il dono moderno, la prima delle quali è la separazione tra le persone e le cose. infatti, se nelle società cosiddette primitive il dono è una “prestazione totale” (religiosa, economica, sociale, politica), nelle società moderne la circolazione delle cose diviene autonoma e ritroviamo il dono nella sfera dei legami primari e, solo in parte, in quelle del mercato e dello stato. il paradosso del dono, su cui mauss mette l’accento, è il suo essere un mélange di obbligazione e libertà: perché a nostra volta doniamo quando riceviamo qualcosa in dono? questo aspetto – ricambiare la cosa ricevuta – nella società māori viene denominato “hau” e contiene l’identità del donatore: il dono racchiude, in un certo qual modo, il sé del donatore. per mauss anche nella società moderna presenelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the enduring relevance of mauss’ “essai sur le don” 57 tare qualcosa a qualcuno implica presentare qualcosa di sé. anche quando si tratta del dono tra sconosciuti, come il dono del sangue o il dono di organi, esso esprime l’identità sociale del donatore e del ricevente, poiché può essere percepito come riconoscimento, da parte della società, di un dono generale o dell’appartenenza del ricevente a questa società. copyright (©) 2023 jacques t. godbout editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: godbout, j. t. (2023). the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 43-57. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-godj elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-godj https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization the gifted student: gifts and talents development 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 125 the gifted student: gifts and talents development roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-balo roberta.baldini@unifg.it maria.logrieco@unifg.it abstract the concept of giftedness has evolved significantly over time. today, it still lacks a singular and precise definition, but it is continually evolving. one notable model found in the literature is the differentiated model of giftedness and talent (dmgt) by gagné. this model appears to be a valid contribution to better understanding giftedness, the characteristics of gifted students and the problems related to these constructs. the article aims to highlight the characteristics of gifted students, underlining critical points and strengths in relation to the various contexts, specifically to the school context, and to gagné’s model (personal, scholastic, environmental and social), with a focus on future implications. keywords: development; education; gift; giftedness; high potential; learning; resources; school context; student gifted; talent. 1. introduction international statistics show that 5% of the population have high cognitive potential (iq score of 120 to 129) and about 2% are gifted (iq score of 130 and above). these statistics (fig. 1) highlight the importance of increasing knowledge and understanding of the concepts of giftedness and gifted students, especially in school settings. it is important to do this to properly recognize gifted children in order to adequately meet their educational needs. who are the plus-documented individuals? and what characteristics do they have? elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-balo mailto:roberta.baldini@unifg.it mailto:maria.logrieco@unifg.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco 126 figure 1. – gaussian curve of intelligence distribution. plus gifted individuals exhibit superior innate abilities, compared to the peer group; they are highly curious individuals who learn new learning faster than their peers; they are interested in a variety of subjects, often unrelated to their age; they have excellent observation and critical judgment; they exhibit good language and memorization skills; they show creativity and passion in performing many activities; they may exhibit marked emotionalism and perfectionism. these characteristics may be present all together or in part in gifted individuals; it is not possible to apply a one-sizefits-all label to gifted individuals. gifted students have many characteristics therefore which might allow them to be identified within a context such as a school, for example. these students do not always recognize their potential as a resource, and therefore the role of reference figures is crucial. in the school setting, the adult of reference is the teacher. it may be difficult for teachers to recognize the individual characteristics of the gifted individuals and thus understand the high potential of these children. often, the unique traits of these students may be misconstrued as negative attributes. at times, these students’ idiosyncrasies might be misconstrued as learning disabilities or neurodevelopmental disorders. to prevent such misjudgments, teachers should be trained to carefully and critically observe all students, identifying both their strengths and weaknesses. in addition, teachers should be properly prepared and trained to work with gifted pupils. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gifted student: gifts and talents development 127 they should be able to recognize the peculiarities of students in order to create specific and individualized instructional plans. an instructional plan for gifted students should include specially selected tools and strategies, for example tasks with various solutions, “open” tasks or creative homework. thus, the role of the teacher appears to be crucial in the development and enhancement of children’s and young people’s abilities, and even more so with gifted individuals. in conclusion, giftedness can be defined as a gift, a great resource for children and young people to exploit, while paying proper attention to the development of this gift. importantly, this high potential must be protected both from an individual’s perspective and within a group of individuals to prevent it from being wasted. 2. theoretical excursus of the gifted student the concept of giftedness has been analyzed and explored by many scholars and researchers over time. the earliest findings regarding the genius of individuals and individual characteristics such as intellect and innate abilities can be attributed to galton (1869); later hollingworth (1924) and terman (1925) put the focus on the high cognitive potential of gifted individuals, placing such individuals in restricted groups differentiated from the rest of the population. in the 1950s, witty revised the existing definitions, introducing the concept of performance in individuals with high potential; the scholar inserts the concept of performance in one with the high potential of gifted individuals. giftedness thus begins to have a broader and more multidimensional description. following these scholars, renzulli (1986; 2009), as a result of multiple researches on the topic, creates the three rings model for successful plusdotation, which is based on the three concepts: above-average intelligence, creativity, and commitment required in the task. the scholar explains the correlation between these issues, saying that possessing many skills in the absence of creativity and without the right commitment, cannot produce the desired results. this model, has been revisited and modified several times, as has gagné’s differentiated model of giftedness and talent (1993; 2009). the latter scholar defined gifted children as a small, restricted group of the population (10%) with marked abilities in the areas: intellectual, creative, social, perceptual and physical-motor, in relation to the environmental variables of different social contexts. the theoretical framework and definitions of plusdotation, influence the strategies and tools used to identify gifted individuals and, consequently, the shared criteria, which define the profile of a gifted individual. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco 128 as of the present, there is still no universally accepted definition of giftedness (carman, 2013), highlighting the ongoing debate and evolution of this concept 2.1.  differentiated model of giftedness and talent (dmgt) in the differentiated model of giftedness and talent, author gagné proposes a distinction between “plusdotation” and “talent”. the researcher defines plusdotation as a subject’s possession of innate abilities, or gifts, relative to the peer group. such gifts are present in the following domains: intellectual, creative, social-affective and sense-motor. the scholar then, defines talent as a process of systematic and progressive enhancement of innate abilities. such skills developed over time called competencies, are present in the following domains: scholastic, artistic, technological or sports (gagné, 2009). these descriptions provide insight into an additional concept: the process of talent development, which corresponds to the evolution of gifts into talents. development processes can take four different forms: maturation; informal learning; formal non-institutional learning; and formal institutional learning. figure 2. – differentiated model of giftedness and talent (gagné, 2009). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gifted student: gifts and talents development 129 according to this model then, plus-ability can be defined as the individual’s personal and innate aptitude that can evolve into talent through continuous exercise, skill enhancement and the intervention of internal and external factors related to the individual. the author defines internal and external factors as intrapersonal and environmental catalysts. intrapersonal catalysts are the characteristics of the person positively or negatively influence the learning process. its include the individual’s physical and psychological characteristics (motivation, temperament, personality). environmental catalysts are the influences relative to different contexts. its include social aspects in the multiple contexts (school, recreational places, etc.). the dmgt model has evolved from 1995 to 2009, by gagné. figure 2 shows the model as it evolved in 2009. 2.2.  a review of the student gifted: critical points and strengths one definition that finds greater acceptance today identifies the gifted plusendowed child as “an individual who, relative to peers, shows or has the potential to show surprising ability at a given time and in specific areas considered to be prominent in his or her culture of belonging” (keating, 2009; sternberg et al., 2011; pfeiffer, 2012). in general, some common characteristics, although not necessarily present in their entirety in individuals, can be attributed to plusdotation (tab. 1). table 1. – critical points and strengths in gifted children. critical points strengths they are easily bored they learn quickly and easily they don’t know to listen high verbal competence adverse attitudes toward their reasoning good performance in critical thinking and abstract reasoning they are frustrated when their humor is not understood good sense of humor can be considered “bizarre” excellent creativity and imagination they are afraid of failure they aim for perfectionism easily distracted excellent memory low self-esteem sensitive possible social isolation with peers they prefer adults elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco 130 the literature suggests that characteristics associated with giftedness such as high sensitivity, intensity, intellectual, emotional, and imaginative excitability may be risk factors for the development of emotional-behavioral problems (shahzad & begume, 2010; carrie, 2011). strong abstract thinking and reasoning skills can lead to situations of boredom and frustration, resulting in distractibility and isolation from the class group. the gifted child possesses a very high iq, amazing cognitive abilities, exceptional curiosity and imagination, but he has many difficculties in managing relationships with others and thus also his emotions. therefore, he may respond to environmental demands with behaviors that are not socially appropriate; he does not “know” other ways. the need to find appropriate responses exposes the student to the risk of enacting problem behaviors, for example, defiant behaviors toward peers and teachers. these aspects undermine the child’s relationships, in different contexts. the child needs to learn how to “create” good relationships and “manage” his or her emotions. an environment rich in opportunities for the child, and with the presence of support figures for the child, could be of great help to the gifted child. today, there is substantial body of research indicating that gifted children may develop psychological problems (depression, school phobia, anger management problems or trauma) because of their vulnerability and lack of understanding from other people. in such cases, it is necessary to carry out supportive network work to help children with giftedness. this network includes the school, family and social context. in addition, studies show that working synergistically with the family can foster better coping skills and greater resilience in the gifted child (pfeiffer, 2013). 3. conclusion: a future perspective according to the models analyzed and the characteristics of the gifted individuals illustrated in the article, it is clear that giftedness is to be considered a gift, a high potential to be harnessed. this potential requires appropriate and facilitating contexts to flourish, develop and remain active over time. it is evident that the environment in which the individual is born, grows and develops is to be considered fundamental. attention is therefore given to the family context, the school context, and the social context. family relationships, interactions with teachers and the classroom group, and relationships with the peer group are necessary connections for the development of the talents of the gifted individual. a welcoming, supportive and motivating environment, in each and every area mentioned, is the fertile ground on which the foundation of the development of the gifted individual rests. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gifted student: gifts and talents development 131 specifically, within the educational context, gifted students must be properly observed, recognized, identified and supported. school for these children must be a place full of curiosity, creativity, exchange of new ideas and continuous knowledge. gifted individuals must feel free to express themselves according to their characteristics and potential. all students, regardless of their giftedness, should feel safe to learn and make mistakes. an inclusive school must have the student at its center, considering their interests, needs, timing, cognitive styles, and vulnerabilities. an inclusive school must create a personalized learning plan for students, where differentiation is synonymous with inclusion. doing so will enable students to learn more easily and quickly. these aspects will positively affect the level of students’ self-esteem and was psychological factors. in this context, teachers play a pivotal role, both in terms of education and relationships. in fact, the literature shows that a good quality of teacher-student interaction turns out to be a protective factor for the social-emotional and cognitive development of the students themselves, with positive effects on learning processes, regardless of the quality of the relationships students establish with other reference figures (ansari, hofkens, & pianta, 2020). teachers therefore, must have personal skills to connect with students, to motivate students, to nurture curiosity in children, to ignite their imagination and enable them to learn new knowledge, while respecting all individuals. teachers should adeptly recognize students’ strengths and focus on their resources rather than their weaknesses, providing praise without resorting to punishment or labels. teachers must be advocates and carriers of a real concept of social inclusion, in an inclusive school that has the student at its center. all efforts aim to emphasize the importance of recognizing and identifying gifted children in order to cultivate their resources and talents through the use of appropriate tools, strategies, and contexts. this not only prevents the waste of human potential but also contributes to the realization of a truly inclusive world. references ansari, a., hofkens, t. l., & pianta, r. c. (2020). teacher-student relationships across the first seven years of education and adolescent outcomes. journal of applied developmental psychology, 71, 101200. borland, j. h. (2009). myth 2: the gifted constitute 3% to 5% of the population. moreover, giftedness equals high iq, which is a stable measure of aptielementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco 132 tude: spinal tap psychometrics in gifted education. gifted child quarterly, 53(4), 236-238. brazzolotto, m. (2021). le percezioni sul talento e sulla genialità secondo alcuni studenti gifted. formazione & insegnamento, 19(3), 184-196. carman, c. (2013). confronto tra mele e arance. quindici anni di definizioni di talento nella ricerca. journal of advanced academics, 24(1), 52-70. carrie, l. b. (2011). an examination of the relationships between ego development, dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration, and the behavioral characteristics of gifted adolescents. gifted child quarterly, 55(3), 208. gagné, f. (2008). trasformare i doni in talenti. breve panoramica del dmgt 2.0. studi sulle alte capacità, 152, 81-89. guarneri, p., & resta, v. (2019). plusdotazione. inquadramento e presa in carico. psiba: quaderno dell’istituto di psicoterapia del bambino e dell’adolescente 50(2), 73-86. keating, d. p. (2009). developmental science and giftedness: an integrated lifespan frame-work. in f. d. horowitz, r. f. subotnik, & d. j. matthews (eds.), the development of giftedness and talent across the life span. washington, dc: american psychological association. mangione, g. r., & maffei, f. (2013). didattica e bambini dotati. approcci consolidati e prassi emergenti. giornale italiano della ricerca educativa / italian journal of educational research, 6(11), 140-156. marsili, f., & pellegrini, m. (2023). l’identificazione degli studenti con plusdotazione. evidenze empiriche e implicazioni pratiche. ricercazione, 15(1), 201-211. novello, a. (2016). insegnare le lingue a studenti gifted. strategie didattiche per la plusdotazione. romanica cracoviensia, 16(2), 109-119. novello, a. (2019). gli studenti gifted. riflessioni e proposte per la loro valutazione linguistica. el.le, 7 (3), 391-412. olivieri, d. (2018). modelli di plusdotazione e sviluppo dei talenti. i bambini dotati. formazione & insegnamento, 16(2), 153-172. pfeiffer, s. i. (2012). prospettive attuali sull’identificazione e la valutazione degli studenti dotati. giornale di valutazione psicoeducativa, 30(1), 3-9. pfeiffer, s. i. (2013). lessons learned from working with high-ability students. gifted education international, 29(1), 86-97. pfeiffer, s. i. (2021). ottimizzare i risultati favorevoli nella consulenza ai dotati. un approccio basato sulle migliori pratiche. gifted education international, 37(2), 142-157. rizzo, l., & pinnelli, s. (2023). promoting well‐being at school: from an inclusive perspective the focus on the gifted student / promuovere il benessere scolastico. dalla prospettiva inclusiva l’attenzione per l’alunno gifted. italian journal of special education for inclusion, 11(1), 154-164. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gifted student: gifts and talents development 133 sandri, p., zanetti, m. a., & bennardi, i. (2023). gifted students and inclusive distance learning: an exploratory survey. form@re – open journal per la formazione in rete, 23(2), 189-208. sgambelluri, r. (2019). valutare e valorizzare gli studenti gifted a scuola. verso la progettazione di un modello integrato di valutazione per l’inclusione. formazione & insegnamento, 17(3), 104-117. shahzad, s., & begume, n. (2010). level of depression in intellectually gifted secondary school children. gifted and talented international, 25(2), 91-98. sorrentino, c. (2017). giftedness e contesti secondo una prospettiva pedagogica. italian journal of special education for inclusion, 5(1), 161-170. vinci, v., & sgambelluri, r. (2020). riconoscere e promuovere il talento e l’alto potenziale di studenti gifted. dai test di valutazione alle strategie didattiche personalizzate. formazione & insegnamento, 18(2), 253-269. zanetti, m. a. (2016). una doppia difficoltà in classe. i bambini ad alto potenziale. journal of applied radical behavior analysis, 16-21. riassunto il concetto di plusdotazione si è evoluto molto nel corso del tempo. ancora oggi non ha una definizione univoca e precisa, ma risulta essere in via di continui sviluppi. sono stati proposti differenti modelli sulla plusdotazione, come il modello differenziato della plusdotazione e del talento (dmgt) di gagné, che appare essere un valido contributo per comprendere meglio la plusdotazione, le caratteristiche degli studenti gifted e i problemi correlati a tali costrutti. l’articolo mira a evidenziare le caratteristiche degli studenti gifted, sottolineando punti critici e punti di forza in relazione ai vari contesti, nello specifico al contesto scolastico, e al modello di gagné (personale, scolastico, ambientale e sociale), in una prospettiva futura. copyright (©) 2023 roberta baldini, maria grazia mada logrieco editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: baldini, r., & logrieco, m. g. m. (2023). the gifted student: gifts and talents development. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 125-133. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-balo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-balo https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 93 praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students andreana lavanga francesco sulla università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-lasu andreana.lavanga@unifg.it francesco.sulla@unifg.it abstract the term “giving” refers to the altruistic act of offering something to another person for free without expecting anything in return. while prosocial behavior can also be found in very young children, altruistic behavior emerges later, with the moral and cognitive development, also supported by adult praise, that children may receive within the educational relationship. education, in fact, has the noble purpose of guiding people to a better condition than they are now, through relationships. the aim of this paper is to review the works that have analyzed the effects of praise in the relationship between teacher and student. experimental studies over the last 50 years have shown that praise is a low-cost strategy that teachers can use to increase adaptive behavior in the classroom and decrease problem behavior. furthermore, the use of praise improves the classroom climate, as it is a vehicle for positive emotions. modern neuroscience has now shown how emotions play an important role in learning, including school learning. therefore, we could consider praise as one of the greatest gifts a teacher can give to their students. keywords: educational relationship; gift; learning; positive emotions; praise. 1. the gift according to the vocabulary of the italian language treccani (2022), the term donare (“to give”) indicates the action of giving to others freely and with disinterest. the concept of gift is of great importance in social sciences, particularly in cultural anthropology. in essai sur le don (1923-24), marcel mauss elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-lasu mailto:andreana.lavanga@unifg.it mailto:francesco.sulla@unifg.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa andreana lavanga francesco sulla 94 observes that in many societies exchange may also take a very different form from the utilitarian logic of market exchange and economic transactions based on a logic of “give, receive, respond”. unlike this market logic, the gift can be seen as a form of exchange without pre-established equivalence: it is also a time-delayed exchange. in the societies studied by mauss, exchange had not only an economic significance but also a social, political and religious one: it was a “total social fact”. developed in studies of societies of traditional ethnographic interest, the concept of gift has proved to be an important analytical tool for modern societies. the transactions that take place in families, in parent-child relationship, and in the world of volunteering are mostly based on the logic of giving (mauss, 1950). from a developmental perspective, the logic of giving might sprout in humans together with moral standards and prosocial behaviors. in line with piaget’s framework, some researchers argue that these developments are due to a cognitive shift away from an egocentric orientation and that this leads also to improved communication skills (eisenberg, fabes, & spinrad, 2006). prosocial behavior is behavior that is intended to benefit another people. it may be motivated by self-interest, practical, moral or other concerns and is grounded in moral emotions including guilt and empathy. altruistic behavior is also behavior that is designed to help someone else, but altruism is generally considered not to be motivated by self-interest. in common use, what distinguishes altruistic behavior from prosocial behavior is the willingness to help another without any thought of compensation. altruistic acts are therefore motivated by internalized values, goals and self-rewards rather than by the expectation of concrete or social rewards. research has demonstrated that we see the beginnings of prosocial behavior in quite young children, whereas truly altruistic behavior occurs only later on (eisenberg et al., 2006). from an educational perspective, this means that, as young children, we need social reward, also in the form of praise and approval, as one of the way we have to develop the intrinsic motivation that may leads to altruistic behavior (henderlong & lepper, 2002). 2. the educational relationship as a gift the educational purpose can be described as the noble goal of guiding a person towards a better condition than the one in which they find themselves. it is important to clarify the human quality of the educational act. it is only by proceeding from such a clarification, in fact, that the criteria for elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students 95 answering the question of the relationship between pedagogy and anthropology can be illustrated, and thus a rethinking of education as a gift and care of human beings. humans are intrinsically communicative and, therefore able to implement authentic educational communication that favors the growth of young people and the community in which they live. this human capacity could be a concrete response to the educational needs of the new generations. educational relationships take place in a dialogical and intersubjective space, allowing interaction between two subjects, the educator and the student, developing the scope of interpersonal relationships. in this exchange, authentic dialogue involves the ethical desire to encourage sharing in the situation of the other without exploitation or instrumentalization. in authentic communication, the ego must put aside egocentric temptations to develop an attitude of understanding of the other, thus fully recognizing the other and their convictions. the aspect of reciprocity reveals that humans develop in the harmony of giving and receiving. once there is an encounter, existence eventually becomes complete. educators are called to help others and themselves to grow, to pursue the best of themselves, and to discover new possibilities of action and life. all this reinforces the idea that education is an activity of free donation to others so that we not only recognize them but also recognize ourselves (indellicato, 2018). 3. emotions and learning the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of learning are interconnected and influence each other. for instance, emotions (affective domain) play an important role in the quality of humans’ executive functions (geake, 2016). executive function is an umbrella term that includes high-order cognitive abilities such as working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, planning, reasoning, and problem solving. the neural networks responsible for learning can be classified into recognition, strategic, and affective. the recognition network receives, identifies, and categorizes sensory information perceived by students; the strategic network plans and regulates actions guided and oriented toward specific objectives; the affective network takes part in the emotional aspect of learning by regulating interest, motivation, and stress (rose & strangman, 2007). according to the hypothesis of the somatic marker of damasio (1995) the emotional component contributes to decision-making, selection, and orientation processes based on the information obtained from elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa andreana lavanga francesco sulla 96 the environment throughout life. the somatic marker, therefore, goes to mark a certain experience by creating an association between emotions and cognitive processes that become interconnected and regulate decisionmaking processes. hence, emotions influence and are influenced by cognitive processing. each emotion has a different value and influence. positive emotions (joy, happiness, etc.) have specific consequences on learning that differ from the effects of what is sometimes classified as negative emotions (sadness, anxiety, etc.). the deepest and oldest areas (for example the amygdala) of our brain are responsible for emotions. the hippocampus, responsible for long-term memories, is closely connected to the amygdala. these neural connections explain, at an anatomical level, the phenomenon for which the most remembered information is related to intense emotions. negative emotions (fear, anxiety, frustration, boredom, etc.) negatively affect learning, while positive emotions (discovery, curiosity, surprise, satisfaction, etc.) positively influence learning by supporting it. some negative emotions, however, if interpreted correctly, can also represent a positive stimulus for the development of cognitive skills (meccariello & mentasti, 2023). bower (1981) through the theory of affectivity network illustrated the process of emotional elaboration by stating that mood congruence facilitates the cognitive process. mood congruence means that positive information is more easily associated with positive emotions, while negative information is more easily associated with negative emotions. also in this case the brain architecture explains this congruence because it is organized by associations and semantic similarity. two close pieces of information are more likely to be activated and this closeness is usually given by the similarity and association between the two (sulla, 2022). 4. emotional education during their school life, it is likely that a student may associates information or an event originally of a neutral nature to an experience full of negative emotions. as a consequence, this association make the neutral information negative itself. seeing the premised presented in the preceding paragraph, we now know that sometime, for some students, learning can become difficult, and school a place to escape from. a possible solution to this type of association is an approach based on emotional intelligence. emotional intelligence can be defined in different ways, but it was salovey and mayer (1990) that coined this term for the first time, defining elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students 97 it as “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (p. 189). emotional intelligence, therefore, allows one to optimally organize relationships with the surrounding environment and promote psychological well-being and consequent academic success (lucangeli, bonichini, & de gennaro, 2019). daniel goleman (1996) suggests that with the development of emotional intelligence comes the balance necessary for the emotional dimension to appropriately influence all other dimensions of life. given that emotions play a primary role in the lives of all individuals, and students make no exception, an emotional education achievable through “emotional literacy” programs is essential. desirable programs start from the first degrees of education with the aim of promoting selfawareness and the development of emotional and social skills. students and teachers take part in the educational relationship not only on a cognitive level but also on a behavioral and emotional level. the success of the learning process is therefore influenced by the emotional impressions and the consequent cognitive evaluations implemented by the learner. the emotional perception of the pupil in relation to the teacher’s teaching proposal must be taken into account. the educational relationship, however, is characterized by the student, whose emotions are important for the success of his or her learning, but also by the teacher, who also has an emotional dimension relevant to the success of the learning process (meccariello & mentasti, 2023). 5. praise as a vehicle of positive emotions the literature shows that the teacher’s behavior may have a strong influence on students’ social and academic behaviors. this literature also shows that, behaviors such as praise may be seen as one of the most powerful tool in teachers’ hands, as it was demonstrated in experimental studies that it may increase students’ adaptive behavior and decrease the disruptive ones (swinson & harrop, 2005; sulla, perini, & rollo, 2013; apter, sulla, & swinson, 2020; sulla & rollo, 2023). although there is no universal definition for praise, despite some differences, common roots of praise found in seminal works (brophy, 1981) have influenced many current definitions and appear to yield positive outcomes (e.g., sulla & rollo, 2023). in most recent studies (e.g., caldarella et al., 2020; 2023), praise is defined as a verbal indication of approval following student behavior more than acknowledging a correct response. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa andreana lavanga francesco sulla 98 praise can be divided into person-praise (the praise towards the person) and process-praise (the praise toward the person’s performance). kamins and dweck (1999) hypothesized that person-praise, because it involves a global assessment based on a specific behavior or performance, would teach students to measure themselves by their performance and would thus foster more helpless reactions to setbacks. such feedback includes praise (or criticism) that comments on students’ abilities, goodness, or worthiness after their performance of a task or that expresses the adult’s global evaluation of the student on the basis of their performance (e.g., disappointment or pride in the student as a whole). in contrast, they hypothesized that feedback that focused students on examining their strategies or effort (process-feedback) would foster more mastery-oriented responses to setbacks. although the positive effects of praise in school is well-established in the literature, we know that most teachers struggle to use it as an educational instrument. from a study on the natural rates of approval and disapproval in italian classrooms by sulla and colleagues (2019) it is clear that in the italian context, students receive, at all school levels (from primary to secondary), a greater number of negative feedback and disapproval than positive feedback. in particular, the majority of teachers’ feedback is of a negative nature and directed in response to students’ social behavior. in italian primary schools it was found a rate of 0.8 disapproval per minute (meaning, almost once a minute a child or class is told off by their teachers). positive feedback was mainly directed toward students’ academic behavior, while feedback directed towards their social behavior was very seldom observed. the cause was found assessing teachers’ feedback behavior through functional analysis. most of the time, praise do not have an immediate consequence (there is no contingent reinforce) for teachers: the students keep behaving in a good manner. on the other hand, teachers’ reprimand has an immediate effect, in the sense that it makes disruptive behaviors to stop, in that precise moment, after teacher’s reprimand. this contingent consequence effectively reinforces teachers’ disapproving behavior. on a different level, the cause of such behaviors may also lie in cultural heritage, where the punitive mindset is widespread and accepted (sulla, armenia, & rollo, 2019). the problem is, that, while teachers think that continuing disapproval will stop misbehaving in class, this may actually lead to worst classroom climate. indeed, especially pupils that are considered to be the most problematic, may find teacher disapproval reinforcing. pupils that exhibit the greater number of problem behaviors, in fact, are usually “seen” by their teachers only when they misbehave. on the other hand, they are usually elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students 99 ignored. this may make them starving for teachers’ attention. this is the point when even negative attention, in the form of disapproval, become reinforcing: seeing that i receive attention only when i misbehave, i will keep misbehaving. this entangle teachers and pupils into a vicious circle characterized by negative emotions, that, as we previously said, may hinder pupils’ learning. praise, on the other hand, as hard as it is to be used as an educational instrument, is the best gift we can give to our students. indeed, praise, is a vehicle of positive emotions. as we have seen in preceding paragraphs, cognition is helped by positive emotions. indeed, intelligence works best when the student is happy. a teacher does not necessary have to make their students laugh, but can be a mediator of well-being in learning complex things. when a student learns, in fact, alongside memorizing, for example, the procedure for calculating a multiplication, he or she experiences emotions: fear, anxiety, pleasure, interest, curiosity, boredom. what are the worst emotions for learning? on a cognitive level, boredom; on an emotional level, guilt and fear. i feel fear when my brain perceives a risk. i feel guilt when i perceive that i have made a mistake. the guilt mechanism arises because the one being judged attributes the sole responsibility for the error to themselves. removing guilt from the mind is one of the most difficult processes from an educational point of view. educating through the emotion of guilt is very risky, because it short-circuits our brain. the student who has learned by experiencing a negative emotion, in an attempt to retrieve from their memory, the information he/she has studied, will also reactivate the negative emotion connected to it. this is the short-circuit we are talking about: students’ brain has to process two sharply contrasting pieces of information – i want to hold on to that information because i need it to succeed in math class, but, in the meantime, i feel like i need to run away, because it hurts (as a consequence of the fear and guilt they are experiencing while learning through disapproval)! fortunately, there are solutions. malka magalit (2003; 2012) from the academy of sciences has found antagonistic emotions: boredom can be contrasted through joy and happiness. fear can be prevented by encouragement. that is, an attitude that recognizes the error, but proposes a way out and encourages students to come out of the error. the antagonistic emotion of guilt, on the other hand, is cognitive and emotional discernment. hence, blame must be replaced by the principle of giving the due weight to what initiated the improper behavior. this is why we should consider praise as a gift within the educational relationship. praise can be the vehicle of encouragement, joy, and happiness: the emotions that foster pupils’ learning. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa andreana lavanga francesco sulla 100 6. conclusions quintilian, in ancient rome, had already emphasized how important is in the educational relationship the process of esteem and affection that is established between learner and teacher, to promote the understanding of the disciple and adapt the educational work to their personality and their particular psychological moment, all the more so in today’s society, which is characterized by uncertainty and fragility. this principle must be the basis of every educational process. every day our classrooms are dotted with faces, often fragile stories, lives that are like fragile vessels to be handled with care. it is useless to take an authoritarian position that aims to transmit content in an intimidating form, prohibitions, and forms of obligation that lead to carrying out a task only out of fear are worthless. on the contrary, productive and motivating is to accompany the student along the learning process, encouraging them with praise and approval, which makes the individual feel part of the context and active protagonist of their education. such an attitude, made up of gestures and words that translate into gifts for those who receive them, improves mood, empathy, and human relationships, and gives concrete form to the often cited meaningful learning: learning capable of resisting time and developing those life skills and soft skills important in every context of life. such an attitude will have repercussions on society as a whole, elevating it and raising a generation ready to make a difference now and in the future, as it will circulate gratitude, that ability to look at life with greater confidence and in a positive way, without being able to specify whether the serenity felt was the consequence of this new state of mind or the latter the cause of serenity (sulla et al., 2020; fantinelli et al., 2023). this confirms that the deepest and most lasting happiness is to be sought outside the material and can be more easily achieved on an immaterial basis because our thoughts stripped of material evidence leave the spiritual factors of being free. attributing infinite intelligence to limited matter is a mistake that does not advance mankind, which, on the contrary, could develop greater intellect, a more balanced mind, and a healthier constitution by relying on spirituality. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students 101 references apter, b., sulla, f., & swinson, j. 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(1995). l’errore fondamentale di cartesio. emozione, ragione e cervello uma no. milano: adelphi. eisenberg, n., fabes, r. a., & spinrad, t. (2006). prosocial development. in w. damon & r. m. lerner (series eds.) n. eisenberg (vol. ed.), handbook of child psychology, vol. 3 (6th edn, pp. 646-718). new york: wiley. fantinelli, s., esposito, c., carlucci, l., limone, p., & sulla, f. (2023). the influence of individual and contextual factors on the vocational choices of adolescents and their impact on well-being. behavioral sciences, 13(3), 233. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13030233. geake, j. g. (2016). il cervello a scuola. neuroscienze e educazione tra verità e falsi miti. trento: centro studi erickson. goleman, d. (1996). intelligenza emotive. che cos’è e perché può renderci felici. mi lano: rizzoli. henderlong, j., & lepper, m. r. 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(2019). lo sviluppo cognitivo. dalla cognition alla warm cognition. in d. lucangeli & s. vicari, psicologia dello sviluppo. milano: mondadori. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.1080/02667363.2020.1802233 https://doi.org/10.1080/02667363.2020.1802233 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1170249 https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2020.1711872 https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007211035185 https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007211035185 https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13030233 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.774 https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.35.3.835 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa andreana lavanga francesco sulla 102 margalit, m. (2003). resilience model among individuals with learning disabilities: proximal and distal influences. learning disabilities research & practice, 18(2), 82-86. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5826.00062. mauss, m. 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(2019). natural rates of teachers’ approval and disapproval in italian primary and secondary schools classroom. in g. minati, m. abram, & e. pessa (eds.), systemics of incompleteness and quasi-systems (pp. 335-342). new york: springer. sulla, f., masi, a., renati, r., bonfiglio, s., & rollo, d. (2020). a tool for the evaluation of hikikomori risk in italian adolescents: a first contribution to its validation. in 2020 ieee international symposium on medical measurements and applications (memea), bari, italy, june 1 july 1, 2020 (pp. 1-5). ieee press. sulla, f., perini, s., & rollo, d. (2013). analisi funzionale dei comportamenti di approvazione e disapprovazione nelle interazioni insegnante-allievo. una rassegna. psicologia dell’educazione, 7(2), 193-216. sulla, f., & rollo, d. (2023). the effect of a short course on a group of italian primary school teachers’ rates of praise and their pupils’ on-task behaviour. education sciences, 13(1), 78. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010078. swinson, j., & harrop, a. (2005). an examination of the effects of a short course aimed at enabling teachers in infant, junior and secondary schools to alter the verbal feedback given to their pupils. educational studies, 31(2), 115129. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055690500095316. treccani (2022). vocabolario della lingua italiana. roma: istituto dell’enciclopedia treccani. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5826.00062 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0062-8 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0062-8 https://doi.org/10.2190/dugg-p24e-52wk-6cdg https://doi.org/10.2190/dugg-p24e-52wk-6cdg https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010078 https://doi.org/10.1080/03055690500095316 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students 103 riassunto con il termine “donare” si fa riferimento all’atto altruistico di offrire qualcosa a un’altra persona gratuitamente senza aspettarsi nulla in cambio. mentre comportamenti prosociali si possono trovare anche in bambini e bambine molto piccoli, i comportamenti altruistici emergono più tardi, con lo sviluppo morale e cognitivo, anche supportato dalla lode degli adulti, che i bambini possono ricevere entro la relazione educativa. l’educazione, infatti, ha il nobile scopo di guidare le persone verso una condizione migliore rispetto a quella attuale, attraverso l’incontro. il presente lavoro ha lo scopo di passare in rassegna i lavori che abbiano analizzato gli effetti della lode nella relazione tra insegnante e allievo. studi sperimentali negli ultimi 50 anni hanno dimostrato come la lode sia una strategia a basso costo che gli insegnanti possono utilizzare per incrementare i comportamenti adattivi in classe e diminuire i comportamenti problema. inoltre, l’uso della lode migliora il clima di classe, in quanto è veicolo di emozioni positive. le moderne neuroscienze hanno ormai dimostrato come le emozioni rivestano un importante ruolo nell’apprendimento, anche quello scolastico. pertanto, potremmo ritenere la lode come uno dei doni più grandi che l’insegnante possa fare ai propri studenti e alle proprie studentesse. copyright (©) 2023 andreana lavanga, francesco sulla editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: lavanga, a., & sulla, f. (2023). praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 93-103. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-lasu elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-lasu https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization the vagaries of the superego elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 13 the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek birkbeck institute for the humanities of the university of london (england) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-zize slavoj.zizek@guest.arnes.si abstract starting from the distinction between “ideal ego”, “ego-ideal” and “superego” structured from the imaginary-symbolic-real triad made by lacan, this study investigates how is possible to distinguish the a-sexual social space from the domain of libidinally-cathexed interactions. through the analysis of balibar’s, miller’s, schuster’s and hägglund’s ideas, paths and strategies are defined to analyze the existing dynamics between symbolic power, law and superego. what emerges is the reconstruction of a new subjectivity which is capable, at the same time, to overcome the jouissance-superego dynamic at the basis of lacanian reflection and face the challenges of contemporary post-humanism. therefore, what subject stands for is the inhuman core of being-human, what hegel called selfrelating negativity, what freud called death drive. the text proposes, in short, how the subject is what is in a human being more than human, the immortality of the deathdrive which makes it a living dead, something that insists beyond the cycle of life and death. keywords: ego; jouissance; lacan; law; superego. the big question freud addressed in the aftermath of the great war was: how does the a-sexual social space distinguish itself from the domain of libidinally-cathexed interactions? for freud, the operator of this a-sexualization is superego. in his superb essay the invention of the superego, etienne balibar (balibar, 1922) deals with the dialogue between freud and hans kelsen, the leading austrian legal philosopher, after the publication of freud’s crowd psychology and the analysis of the ego (1921). one should mention here also the ego and the id (1923) which is freud’s reaction to kelsen’s critique of crowd psychology. the irony is that the https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-zize slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 14 title the ego and the id is in some sense deceiving: the crucial new term introduced in the booklet is superego which forms a triad with ego and id, and the main point of freud’s detailed analysis is how superego, the instance of our psychic life that acts as a self-critical conscience, internalizing social standards mostly learned from parents and teachers, draws its libidinal energy from the darkest sadist and masochist depths of the id. however, lacan has convincingly shown that there is a confusion in freud: the title of the third chapter of the ego and the id is “the ego and the super-ego (ego-ideal)”, so freud tends to use these two terms as synonyms (conceiving the ego-ideal as a forerunner of the superego), plus he also uses ego-ideal and ideal ego as interchangeable terms. the premise of lacan’s clarification is the equation between jouissance and superego: to enjoy is not a matter of following one’s spontaneous tendencies; it is rather something we do as a kind of weird and twisted ethical duty. based on this equation, lacan introduces a precise distinction between the three terms: the “ideal ego” stands for the idealized self-image of the subject (the way i would like to be, i would like others to see me); the ego-ideal is the agency whose gaze i try to impress with my ego image, the big other who watches over me and propels me to give my best, the ideal i try to follow and actualize; and the superego is this same agency in its revengeful, sadistic, punishing, aspect. the underlying structuring principle of these three terms is clearly lacan’s triad imaginary-symbolic-real: ideal ego is imaginary, what lacan calls the “small other”, the idealized doubleimage of my ego; ego-ideal is symbolic, the point of my symbolic identification, the point in the big other from which i observe (and judge) myself; superego is real, the cruel and insatiable agency which bombards me with impossible demands and which mocks my failed attempts to meet them, the agency in the eyes of which i am all the more guilty, the more i try to suppress my “sinful” strivings and meet its demands. the old cynical stalinist motto about the accused at the show trials who professed their innocence (“the more they are innocent, the more they deserve to be shot”) is superego at its purest. so for lacan superego “has nothing to do with moral conscience as far as its most obligatory demands are concerned” (lacan, miller, & porter, 1992, p. 310): superego is, on the contrary, the anti-ethical agency, the stigmatization of our ethical betrayal (žižek, 2006). in his critique of freud’s notion of the crowd, kelsen as a neokantian implicitly relies on the distinction between ego-ideal (the anonymous big other, the symbolic order the status of which is non-psychic, i.e., which cannot be reduced to empirical psychic processes) and superego (the product of empirical psychic dynamic in an individual’s interaction with https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 15 others) 1. the reproach to freud is, to simplify it, that he only provides the empirical psychic genesis of a crowd held together by a leader – there is no space in his theory for the big other, for the ideal symbolic order which sustains individual subjects, for the public space of institutional state authority which makes us subjects in the double meaning of the term (autonomous subject and an individual subjected to the law). more precisely, what freud describes is the pathological distortion of the law, is regression into mythic crowd-psychological level: freud describes crowd pathology (constituted through the short-circuit of i and a, in lacanese), and since he lacked the notion of the symbolic, he misses the normalnormative big other. (x) that’s also why, from lacan’s standpoint, there is no space in freud’s triad of ego-superego-id for the “pure”/barred subject ($), subject of the signifier, for the subject which is not psychicempirical but equal to the cartesian cogito or kant’s transcendental apperception: the lacanian subject is not ego (which, for lacan, is defined by imaginary identifications). at this point, balibar returns to freud and defends him: superego as a psychic process is not just an accidental pathological distortion, it is the process which enables the subject to internalize the law, to integrate it into its psychic life as an agency which exerts an authority over him/her. as such, superego is a “pathological” supplement which necessarily accompanies the law, since the public law exists only as internalized by subjects. what this means is that a subject is the subject of law only insofar as s/he remains caught in the unresolved oedipal tensions which are the form of the interpersonal politics of power and subordination. these persisting tensions open up the subject to the authority of the law – they push the subject to accept authority of the law as the external (non-psychic) agency, the stable point of reference which can ease the inner-psychic tensions. the tensions described by freud are, of course, not simply internal to the subject but are part of the interpersonal (family) politics, power struggle – this is why balibar points out that, in his description of the formation of a crowd and the genesis of the superego, freud doesn’t provide a “psychoanalysis of politics” (an explanation of the political dynamic of crowds through libidinal processes which are in themselves apolitical) but rather its opposite, the politics of psychoanalysis (the explanation of the rise of the triadic 1 there is a crucial difference here between kant and hegel: for kant (and kelsen as a neo-kantian) empirical perversions are secondary, while for hegel they arise from the immanent tensions of the notion itself – absolute freedom necessarily turns into terror, the honour of serving the master who personifies a cause into hypocritical flattery (as in the passage from lenin to stalin). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 16 structure of ego-id-superego through the familial “political” power struggles) – or, as lacan put it, the freudian unconscious is political. but, as lacan repeatedly points out, the big other of the symbolic law must already be here if a subject is to refer to it as the neutral external space – so we should make here one step further: how can the public authority itself, in its non-psychic status, emerge? lacan’s answer is: the big other cannot be reduced to a psychic agency, but it exists only if it is “externalized” by subjects – the “internalization” of the law is effectively its externalization, its (presup)position as a non-psychic symbolic space. the law is non-psychic, but it exists only if there are subjects who take it as existing. one has to be very precise here: lacan is not providing the genesis of big other from psychic dynamics, his thesis is rather that the subject is constitutively divided in itself, that its psychic intimacy exists only if there is a big other, a space alienated from the subject to which it relates. (only in psychosis this alienation is suspended.) the subjective correlate of the big other is the empty “barred” subject ($) which is more “intimate” than all the intimacy of even the deepest psychic processes. so we should turn around the usual notion that the “pure” abstract subject (the cartesian cogito) is a kind of ideological illusion whose reality is the actual concrete individual caught and torn in psychic antagonisms: all the wealth of the individual’s “inner life” is a content which ultimately just fills in the void of the pure subject – in this sense, lacan said that the ego is the “stuff of the i”. today, however, fathers behave more and more as ideal-egos, engaged in narcissistic competition with children – they no longer dare to assume the “authority” of a father – and, paradoxically, this process poses a serious obstacle to the emancipatory process. let’s take the case of chile: the difficulties in the ongoing struggle there are not the legacy of pinochet’s oppressive dictatorship as such but the legacy of the gradual (fake) opening of his dictatorial regime: especially through the, 1990s, chilean society underwent what we may call a fast post-modernization: an explosion of consumerist hedonism, superficial sexual permissiveness, competitive individualism, etc. those in power realized that such atomized social space is much more effective than direct state oppression against radical leftist projects which rely on social solidarity: classes continue to exist “in themselves” but not “for themselves”, i see others from my class more as competitors than as members of a same group with solidary interests. direct state oppression tends to unite opposition and promote organized forms of resistance, while in “postmodern” societies even extreme dissatisfaction assumes the form of chaotic revolts (from occupy wall street to yellow vests) which soon run out of breath, unable to reach the “leninist” stage of an organized force with a clear program. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 17 at a more general level, this means that, if the symbolic law (nameof-the-father) loses its authority – i.e., if there is no prohibition –, desire itself (sustained by the prospect to transgress it) vanishes – this is why permissiveness kills desire. along these lines, pierre legendre and some other lacanians claim that the problem today is the decline of the nameof-the-father, of the paternal symbolic authority: in its absence, pathological narcissism explodes, evoking the specter of the primordial real father. consequently, we should try to restore some kind of law as the agent of prohibition. although this idea is to be rejected, it correctly points out how the decline of the master in no way automatically guarantees emancipation but can well engender much more oppressive figures of domination. is, however, the return to prohibition sustained by law the only way out? it seems that the very last lacan, aware of this problem, proposed another solution which miller, in his reading of lacan, calls “cynical” – we cannot return to the authority of the law, but what we can do is act as if we sustain the law, we should maintain its authority as necessary although we know it is not true. adrian johnston (johnston, n.d.) brought out the intricacies and ambiguities of this solution: passage through a concluding experience of “subjective destitution”, in which ego-level identifications as well as points of reference such as big others and subjects supposed to know vacillate or vanish altogether, indeed is an essential, punctuating moment of the lacanian analytic process. nevertheless, lacan does not consider it possible or desirable to dwell permanently in such an analysis-terminating destitute state. he sees it as both appropriate and inevitable that egos, big others, subjects supposed to know, and the like will reconstitute themselves for the analysand in the aftermath of his/her analysis. hopefully, the versions of these reconstituted in the wake of and in response to analysis will be better, more livable versions for the analysand. what we get here is some kind of “postmodern” lacan: we can confront the real only in rare moments of lucidity, but this extreme experience cannot last, we have to return to our ordinary life of dwelling in semblances, in symbolic fictions… so instead of erasing god out of the picture, the only way is learn to how “‘make use of ’ dieu comme le nom-du-père”. in what precise sense, then, les non-dupes errent, i.e., those who pretend not to be duped by the religious illusion err, are in the wrong? johnston indicates the way: lacan’s paraphrase of dostoyevsky, according to which “if god is dead, then nothing is permitted”, seems to convey the sense that permanent radical atheism is undesirable as per the strict lacanian definition of desire. de kesel claims that, for lacan, religion enjoys the virtue of sustaining desire. if https://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 18 so, does lacan’s version of analysis really seek to do away with theism, religiosity, and the like? […] the libidinal economy of the unconscious, centered on desire with its fundamental fantasies involving objet petit a, is sustained by the law of god as the dead father and/or name of-the-father. if this god dies, then the entire economy he supports collapses (i.e., “nothing is permitted”). in télévision, lacan, speaking of matters oedipal, remarks, “even if the memories of familial suppression weren’t true, they would have to be invented, and that is certainly done”. paraphrasing this remark, one might say that, by lacan’s lights, if god is dead, then, at least for libidinal reasons, he would have to be resurrected – and that has certainly been done. (johnston, n.d.) this is also how one can read agamben’s idea that if there is no god then reason itself disappears. does “if god doesn’t exist, then everything is prohibited” not mean that, in order to avoid the deadlock of everything being prohibited, there has to be a big prohibition which calls for exceptions, i.e., which opens up the space for transgressions which generate jouissance? or that, in order to sustain our desire, we need something like god (even if it is only in its more neutral irreligious form, as subject supposed to know)? how to combine this with lacan’s claim that atheism is the pinnacle of psychoanalytic experience? is lacan’s line that name-ofthe-father should not be abolished but make use of the only way out? jacques-alain miller has fearlessly spelt out the political implications of this stance: psychoanalysis reveals social ideals in their nature of semblances, and we can add, of semblances with regard to a real which is the real of enjoyment. this is the cynical position, which resides in saying that enjoyment is the only thing that is true. (miller, 2008, p. 109) what this means is that a psychoanalyst: acts so that semblances remain at their places while making sure that the subjects under his care do not take them as real… one should somehow bring oneself to remain taken in by them (fooled by them). lacan could say that “those who are not taken in err”: if one doesn’t act as if semblances are real, if one doesn’t leave their efficacy undisturbed, things take a turn for the worse. those who think that all signs of power are mere semblances and rely on the arbitrariness of the discourse of the master are the bad boys: they are even more alienated. (fleury, 2010, p. 96) the axiom of this cynical wisdom is that one should protect the semblances of power for the good reason that one should be able to continue to enjoy. the point is not to attach oneself to the semblances of the existing power, but to consider them necessary. “this https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 19 defines a cynicism in the mode of voltaire who let it be understood that god is our invention which is necessary to maintain people in a proper decorum”. society is kept together only by semblances, “which means: there is no society without repression, without identification, and above all without routine”. (fleury, 2010, p. 95) but is this cynical stance the only way out? it raises a series of questions. first, what if god, the divine authority, only really functions when the believer is aware that “god is our invention which is necessary to maintain people in a proper decorum”? baudelaire saw this well – he wrote: “god is the only being who, in order to rule, doesn’t even need to exist” dieu est le seul être qui, pour régner, n’ait même pas besoin d’exister (baudelaire, 1920, p. 3). if a believer directly “really believes”, we slide into fundamentalism – every authentic religion is aware that its authority is a fetishist fake: i know it is not really true, but i believe in it. the opposite of fundamentalism is the awareness that the authority we refer to has no real fundament but is self-referentially grounded on an abyss. let’s take a perhaps surprising example: the finale of wagner’s rhinegold which ends with the contrast between rhinemaidens’ bemoaning the lost innocence and the majestic entrance of the gods into valhalla, a powerful assertion of the rule of law. it is customary to claim that the sincere and authentic complaint of the rhinemaidens makes it clear how the triumphant entrance of the gods into valhalla is a fake, a hollow spectacle; however, what if it is precisely the saddening background of the rhinemaidens’ song which gives to the entry into valhalla its authentic greatness? gods know they are doomed, but nonetheless they heroically perform their ceremonial act. this is why we are not dealing here with the usual fetishist disavowal but with a courageous act of taking a risk and ignoring my limitations, along the lines of kant’s du kannst, denn du sollst! – i know i am too weak to do it, but i’ll do nonetheless do it – a gesture which is the very opposite of cynicism. let’s ground this conclusion from another starting point. authority has the effect of symbolic castration on its bearer: if, say, i am a king, i have to accept that the ritual of investiture makes me a king, that my authority is embodied in the insignia i wear, so that my authority is in some sense external to me as a person in my miserable reality. as lacan put it, only a psychotic is a king who thinks he is as king (or a father who is a father) by his nature, as he is, without the processes of symbolic investiture. this is why being-a-father is by definition a failure: no “empirical” father can live up to his symbolic function, to his title. how can i, if i am invested with such an authority, live with this gap without obfuscating it through psychotic direct identification of my symbolic status with my reality? miller’s solution is cynical distance: i am aware that symbolic titles are just https://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 20 semblances, illusion, but i act as if they are true in order not to disturb not only the social order but also my own ability to desire. aaron schuster adds three modes to deal with the impossibility of acting with authority (it is because of this impossibility that freud counted exercise of power as one of the three impossible professions): “to pretend as if there were no other; to make oneself the mouthpiece of the other; to identify the other with one’s charismatic persona” (schuster, 2016, p. 191). the example of the first option is that of a postmodern friendly boss who acts as if he is one of us, part of the team, ready to share dirty jokes with us, joining us in a drink, etc. – but while doing this, he retains his full symbolic authority and can treat us in an even more ruthless way. the second option is personified in the figure of an expert, a medium through which the authority of the impersonal science (or law) speaks; such a figure avoids the position of authority by pretending that he is not giving orders, just say what science tells it has to be done (like an economist who claims market mechanisms should not be disturbed). the third option is exemplified by an obscene charismatic leader like donald trump who takes himself, with all his personal quirks, as a direct embodiment of the big other – his authority is not based on his knowledge but on his will: “it is so because i say so”. at this point, schuster makes a crucial observation: the leader of competence and calculation, disappearing behind and speaking in the name of the big other, finds its uncanny counterpart in the overpresent leader whose authority is based on his own will and who openly disdains knowledge – it is this rebellious, antisystemic theater that serves as the point of identification for the people. (schuster, 2016, p. 234) the obscene charismatic leader is thus the “return of the repressed” of the expert knowledge which pretends to act without support in a figure of the master: the repressed master (authority which personifies the law) returns in its (almost, not quite) psychotic form, as a lawless obscene master. the master is here “overpresent”: he is not reduced to his symbolic dignity, he stands for authority with all his idiosyncrasies. so is there a way out of this deadlock? the obvious one would have been for the bearer of authority to admit openly to those subjected to him that he is not qualified to exert authority and to simply step down, leaving his subjects to confront reality as they can – schuster quotes hannah arendt who outlines this gesture apropos parental authority: modern man could find no clearer expression for his dissatisfaction with the world, for his disgust with things as they are, than by his refusal to assume, in respect to his children, responsibility for all this. it is as though parents daily said: ‘in this world even we are not very securely at home; how to move https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 21 about in it, what to know, what skills to master, are mysteries to us too. you must try to make out as best you can; in any case you are not entitled to call us to account. we are innocent, we wash our hands of you. (arendt, 1961, p. 191) although this imagined answer of the parents is factually more or less true, it is nonetheless existentially false: a parent cannot wash his/her hands in this way. (the same goes for saying: “i have no free will, my decisions are the product of my brain signals, so i wash my hands, i have no responsibility for crimes that i committed!” even if this is factually true, it is false as my subjective stance.) this means that the ethical lesson is that the parents should pretend (to know what to do and how the world works), for there is no way out of the problem of authority other than to assume it, in its very fictionality, with all the difficulties and discontents this entails. (schuster, 2016, 219) but, again, how does this differ from miller’s cynical solution? paradoxically, it is that that the subject, although fully aware of his/her incompetence to exert authority, assumes it not with a cynical distance but with fully sincerity, ready even to sacrifice his/her life for it if needed. to grasp this difference, one should also bring into view libidinal economy, different modes of jouissance. politics does not happen primarily at the level of semblances and identifications (imaginary and symbolic), it always involves also the real of jouissance. political semblances and identifications are profoundly impregnated by different modes of jouissance – can one even imagine a racism or anti-feminism which does not mobilize jouissance (jouissance attributed to other race or women, jouissance i find in attacking and humiliating them…). that’s why, in his detailed analysis of the petainist discourse in the vichy france, gerard miller (miller, 2004) speaks of petain’s “pushes-to-enjoy (even pushes-to-come)” – and, in a homologous way, can one even hope to understand trump without taking into account his “pushes-to-enjoy”? the same goes also for societies with emancipatory goals. let’s take lacan’s own psychoanalytic society (which he dissolved, thereby admitting it was a failure): was it also a society “kept together only by semblances”? is the only step out of the domain of semblances only the individual moment of “traversing the fantasy” in the analytic process? it certainly wasn’t meant to be this: was lacan’s attempt to organize a society not a “leninist” attempt to constitute a society which is not kept together “only by semblances” but by the real of a cause. (this is why, after dissolving his school, lacan formed a new one called école de la cause freudienne – a school of the cause itself – which, it is true, failed again.) https://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 22 does it help to introduce some order in this confusion if we turn lacan’s anti-dostoyevsky formula around: if god does exist then nothing is prohibited? it is clear that this holds only for so-called “fundamentalists” who can do anything they want since they act as direct instruments of god, of his will. we can see how pc rigorism and religious fundamentalism are two sides of the same coin: in both cases, there is no exception – either nothing is prohibited or everything is prohibited… to bring some clarity into this picture, we should perhaps bring into the play lacan’s so-called formulas of sexuation. the two couples of universality grounded in exception and non-universality (“non-all”) which implies there is no exception. so what is the status of the postmodern permissiveness in which everything turns out to be prohibited by infinite pc regulations? are they masculine (everything is permitted except…) or feminine (there is nothing which is not prohibited)? it looks that the second version is the right one: in a permissive society, violations of the regulations (which allegedly guarantee sexual permissiveness) are themselves really prohibited and not secretly tolerated. this means that we should transpose lacan’s claim into feminine form: if god doesn’t exist then there is nothing which is not prohibited, which means that not-all is prohibited, and this not-all exists in the guise of a universal a permissiveness: in principle, everything is permitted (all different form of sexuality), but every particular case is prohibited. recall the proverbial figure of a permissive husband who, in principle, allows his wife to have lovers, but is opposed to every particular choice (“why did you have to choose precisely this appalling guy? anyone but him…”), or, at a political level, chapter 15 of the khmer rouge constitution of kampuchea: “every citizen of kampuchea has the right to worship according to any religion and the right not to worship according to any religion. / reactionary religions which are detrimental to democratic kampuchea and kampuchean people are absolutely forbidden” (documentation center of cambodia, dc-cam). so, again, any religion is permitted but every particular existing religion (buddhism, christianity…) is “absolutely forbidden” as reactionary. how, then, do things stand with today’s pandemic regulations? do they also solicit transgressions (private rave and parties, even violent outbursts)? but they are not the law, they are scientifically-grounded regulations, they belong to the university discourse. scientists and health administrators gladly explain why they are demanded, they don’t function as the abyssal law, as regulations which should not be questioned. is thus the hedonism of jouissance the other side of the reign of the university discourse? but what if those who resist pandemic prohibitions and regulahttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 23 tions are confusing scientifically-grounded regulations with ungrounded arbitrary prohibitions (which solicit transgression)? of course, one should add: but what if this confusion is already present in the thing itself? is the “truth” of the university discourse not a master, or, as we say today, is the (not even so) secret agenda of those who impose anti-pandemic prohibitions not to assert social control and domination? to complicate things further, we should introduce here two other axes. first: permitted versus enjoined (ordered). lacan’s argument was that enjoyment, once permitted, sooner or later inevitably turns into injunction – you have to enjoy, hedonism is superego at its most cruel. this is the truth of today’s permissiveness: we feel guilty not when we violate prohibitions but when we cannot enjoy. that’s why psychoanalysis aims not to enable the patient to fully enjoy but to limit the power of the superego, to turn enjoyment from enjoined to permitted (you can enjoy but you are not obliged to). the other axis is the one of possibility and impossibility. prohibition is, as lacan repeatedly claimed, here precisely to create the illusion that enjoyment is not in itself impossible, that we can reach it through violating the prohibition. the goal of psychoanalysis is precisely to make the move from prohibition to immanent impossibility. so a prohibition primarily prohibits something that is in itself impossible… but is this not going too far? when a poor starving man is prohibited to grab a piece of food which is not his, does this prohibition not prohibit something that is in itself quite possible? in other words, is an elementary operation of ideology also not to present as in itself impossible something that is prohibited because of economic class interests and the interests of domination? (no universal healthcare because it is impossible, it would ruin economy…) further paradoxes arise here. there are prohibitions one is not only permitted to violate but obliged to violate, so that the true transgression is to stick strictly to the rule of prohibition. (this is what i called inherent transgression: if you do not participate in the secret transgressive rituals of a closed community, you are excluded faster than if you violate its explicit rules.) and then there are prohibitions that are themselves prohibited (one obeys them, but one cannot announce them publicly). the big other of appearances enters here: you obey a prohibition, but you publicly act as if this means nothing, as if it is just a chance that you don’t do that, as if, if you wanted, you could easily do it; plus the obverse, you can violate a prohibition, just not publicly, in an open way. (trump and today’s new right populists break this rule: they violate prohibitions openly, in public.) a further complication: what if we enjoy oppression itself, not just its violation? is this not the elementary form of surplus-enjoyment? for https://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 24 example, with regard to the pandemic, darian leader pointed out how obeying the rules imposed by the authorities because of the pandemic can bring its own compulsive satisfaction. similarly, the politically correct enjoyment arises through the very process of discovering how we unknowingly violated the pc rules (“now i discovered that the phrase i used has a racist dimension…”). the worst solution here is to oppose necessary repression (renounciating the satisfaction of some of our desires as the condition of our survival) and surplus-repression done on behalf of exploitation and domination, as herbert marcuse did (marcuse, 1974) – for conceptual reasons, this distinction cannot be drawn. first, domination and exploitation are as a rule operative in the very way the renounciations necessary for our survival are libidinally cathexed. second (and in an apparent contradiction to the first point), it is the surplus-oppression (the prohibition for which there is no apparent reason) which generates surplus-enjoyment – as lacan says, enjoyment is something that serves nothing… third, one should draw another distinction here: between oppression and repression. oppression (brutal exercise of power) is not repression: oppression is directly experienced as such, but we are not aware of repression (in the freudian sense). when i am oppressed, what is often repressed is the way i enjoy this oppression (with all that it involves: my complaints, etc.). so what we get here are not just the two axes of a semiotic square: (impossible-possible, prohibited-permitted) but a complex texture which includes the axis of permitted-enjoined and even a triangle of oppressionrepression-depression. miller simplifies the image here: he claims that oppression is necessary, by which he means that there is no enjoyment without oppression (obstacles, prohibitions to our desires). the opposite of oppression is not freedom to do what one wants but depression, the loss of desire itself. but is oppression the only way to save our desire, the only way to avoid depression? the question we should raise at this point is: where is repression here? lacan strictly opposes the traditional freudo-marxist thesis that repression is the internalization into the victim’s psyche of the external oppression (i misperceive social oppression as a psychic force that sabotages my desires) – repression comes first (in the guise of what freud called “primordial repression”), it designates an immanent impossibility that is constitutive of human subjectivity. this “primordial repression” is the other face of what we call “freedom”: it opens up the void, a crack in the chain of natural causes, which makes us free. the figure of an external symbolic law as the agent of prohibition already obfuscates this immanent impossibility of desire. that’s why psychoanalysis does not aim at liberating our desires so that we can freely desire what we want (what we want is not what we https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 25 desire: our innermost desire as a rule appears to us as what we don’t want, what terrifies us) – more precisely, it liberates our desires only in the precise sense that we fully assume the impossibility on which our desiring capacity is grounded. psychoanalysis endeavours to mark out in a new way this impossibility – it’s premise is that we cannot get rid of a constitutive impossibility, but we can re-inscribe it in a different way. an elementary example: the imaginary number (square root of -1). it is an impossible number, but while it was traditionally dismissed as simple nonsense (even marx did it in one of his manuscripts), modern mathematics uses it in its calculations and it work – the statics of real buildings are constructed based on calculations which include the imaginary number. at a different level, modern democracy did something similar: what was for a premodern political order the moment of threat to be passed over as quickly as possible (when, after the monarch’s death, the throne is empty), becomes in modern democracy a positive feature (as claude lefort demonstrated it): no one can legitimately make a direct claim to power, the place of power is in principle empty, it can only be temporarily occupied by democratically elected persons. and is this also not the lesson of psychoanalysis: there is no “true” object of desire, every object is a place-holder of nothing? this is why one should resolutely reject the idea that the goal of the psychoanalytic treatment is to enable the patient to move from internal psychic conflicts (between his conscious ego and unconscious desires and prohibitions) to external obstacles to his happiness which s/he can now approach without self-sabotaging inner conflicts. this idea was not foreign to freud: already in his early studies on hysteria (1895, co-written with breuer), freud wrote, addressing an imagined reader/patient, that “much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness. with a mental life that has been restored to health, you will be better armed against that unhappiness” (freud & breuer, 1999, p. 305). later, however, the new topics of death drive and the so-called “negative therapeutic reaction” – clearly point towards an immanent conflict constitutive of our psychic life. the move accomplished by psychoanalysis is thus a hegelian one: from external opposition to immanent impossibility, and this holds also for the vision of a communist society: there is no freedom without impossibility, and this impossibility not just the limit imposed on us by external reality (the limited amount of objects that satisfy our needs) but also the immanent “self-contradiction” of our desire. there is, however, another trap that lurks here: to confuse this impossibility with our finitude, so that the impossibility that grounds our freedom is the fact of our mortal life full of risks and non-transparencies – there is no freedom in immorhttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 26 tality. exemplary is here martin hägglund who, through new readings of hegel, marx, heidegger, and martin luther king, deploys a coherent global vision which brings together materialism, existential finitude, and anti-capitalism (hägglund, 2019). his starting point is the rejection of the religious ideal of eternity: the only life we have is this life, our social and bodily existence which is irreducibly marked by mortality and incertitude. every faith in another world or a higher being that guarantees our fate is an illusion, so faith has to be reconceived in secular terms: it expresses our practical commitment which, due to our finitude, exposes us to contingency and always involves a risk of failure. however, precisely because we are finite beings who have to decide without any higher guarantee, we are free: freedom and mortality are the two sides of the same coin. in the second part of his book, hägglund turns to the socio-economic and political implications of his focus on “this world” of our finite temporal existence. since, as finite mortal beings, we don’t have an infinite time at our disposal (and since our eventual immortality would also make our life meaningless: choosing a life project that determines our engagement can only occur in a finite lifetime), our central preoccupation is to own our time, getting as much of it as possible disposable for the free development of our creative capacities in all their diversity. this, however, by definition cannot happen in capitalism where, in order to survive, we have to spend most of our time working for a wage, “losing time” for things we intrinsically don’t care about. if we want to overcome this alienation, we should enact a new revaluation of our values, replacing the money-form of value with the value of the free time at our disposal. the only way to do this is to replace capitalist form of life with a post-capitalist democratic socialism where private ownership of the means of production as well as the alienated state apparatuses regulating our lives will disappear; in this way, we will no longer be competing with each other for the possession of money-value but spontaneously working for the common good – the very antagonism between the common good any my personal interests will disappear. hägglund doesn’t go into the specifics of how to realize this radical social change, and many critics of his work see in this vagueness the main failure of his book. one can also speculate that it is precisely this vagueness which made this life susceptible to being praised not only in academic circles but also by the big media. the topic of disalienation, of people directly exerting their power, is a feature that, in spite of their radical differences, unites hägglund and trump. but what i find much more problematic is that, to put it in a brutally simplified way, there is simply no place for freud in hägglund’s universe. how can he claim that, in a post-capitalist society, people https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 27 would spontaneously tend to work for the common good – why? where is the envy constitutive of human desire? where are all the basic “perversions” of human desire described by freud and concentrated in his notion of death-drive? it is his humanist trust that all the horrors humans are capable of – all the self-sabotaging, all the complex forms of search for unhappiness, of pleasure in pain and in humiliation, etc. – can be reduced to the effect of a specific alienated social form, that makes hägglund’s book so attractive for broad public. what i try to develop is a vision of communism compatible with all these horrors, with the “alienation” implied by the very fact of language, with all the reflexive twists of human desire (how the repression of desire necessarily turns into a desire for repression, etc.) (kevin bacon said: “i’ve been told i’m more well known for being well known than for anything i’ve acted in’”) – this is the reflexivity of language or, in hegelese, the way, in a language, a genus can be one of its own species: being-well-known-for-something has many species, and one of them is being-well-known-for-being-well-known. the same holds not only for kim kardashian but also, in a more specific way, for love: you can well [and you always do] love somebody for love itself, not just for reasons to love (her/him/it.) this reflexivity is hegel’s name for actual infinity (as opposed to the spurious infinity of a series without end), and, since this reflexivity is constitutive of the freudian death-drive, we encounter here – from my freudo-lacanian standpoint, at least – a fateful limitation of hägglund’s insistence on radical finitude of the human condition. the axiom of the philosophy of finitude is that one cannot escape finitude/mortality as the unsurpassable horizon of our existence; lacan’s axiom is that, no matter how much one tries, one cannot escape immortality. but what if this choice is false – what if finitude and immortality, like lack and excess, also form a parallax couple, what if they are the same from a different point of view? what if immortality is an object that is a remainder/excess over finitude, what if finitude is an attempt to escape from the excess of immortality? what if kierkegaard was right here, but for the wrong reason, when he also understood the claim that we, humans, are just mortal beings who disappear after their biological death as an easy way to escape the ethical responsibility that comes with the immortal soul? he was right for the wrong reason insofar as he equated immortality with the divine and ethical part of a human being – but there is another immortality. what cantor did for infinity, we should do for immortality, and assert the multiplicity of immortalities: the badiouian noble immortality/ infinity of the deployment of an event (as opposed to the finitude of a human animal) comes after a more basic form of immortality which resides https://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 28 in what lacan calls the sadean fundamental fantasy: the fantasy of another, ethereal body of the victim, which can be tortured indefinitely and nonetheless magically retains its beauty (recall the sadean figure of the young girl sustaining endless humiliations and mutilations from her depraved torturer and somehow mysteriously surviving it all intact, in the same way tom and jerry and other cartoon heroes survive all their ridiculous ordeals intact). in this form, the comical and the disgustingly-terrifying (recall different versions of the “undead” – zombies, vampires, etc. – in popular culture) are inextricably connected. the same immortality underlies the intuition of something indestructible in a truly radical evil. this blind indestructible insistence of the libido is what freud called “death drive”, and one should bear in mind that “death drive” is, paradoxically, the freudian name for its very opposite, for the way immortality appears within psychoanalysis: for an uncanny excess of life, for an ‘undead’ urge which persists beyond the (biological) cycle of life and death, of generation and corruption. freud equates the death drive with the so-called “compulsion-to-repeat”, an uncanny urge to repeat painful past experiences which seems to outgrow the natural limitations of the organism affected by it and to insist even beyond the organism’s death. matthew flisfeder noted two features that clearly distinguish the “theoretical anti-humanism” of the, 1960s from today’s post-humanism: whereas the anti-humanists of the, 1960s proclaimed the death of the subject, today we encounter a far more unnerving death of the human. while the anti-humanists sought merely to deconstruct the subject within discourse, the posthumanists today are far more ambitious in realizing a return to matter and objectivity that they claim has been displaced by the verticality of humanity. (flisfeder, n.d.) so in the, 1960s, with foucault and althusser, the notion of subject (our self-perception as subjects) was “deconstructed” as a historically-specific discursive formation (although, for althusser, it was more a universal ideological misrecognition); plus the ultimate horizon of this deconstruction was discourse, i.e., discourse was posited as a kind of transcendental a priori, as that which is always-already here in our dealings with reality. today’s posthumanism, on the contrary, doesn’t deal with the “death of the subject” but with the “death” of humans, it asserts the falsity of our self-perception of humans as free responsible beings, demonstrating that this self-perception is based not on some ignored discursive mechanisms but on our ignoring of what we really are – the “blind” neuronal processes that go on in our brain. in contrast to the anti-humanism of the, 1960s, today’s posthumanism relies on direct materialist reductionism: our sense of freedom and personal https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 29 dignity is a “user’s illusion”, we are really just a complex network of bodily processes in their interaction with environment… an ironic consequence of this shift from anti-humanism to posthumanism is that the remaining anti-humanists or their followers (like miller), when confronted with the posthumanist challenge of full naturalization of human beings, all of a sudden start to talk (almost) like humanists, emphasizing the uniqueness of human self-experience (“decentered” as it is), and the impossibility to fully reduce it to “objective” neuronal processes. a further difference is that, while discursive deconstruction doesn’t directly affect our everyday life (where we continue to experience ourselves as free responsible agents), posthumanism promises (and to some extent already achieves) interventions into our reality which will radically change our self-perception: when we are submitted to total digital control and our brains will be directly wired, when our dna can be modified, when pills can change our behaviour and affections, this basically affects the way we experience ourselves and act. my only difference with flisfeder is that, based on these insights, he argues for a new universal humanism that could ground the global emancipatory struggle needed today. his argumentation is ultimately a new version of transcendental reflection: when i as a neuroscientist argue that i am just a set of neuronal and biological processes, i always do this in the form of rational argumentation, trying to convince others, as a part of scientific community – the space of this community where i address others (and act as) a free rational being convinced by reasons is always-already here, operative in my activity, not as an abstract cartesian cogito but as a human collective… so, to simplify the image a little bit, while flisfeder is ready to sacrifice subject but not humanity, not the basic dimensions of our being-human, i am tempted to do the exact opposite: i am ready to sacrifice (what we perceived till now as) the basic features of our being-human but not subject. “humanity” is a notion at the same level as personality, the “inner wealth” of our soul, etc. – it is ultimately a phenomenal form, a mask, which fills in the void that “is” subject. what subject stands for is the inhuman core of being-human, what hegel called self-relating negativity, what freud called death drive. so in the same way that kant distinguished the subject of transcendental apperception from a person’s soul and its wealth, in the same way freud and lacan distinguish the subject of the unconscious from the jungian personality full of deep passions, we should in our unique predicament stick to the inhuman core of subjectivity against the temptations of being-human. subject is what is in a human being more than human, the immortality of the death-drive which makes it a living dead, something that insists beyond the cycle of life and death. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa slavoj žižek elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 30 references arendt, h. (1961). crisis in education. in between past and future (pp. 170-193) the viking press. balibar, é. (2016). 12. the invention of the superego: freud and kelsen, 1922. in citizen subject: foundations for philosophical anthropology (pp. 227-255). fordham university press. baudelaire, c. (1920). journaux intimes fusées, mon coeur mis a nu. les éditions g. cres et cie. flisfeder, m. (manuscript). renewing humanism against the anthropocene: towards a theory of the hysterical sublime. floury, n. (2010). le réel insensé. introduction à la pensée de jacques-alain miller. éditions germina. freud, s., & breuer, j. (1999). studies in hysteria. in the standard edition of the complete psychological works of sigmund freud, vol. ii. vintage press. hägglund, m. (2019). this life: why mortality makes us free. profile books. johnston, a. (unpublished manuscript). divine ignorance: jacques lacan and christian atheism. non-accredited quotes that follow are from this text. lacan, j., miller, j. a., & porter, d. (1992). the seminar of jacques lacan, book 7: the ethics of psychoanalysis, 1959-1960. routledge. marcuse, h. (1974). eros and civilization. beacon press. miller, g. (2004). les pousse-au-jouir du maréchal pétain. points. miller, j. a. (2008). la psychanalyse, la cité, les communautés. la cause freudienne, 68, 105-119. schuster, a. (2016). the trouble with pleasure: deleuze and psychoanalysis. mit press. uribe munoz, j. e., & johnson, p. (0000). el pasaje al acto de telémaco: psicoanálisis y política ante el 18 de octubre chileno. política y sociedad. žižek, s. (2006). how to read lacan. granta. riassunto partendo dalla distinzione fatta da lacan tra “io ideale”, “ego-ideale” e “super-io”, strutturata dalla triade immaginario-simbolico-reale, questo studio indaga come sia possibile distinguere lo spazio sociale a-sessuale dal dominio delle interazioni libidichecattive. attraverso l’analisi delle idee di balibar, miller, schuster e hägglund, vengono definiti percorsi e strategie per analizzare le dinamiche esistenti tra potere simbolico, legge e super-io. ciò che emerge è la ricostruzione di una nuova soggettività capace, allo stesso tempo, di superare la dinamica godimento-super-io alla base della riflessione https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the vagaries of the superego elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 31 lacaniana e affrontare le sfide del post-umanesimo contemporaneo. pertanto, ciò che il soggetto rappresenta è il nucleo inumano dell’essere-umano, ciò che hegel chiamava negatività auto-relazionale, e ciò che freud chiamava pulsione di morte. il testo propone, in breve, come il soggetto è ciò che è in un essere umano più che umano, l’immortalità della pulsione di morte che lo rende un morto vivente, qualcosa che insiste oltre il ciclo di vita e morte. copyright (©) 2021 slavoj žižek editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: žižek, s. (2021). the vagaries of the superego. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 13-31. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/ elem-2021-0102-zize https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-zize https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-zize elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 59 the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” francesco fistetti università degli studi di bari “aldo moro” (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-fisf fistetti49@gmail.com abstract in this essay i argue that marcel mauss’s “essay on the gift” (1925) is not only intended to inaugurate a new paradigm on the terrain of ethnology and anthropology, but at the same time to make the gift a kind of novum organum of the social sciences and of moral and political philosophy itself. in the first part, i reconstructed the critique that m. merleau-ponty and c. lefort have made to lévi-strauss’s “structuralist” reading of mauss, and, in a second part, i emphasised the importance that m. hénaff assigned to the ceremonial gift of traditional societies as an intentional procedure of public mutual recognition between groups. but, using some of a. caillé’s indications, i explain that this device of mutual recognition and alliance, characteristic of the gift cycle (giving/receiving/reciprocating) also applies in modern societies whenever legal-political institutions become sclerotized and lose their legitimacy in the face of new actors in political action (newcomers or new arrivals, to use the arendtian category of natality in a broad sense). keywords: convivialism; gift and hegemony; gift paradigm; new encyclopaedia of humanities; recognition. 1. maurice merleau-ponty in front of marcel mauss the theme of the gift can constitute the axis of an epistemological revolution that crosses longitudinally the human and social sciences (from sociology to economics, from political philosophy to ethics, from the doctrines of law to the psychological sciences, from literary criticism to theories of language). moreover, this was, after all, marcel mauss’s project when he elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-fisf https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 60 published his essay on the gift (1925): rather than inaugurating a new paradigm on the strictly disciplinary terrain of anthropology, what was at his heart was to make the anthropological approach to modern society – and its rationality – a sort of novum organum of the human and social sciences. in the sense of being able to understand the differences between languages, traditions and forms of life where, as we know from bruce chatwin, they are in constant danger of being flattened and neutralised, and to know how to transform them into cultural exchanges, in which identities mingle, or even interpenetrate, without cancelling each other out (chatwin, 1987). on the other hand, is it not globalisation itself, with its openness to the plurality of cultures, that is pushing towards an epistemology of complexity in which it is the status of disciplines, starting with medicine, that needs to be reshaped? “can medicine today – adriano favole, for example, asks – ignore the existence of […] other languages, as body ones, for instance? could a medical science, in its aspiration to an universal efficacy of treatments, ignore the symbolic universes of witchcraft and possession and in general the culturally grounded languages of the body and illness?” (favole, 2016). maurice merleau-ponty was among the first to realise that, according to mauss, the study of “the social ‘things’ themselves, in concrete form and as they are” (merleau-ponty, 1960, p. 102) must go beyond the traditional antinomies between individual and collective, on which durkheim still insisted, and grasp in societies “more than ideas or rules […] men, groups and their different forms of behaviours” (p. 102). merleau-ponty emphasised the fact that the datum to which mauss draws attention in explaining the scientific fertility of his heuristic principle of “total social facts” is a historically identified and determined datum, “it is constituted”, mauss points out in a passage quoted by merleau-ponty, “by rome, by athens, by the average frenchman, by the melanesian of this or that island, and not by prayer or law by itself ” (p. 103). merleau-ponty did not miss the epistemological revolution implicit in mauss’s anthropological approach, which pushes western reason to “dilate” beyond its ethnocentric boundaries and, more importantly, urges it to get involved and self-define its hermeneutical categories in the light of the encounter with the other than itself. “in conceiving of the social as a symbolism”, writes merleauponty, mauss “had provided himself with the means for respecting individual and social reality and a cultural variety without making one impervious of the other” (p. 116). it is not irrelevant to note in this regard that, while appreciating the conception of the social proposed by lévi-strauss’ structural anthropology, merleau-ponty warned, with a polemical subtext, albeit oblique to lévi-strauss, that “as a matter of principle, structure is no platonic idea” (p. 117) and that “structure does not deprive society of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 61 any of its weight or thickness” (p. 118), as if to remind him of the need to respect the individual, the reality of the social and the variety of cultures “without making one impervious of the other” (p. 116), as if to remind him of the centrality of the maussian heuristic principle of “total social facts” and the consequent imperative of the study of the “concrete form” (p. 102). ethnology – merleau-ponty never tires of repeating – “requires us to transform ourselves” (p. 120), requires us to experience a journey outside of ourselves that leads us to construct no longer a universal from the top of a rigorously objective method, but, as it were, a lateral universal through which we can incessantly “see what is ours as alien and what is alien our own” (p. 120). here we also find a valuable indication for developing the maussian paradigm of the gift in the direction of a novum organum of the human and social sciences, if not a new encyclopaedia of the sciences tout court. it is where he invites us to relate to sciences such as psychoanalysis from a critical perspective that makes us realise that psychoanalysis “is our own witchcraft”, the therapist is the analogue of the shaman and transference is far from being “a purely objective method” (pp. 199-122). therefore, merleau-ponty tasked anthropology for “broaden our reasoning to make it capable of grasping what, in ourselves and in others, precedes and exceeds reason” and, to this endeavour, he called upon all the other sciences to work, those he called “semiological” (p. 124) and, quoting niels bohr, the physical sciences themselves (p. 122). however, merleau-ponty did not follow mauss in the direction of making the gift cycle as the axis of reunification of human knowledge, for he was more concerned with reconciling the lévi-straussian lesson on the “profound nature of exchange and the symbolic”, governed by structural laws, with the husserlian phenomenological lesson of lived experience and the marxian lesson on the historicity of cultures. indeed, the openness to otherness, which was the foundation of an “oblique universality” (p. 135); or pluriversalism, as we would say today in the language of the convivialist manifesto, stemmed for him from the realisation that “frontiers between cultures are erased; for the first time, no doubt, a world civilisation becomes the order of the day” (p. 124) 2. claude lefort critic of lévi-strauss moreover, a decade earlier, claude lefort – a pupil of merleau-ponty – had emphasised mauss’s epistemological revolution as it is based on the study of “concrete” and “total social facts”. to lefort, durkheim’s nephew’s way of working appeared very close to the phenomenological method “when one sees mauss”, he wrote, “striving to overturn the artificially erected barelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 62 riers between sociology and history or between sociology and psychology, and affirming a reciprocity of perspectives on a real in itself indefinable” (lefort, 1978, p. 16). towards lévi-strauss, lefort, while pointing out his convergence with the latter on certain key points, such as the concept of hau, indicative of a physicalistic – “chosiste” – interpretation of exchange (pp. 20-21) 1, had been, unlike his master merleau-ponty, explicitly polemical. “the ‘real’ mauss”, lefort had argued, referring to the introduction that lévi-strauss preface to mauss’s miscellany of essays sociologie et anthropologie, “which would inaugurate a new era for sociology, announcing its progressive mathematisation, we think was ‘constructed’ by the author of elementary structures of kinship” (pp. 16-17) 2. and yet, lévi-strauss says of marcel mauss that he “might have been expected to produce the twentieth-century social sciences’ novum organum; he held all the guidelines for it, but it has only come to be revealed in fragmented form” (lévi-strauss, 1965, p. 45). it is then a matter of revisiting and resuming mauss’s “encyclopaedic” project where lévi-strauss’s logicist rationalism had interrupted it by channelling it into the framework of a “logic of relations” (p. 64) oriented, rather than to mauss’s method, implicitly to the principia mathematica of n. a. whitehead and b. russell (1910-1913), and, explicitly, on the one hand to the formalism of phonology and structural linguistics of n. s. trubeckoj and r. jakobson and, on the other, to the discovery in psychology of the “unconscious mechanisms” of the mind made by freud. lefort had already observed that reading social life as a system of logical relations, which can be found behind the heterogeneous appearance of empirical operations, this leads to the cancellation of the concrete specificity of social phenomena themselves for the benefit of an “underlying reality” (lefort, 1978, p. 49) that closely resembles the kantian noumenon. “when one replaces”, he acutely noted, “the lived exchange, the experience of rivalry, prestige or love, with the thought exchange, one obtains a system 1 this reading of hau as a “mystical” link between things, common to lefort and lévi-strauss, will be contested by vincent descombes in les institutions du sens, “the notion of hau”, descombes will explain, “is a juridical one. the thing is animate rather than inert not because the participants have an animistic conception of inert things but because things are integrated within the system of exchange” (descombes, 1996, p. 256). 2 the passage from lévi-strauss’ introduction targeted by lefort is the following: “the essai sur le don therefore inaugurates a new era for the social sciences, just as phonology did for linguistics. the importance of that double event (in which mauss’s part unfortunately remained in the outline stage) can best be compared to the discovery of combinatorial analysis for modern mathematical thinking” (lévi-strauss, 1965, pp. 41-42). for an interpretation of the relationship between lévi-strauss and mauss in defence of the former’s structural approach based on the analogical application of the rigorous method of linguistics to the “products of social activity” (lévi-strauss, 1965, pp. 38-39; hénaff, 2008). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 63 of cycles of reciprocity between a b c d families: the concrete subjects of the exchange have disappeared. the plurality of consciousnesses is reduced to a plurality of symbols, i.e. it is erased”. “sociality”, says the author, “is only real if it is integrated into a system” and by system he means the mathematical function. “only he forgets that the system is obtained at the price of the negation of sociality” (lefort, 1978, p. 22). lefort’s thesis is very clear: lévi-strauss “moves away from a phenomenological analysis” and the “underlying reality” he gives us back is a “mathematical reality” (p. 21), not the historical dialectic of a struggle between human groups, not a “political anthropology” (as the subtitle of les formes de l’histoire sounds) as the key to understanding the constitution of sociality – of the social bond –, especially since the modern era, in its radical indeterminacy and in its aporetic outcomes of the dissolution of the political in the discourses and totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. it is not by chance that descombes reaches by other means (that of peirce’s triadic logic) lefort’s critique of lévi-strauss, where he shows how lévi-strauss opposes a chain of causal explanations, aimed at the knowledge of unconscious psychic mechanisms, to mauss’s “holistic” programme: “mauss’s description fails to satisfy lévi-strauss simply because lévi-strauss seeks to go beyond simple description in order to come to an explanation” (descombes, 1996, p. 252), founded, instead, on the historical-morphological study of “total social facts”. lévi-strauss’ rationalist programme shows all its limits here: on the one hand, the “logic of relations”, invoked by him, is much narrower than peirce’s extended logic, which in the case of the exchange of gifts analysed by mauss includes both the relations of people to things and the relations of people to each other (eco & sebeok, 1983; maddalena, 2005; bonfantini, fabbrichesi, & zingale, 2015) 3; on the other hand, the causal explanation, which thanks to its objectivity will no longer be “ideological”, is resolved in the passage from the intentional dimension to a natural dimension, from “ideological facts” to “brute facts” (descombes, 1996, pp. 240-241). hénaff insists on re-proposing the objectivist and naturalist explanation of the gift cycle and its operations (to give / to receive / to retourn), since he is convinced, like lévi-strauss, that mauss has left us only “fragments” of what he announced as a novum organum of the social sciences. in his view, mauss in the essai approaches a rigorously 3 peirce’s logic of relations goes far beyond the symbolic logic to which lévi-strauss seems to look. referring to his conception of symbolism, lévi-strauss writes: “in fact, it is nothing other than mauss’s conception, translated from its original expression in terms of class logic into the terms of a symbolic logic which summarises the most general laws of language” (lévi-strauss, 1965, p. 64). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 64 scientific approach, but fails to settle in the “promised land” he glimpsed. “in this essay, mauss seems – rightly – to be controlled” lévi-strauss continues, “by a logical certainty, namely, that exchange is the common denominator of a large number of apparently heterogeneous social activities. but exchange is not something he can perceive on the level of the facts” (lévi-strauss, 1965, p. 45). but the “logic of relations”, to which mauss would not have adhered, is, as we said, that of a mathematical nature elaborated in the first decade of the twentieth century by whitehead and russell in the principia mathematica, rather than the triadic logic developed by peirce and taken up again in polemical function by descombes against lévi-strauss. hénaff reaffirms with lévi-strauss that exchange is to be understood as “the internal linking of the three terms” and, therefore, as “an original structure of reciprocity” and as “the totality of a relation that must immediately be understood as integrating the moments and elements that compose it: reciprocating is already implied in the receiving that follows the giving” (hénaff, 2017, p. 63). the diriment of the question concerns the way of conceiving the category of total social fact: while hénaff with lévi-strauss wants to bring this category back to a deeper plane of thought in which operations such as hau and mana rest on an unconscious unity (lévi-strauss, 1965, p. 58), descombes, making use of peirce’s triadic logic, considers the plane of “intentionality”, i.e. the historicity and concreteness of the social actors involved in the operations of giving/receiving/returning, to be indispensable. hénaff traces with rich argumentation the thesis of lévi-strauss according to which in mauss the unitary phenomenon of exchange is dismembered into three empirical operations separate from each other with the consequence that mauss “strives to reconstruct a whole out of parts; and as that is manifestly not possible, he has to add to the mixture an additional quantity which gives him the illusion of squaring his account. this quantity is hau” (lévistrauss, 1965, p. 47). but if the hau, as descombes suggests, is a juridical notion, that integrates the exchange of things into the network of people (so that we are always in the presence of a third party and never of a chain of dyadic exchanges), it follows that the symbolism associated with the total social fact of the gift has an eminently historical character in terms of the forms in which it is realised, i.e. it brings into play specific human subjects or groups, bearers of equally specific cultures and traditions, who through conflict can come to peace and mutual recognition. undoubtedly, marcel hénaff is right when he states that the exchange of gifts – beginning with the matrimonial exchange investigated by lévi-strauss in the elementary structures of kinship – is a structure that holds together the terms that compose it, precisely because it limpidly exemplifies a triadic elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 65 relationship such as those described by peirce. and, since it is a legal phenomenon, it refers back to a pact, an alliance and, therefore, to an institution founded on a normative dimension, that is, on well-defined rules to whose respect the partners are mutually committed. but this is exactly what mauss means when he emphasises the obligation to reciprocity inherent in the give/receive/reciprocate cycle and in the symbolic device of the alliance. the “obscurity” of this unitary structure that is the “total social fact” of the gift – which has to do with the genesis of society as a shared construction – dissolves as soon as we take hold of the great anthropological lesson that the ethnological investigation of so-called primitive societies delivers to us as an inheritance that could be described as imperishable. it consists in understanding the kind of “wisdom” that underlies “human evolution”, i.e. that our coexistence, although exposed to transformations that are hard to imagine, can only hold up and progress if we assume the vital principle that has so far secretly made it possible: the principle of “to emerge from self, to give, freely and obligatorily” (mauss, 1965, p. 91). breaking tribalisms, breaking the closures that social systems tend to establish in order to self-protect themselves from the new and the different, putting the rules back into play by widening their field of application/ interpretation and including, where appropriate, new actors. this is the historical dialectic to which the principle of “coming out of oneself ” refers, which mauss exemplifies in the māori proverb: “give as much as you get, all will be well” (hénaff, 2018, p. 277). as for lefort, hénaff rightly observes that in his writings, one breathes the atmosphere of an “optimistic age of the dialectic” that is now “behind us”, while the triumph of history, which he praised in antithesis to the primitive societies that were blocked and “stagnant”, has resolved itself into the triumph of globalised financial capitalism, no less impanelled in “inflexible hierarchies and ferocious locking mechanisms” (p. 218). however, it is precisely this scenario that mauss anticipated when he lucidly diagnosed that “homo œconomicus is not behind us, but lies ahead” (mauss, 1965, p. 98). and it is precisely to the phenomenon of the globalisation of this anthropological figure that mauss’s heuristic criterion of total social facts should be applied today from the perspective of the paradigm of the gift, i.e. of a theory that considers subjects – individual or associated – as actors/donors in their being in the world and entrusts to the “wisdom” of the principle of emerge from self, to give, freely and obligatorily, the challenge of building relationships of alliance and mutual coexistence. from this point of view, the paradigm of the gift wants to be something more than just a scientific theory alongside others and with interpretative pretensions superior to rival ones (a sort of interor meta-paradigmatic theory precisely because of its vocation to proelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 66 pose itself as a novum organum). it wants to embody, as we shall see in conclusion, a philosophy-world or a weltanschauung that is up to the global age we have entered (and to which we can give the name of convivialism). 3. the experience of the foreign hasn’t the generalised utilitarianism of the homo œconomicus, hegemonic today, become a symbolic device immanent to all aspects of common life, hasn’t it become a “thought without concepts”, which cannot exist, as hénaff points out (hénaff, 2012, pp. 199-210)? is there not a symbolism of homo consumens (z. bauman), a social imaginary created by the hypermodern rites of advertising and fashions (s. latouche), a kind of religion of the market (j.-c. micah)? therefore, lefort’s political anthropology is still of great help to us where he makes us aware that the institutionalisation of social relations in modern societies – and a fortiori in planetary society – is inseparable from that system of collective representations that is ideology, which as demonstrated by the totalitarian regimes of the last century, tends to become “invisible”, to “dissimulate” itself in the lie of the state, to homogenise through the media every “exteriority” and internal division, continually feeding the phantasmal illusion of “a community in the certainty of its cohesion” (lefort, 1978, p. 318). we certainly cannot deny that symbolic devices of this kind – of manipulation/mystification/occultation –, characteristic of ideological discourse, are at work in the same societies organised around a central power we call the state with its legal-political and economic institutions. with the entry into modernity, hénaff explains, illustrating the difference with the ceremonial gift of archaic societies, mutual public recognition between groups – and of individuals themselves – is entrusted to the procedures established by law (hénaff, 2012, pp. 199-210). so he is perfectly right when, with a wealth of arguments, in a perspective founded “in particular, with respect to the accuracy of the anthropological data and their philosophical interpretation” (p. 151), which we cannot go over here, he clarifies that the ceremonial gift of traditional societies, in being an intentional procedure of mutual public recognition between groups, contains within itself an alliance, a pact, a convention. “an alliance”, hénaff continues, “takes up the social bond, encompasses and transcends it into a political bond – that is, an intentional relationship of association – and it embodies in every society the very emergence of the political” (p. 42). however, if we stop, as hénaff does, to note that in state-type societies mutual public recognition “is performed and guaranteed by the law and the whole of the political and legal institutions, elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 67 which proclaim the dignity of our existence as citizens, subjects in law, and producers of goods” (p. 47), then we preclude ourselves from grasping the peculiarity of the maussian paradigm of the gift. if this were the case, the latter would reach, by other means, in its ultimate outcomes the proceduralist theory of democracy elaborated by j. habermas or, according to different declinations, by j. rawls, m. walzer, ch. taylor and many others (fistetti, 1992). compared to these authors, however, the maussian paradigm of the gift contains an epistemological surplus – which is also an ethical/political overhang – represented by the disruptive status that the gift cycle can assume in the re-institutionalisation of social relations. in short, when juridical-political institutions become sclerotized, which is why the pact or alliance loses its original legitimacy in the face of new actors in political action (the newcomers or the new to use the arendtian category of natality in a broad sense), at which point reopening the cycle of the gift means putting institutions to the “experience of the foreign” (épreuve de l’etranger: berman, 1984). it may be the post-world war ii generations advancing demands for the renegotiation of the social pact in terms of new rights (women, the disabled, homosexuals, etc.), or civic movements carrying general symbolic values such as climate justice and ecological transition, or ethno-cultural minorities. re-opening the cycle of gift – to give / to receive / to return – means in these cases activating a process that goes beyond the logic of economic exchange, but also beyond the logic of political/symbolic exchange regulated by the law 4. here we are helped by the hybridity of the maussian concept of gift, which has, as is well known, a dual aspect: interest/disinterest, obligation/freedom, economic calculation/generosity. redefining the citizenship pact may also partly obey an economic calculation (e.g. the realisation that we cannot do without the immigrants’ labour-power), but in order to set such an ethical 4 in a little masterpiece entitled la ville qui vient (the coming city) hénaff pointed out that in all civilisations, the city represents a compendium mundi, a place of articulation between men and gods, earth and sky, the order of nature and the order of man’s activities. the idea of public space, therefore, goes far beyond the juridical-political dimension, as it includes religious and cosmological values that make the city a symbolic dispositif thanks to which “the city is constructed and organised to be in itself a world” (hénaff, 2018, p. 42). with the advent of modernity, the city becomes a formidable techno-social mega-machine, which is no longer the “analogical copy of the cosmos”, but a “techno-social melting pot in which the world is transformed”: the mixing of peoples and social classes, the interweaving of cultures produce the “first device for the exploitation of the biosphere”, the first great technological change from which all others will derive, including the industrial revolution itself (pp. 47-64). finally, the city has progressively become a “network of networks”, a place where “the most diverse interconnections meet and overlap”, a “centre of decentralisations” (p. 73). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 68 political and legal process in motion, it is necessary to share a very strong democratic “passion”, feelings of solidarity towards the most disadvantaged, a propensity to understand the different and the distant, i.e. true civic virtues (aristotle referred to philia or friendship as a genuine bond between citizens of the democratic polis). the lesson that mauss draws from the anthropological discovery of the gift as the “rock” on which all societies, not just traditional ones, stand is that the public space of modern democracies, in order to be active and effective, needs a moral infrastructure that, in addition to the rights of individuals and groups, recognises above all the gifts of social cooperation, i.e. the fact that individuals and groups in their performance give something of themselves, their particular talents and their life-time. in a way, mauss rediscovers on the ethnological and anthropological side one of spinoza’s great teachings, that of the intimate connection between utilitas and virtue, since “the foundation of virtue is that endeavor itself to preserve one’s own being, and that happiness consists in this – that a man can preserve his own being” (spinoza, 1954, iv, proposition xviii, note, p. 202; cristofolini, 2009; toto, 2013). of course, for spinoza the determination to seek what is truly ‘useful’ requires that our affective life be illuminated by reason, that is, by an adequate understanding of ourselves and the world. spinoza derives from this premise a very important political corollary, very close to the maussian discovery that it is the gift that is the basis of the social bond. “from this it follows”, spinoza continues, “that men who are governed by reason, that is to say, men who, under the guidance of reason, seek their own profit, desire nothing for themselves wich they do not desire for other men, and that, therefore, they are just, faithful, and honorable” (spinoza, 1954, iv, proposition xviii, note, p. 203) 5. is it necessary to recall that at the end of the essay mauss draws “moral conclusions”, as stated in the first paragraph of chapter four, in which he affirms that “things still have a sentimental value in addition to their venal value, assuming that there are only venal values” (mauss, 1965, p. 83)? the connection between utilitas, virtue and politics is, therefore, very clear in mauss’s eyes. we could enunciate his thesis as follows: the institutions of democracy are symbolic institutions (hénaff ) or institutions of meaning (descombes) not only because they incorporate formal procedures of mutual recognition sanctioned by law 5 it is worth recalling proposition 71 of the ethics: “none but those who are free are very grateful to one another”, from which the demonstration: “none but those who are free are very profitable to one another, and are united by the closest bond of friendship […] and with equal zeal of love strive to do good to one another” (spinoza, 1954, iv, proposition lxxi, p. 239). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 69 (constitutions, legal codes, etc.), but also because they presuppose mobilising civic affections and passions. it is this anthropological background, historically determined but ceaselessly variable, that irrigates not only the sphere of economic production, but also the juridical-political institutions, in the sense that the link between utilitas, virtue and politics is not something given in nature, but the outcome of power relations between social movements that are bearers of alternative and conflicting worldviews and projects for the construction of forms of coexistence. therefore, if the mutual recognition of autonomous subjects as individuals endowed with inalienable rights is a specific achievement of modernity, it would be reductive to deduce this conquest of modern times from a transcendental matrix, as jean-luc nancy does when, through a circular and, therefore, fallacious argumentation, he makes the debt and credit relations typical of homo œconomicus descend from the human condition in general, from the notion of being-together borrowed from heidegger’s existential analytics (mitsein). “sociality, community or collectivity”, he writes, “represent nothing more than the intrigue of language, recognition and mutual commitment. these three instances are not elements, but aspects of a condition which is that of being-together as the whole that is added to being but constitutes it” (nancy, 2018, p. 32) 6. which is the fallacious argument typical of classical economists who, as marx pointed out, considered the categories of capitalist society (capital, profit, interest, etc.) as “natural”, eternally existing categories. 4. from levinas to mauss the maussian theory of the gift thus contains a grid of concepts that, when made explicit, lead to integrating or redefining the classical conception of public space, both in the habermasian sense of public sphere (habermas, 1962), and in the reconstruction that hannah arendt proposed of it in her matrix aspects of the greek polis (arendt, 1958). with good reason, hénaff reiterated that the public space of western civilisation is “the civic 6 nancy goes so far as to presuppose a “practical trading reason” – if one can call it that – in the kantian sense in which reason is “practical”, i.e. through morality itself. reason – understood as the human disposition – is itself engaged in commerce, it is also itself commerce: symbolic as much as material exchange. the symbol itself is formed in exchange and as exchange. the first trade is that of recognition. we used to speak of “commerce” in the sense of “company/society” and also of carnal relationship (nancy, 2018, pp. 37-38). as if to say: in the beginning, there was homo œconomicus (albeit, still in embryonic form!). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 70 space of the common good” or, as we might also say, “a device of relations regulated by certain norms”, in which “a reasoned agreement between the members of the city is made possible with regard to what concerns the definition of institutions, the formation of laws and their application” (hénaff, 2018, p. 88). but when, with the entry into the society-world of globalised and financialised capitalism, this idea and this practice of public space, which we have inherited from our greco-roman tradition and from the aufklärung, are eroded not only in their architectural dimension, but also in their political-institutional one, it is only the reactivation of the political as a cycle of giving/receiving/returning, realised as an agonistic challenge of generosity, that can introduce the shared construction of a new “common space” and a new “common world”. the most eloquent example is that of the so-called welfare state. to put it bluntly, without a set of philosophical, religious and socio-cultural values such as the dignity of the person, the equality of individuals beyond the diversity of race, religion and culture, the belief in one’s own capabilities and life project, the desire to emancipate oneself from traditionalist prejudices and constraints, without this weltanschauung common to parties that are ideologically very distant from each other, and even opposed to each other, the pluralistic and agonistic democracies of the post-world war ii period would not have been possible. these values belonging to different symbolic universes nurtured the “conflicting consensus” (mouffe, 2013) of the democracies of the “thirty glorious years” after world war ii, creating collective and affective identifications that gave sap to universalist social policies and civic practices. as seyla benhabib would have put it (benhabib, 2006), these cultural and affective values transformed the ethnos into the demos of post-world war  ii democracies. political conflict and mutual public recognition between social actors were fuelled by positive affections such as solidarity, a sense of social justice, the moral imperative to reach out to the less fortunate, empathy, and the responsibility to care for the other. was it not this true virtue ethic, which has become almost part of a mass common sense, that mobilised an unprecedented civic and institutional commitment? without such an ethic inclined to compassion, care for those in need, and openness to the other, there can be no alliance. an alliance is a commitment between unequal beings (by status, income, power) who commit themselves to recognising each other as equal in dignity and in mutual duties to be fulfilled, not a contract between formally equal subjects. the alliance, in order not to resolve itself in the hegelian logic of servant/master subjugation, must bet on diversity, otherness, and difference so that they translate into common and shared goods, into a form of coexistence in which, as mauss states, it is possible to oppose each other elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 71 “without slaughtering each other” or “sacrificing each other”. there is no doubt that one or the other party can fail in their agreed duties in order to make their own will to power prevail. therefore, in finding the balance – and such an undertaking succeeds only if there is the will to dialogue – lies the art of conflict management. before axel honneth, emmanuel levinas had linked politics to “the struggle for recognition”: “politics tends toward reciprocal recognition, that is, toward equality; it ensures happiness. and political law concludes and sanctions the struggle for recognition. religion is desire and not struggle for recognition” (levinas, 1961, p. 64; honneth, 1992) to point out that the relationship with the other, in order to be authentic, must be, at least partially, asymmetrical, i.e. without reciprocity or, as levinas puts it, it must be a “surplus”, which is “possible in a society of equals, that of glorious humility, responsibility, and sacrifice, which are the condition for equality itself ” (levinas, 1961, p. 64). but if levinas calls this “possible surplus” a “religion” by relegating the exchange of goods to the circle of the economic and consigning happiness to justice understood as legal-formal equality (the question of the third), mauss, durkheim’s nephew and pupil, takes a much more impervious, but theoretically more fruitful path. reciprocity is not to be understood as the alternative or the opposite of levinas’ “possible surplus”, but as its integration, as the other side of the same coin 7. for mauss, this is precisely the self-obligation of the gift, its ancipitous status of obligation and freedom. an incipit status means that what levinas separates – ethics as an asymmetrical relationship with the face on the one hand, and the question of the third as a reciprocal pact between contracting parties considered equal on the other – mauss, on the other hand, holds it together by playing out within different temporal contingencies now the register of reciprocity (of the mutual recognition of equals sanctioned by shared rules), now that of ethical selfobligation towards newcomers who demand recognition. mauss’s spirit of the gift is not oblateness as a noble religious tradition has transmitted it to us, it is not the disqualification or putting reciprocity out of play, but in the modern age it is the willingness on the part of the dominant institutions – state, associations, organisations  – to renew the cycle of giving/ receiving/renewing every time the demand for recognition from new social 7 in this, hénaff ’s critique of the levinasian conception of reciprocity as a concept confined to the sphere of contract and exchange of equivalents is a point-of-no-return. levinas’s community is “a community of pure dissymmetry and unilateral recognitions: a boundless nonclosure […]. the ethical bond is and remains beyond the political realm, situated as it is on a level impervious to symmetry” (hénaff, 2012, p. 74). but ethics is that “surplus” required by the contenders to renew the covenant of living together, when the latter breaks down due to the emergence of new demands for recognition. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 72 actors arises. to paraphrase a habermasian expression from knowledge and interest (habermas, 1973), the spirit of the gift is in modern societies the “emancipatory interest”, which goes beyond the “instrumental” or “strategic” interest, since it impels subordinate subjects (be they individuals or associated with human groups) to be recognised as public subjects of an organised community or as parts of a demos that understands itself neither as an ethnically defined identity nor as a set of rational agents moved exclusively by their own self-interest. but it understands itself as a community of subjects willing to reopen the cycle of giving/receiving/returning, whenever the institutional system is subjected to the test of otherness. 5. gramsci, mauss and sen: concrete freedom in order to better understand the dialectic between reciprocity in the legalpolitical sense and ethical self-obligation, we are helped by amartya sen’s reflection with his distinction between “functionings” and “capabilities” 8. the “capabilities” approach, precisely because it looks not so much at goods or resources as at people’s basic capacity to “function” in a certain way in the democratic space and to give concrete content to their freedom, emphasises the contingent dimension of the pact and the need for it to be open to the other, where reciprocity in the observance of rules and ethical obligation towards those who will legitimately claim to be part of it in the future are both constitutive elements of democratic coexistence. on the other hand, it may seem a coincidence we do not know how coincidental, gramsci in the prison notebooks had reflected on the same example, illustrated by sen, of suffering hunger to clarify the concept of concrete freedom linked to the objective conditions of life of the subject and his actual “possibilities” of choice. “possibility”, writes gramsci, “means liberty. the measure of liberty enters into the concept of man. that there are objective possibilities of not starving to death has its importance, it seems. but the existence of objective conditions, or possibilities, or liberty is still 8 as is well known, by “functioning” sen means what a person may want to do or want to be in life. they concern basic needs and desires (such as being sufficiently nourished and not suffering from avoidable illnesses), as well as needs and activities of a high and complex nature (such as being able to participate in the political life of the community or having self-respect). by “capacities” (or “capacitations”) sen means all the possible combinations of functioning that each of us is able to enact in our life contexts: “capability is thus a kind of freedom: the substantive freedom to achieve alternative functioning combinations (or, less formally put, the freedom to achieve various lifestyles)” (sen, 1999, p. 75). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 73 not enough: one must ‘know’ them and know how to make use of them. man, in this sense, is concrete will, that is, the effected application of the abstract will or vital impulse to the concrete means that realise this will” (gramsci, 1975, p. 1338). what is worth noting is that gramsci attributes the “ability” to realise the conditions of concrete freedom to man’s political “capacity” to “transform” and “direct” other men, i.e. to associate in order to live together. this calls into question the politics of alliance as the creation of shared conditions of life in common and at the same time ethics as the realisation of the individual personality. in this sense, he states that “man is essentially ‘political’, since the activity to consciously transform and direct other men realises his ‘humanity’, his ‘human nature’” (p. 1338). in short, the alliance is not an immutable datum or a result guaranteed once and for all, but is itself an “agonistic” activity, which renews itself recurrently, based on historical circumstances and the re-interpretation of the values that generated it. in a word, the alliance must always be interpreted with respect to a parallelogram of power relations (with their respective symbolic and value universes) between social actors, including those that gradually appear on the scene, and, therefore, as an ever precarious point of equilibrium. it is no coincidence that in order to describe the uncertain and problematic nature of the alliance, mauss takes as his model a situation that gramsci would call a clash of hegemonies – and honneth a struggle for recognition – when he writes that in relations between rival groups, “there is no middle way: one trusts completely, or one mistrusts completely” (mauss, 1965, p. 104). coming to terms, then, is a wager, a challenge, a risk, and presupposes the gesture of “laying down one’s arms” in order to renegotiate and redefine existing rules and values. the cycle of giving always begins again in this way: self-obligation to risk the gift of alliance and mutual trust. the phase of political democracy that we experienced after world war ii (the so-called “thirty glorious years”) perfectly illustrates the “agonistic” essence of the alliance. the negative side effects associated with this historical-political cycle of democracy, which in part tocqueville had already foreseen as an inevitable consequence of a mimetic passion for equality (clientelism, passivity, narcissistic consumerism, political disaffection, fiscal crisis of the state, etc.) or a narcissistic conception of equality (the “state’s” own “political” and “social” values, etc.), were the result of the “agonistic” nature of the “political” alliance or of a narcissistic conception of individual rights, it does not detract from the fact that modern democracies have been not only the outcome of power relations in the conflict between capital and the labour movement, but at the same time a declination of the maussian spirit of gift, the expression of an “emancipatory interest”: an alliance, as mauss put it, in which the contracting subjects elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 74 gave up something, “gave” themselves to each other “without sacrificing” (where “sacrificing” is equivalent to the cancellation of all self-interest). but if, as then happened with the triumph of neo-liberalism, over attachment to the common good prevails a complex of affections such as self-interest, the desire for easy personal enrichment, narrow proprietary individualism, the outcome will be the hybris of the logic of homo œconomicus that will invade all institutions and all spheres of life. and on the political level, the regression from demos to ethnos, to the tribalisation of collective identities (prosperi, 2016). individual, civil, social and economic rights will also be dragged into an egotistic and nihilistic drift, to which no dutifulness on the part of social subjects and actors corresponds. instead of citizens sharing, out of their singular differences, the same public space and a common ethos, we will have consumers and customers, subjects of oligarchic democracies, if not autocratic regimes. the ineluctable downside of this option, which may even be ideologically passed off as a rational choice (here again lefort’s warning on the mechanisms of the functioning of ideological discourse returns), will be that of stirring up the sad and violent passions of envy, hatred of difference, mass narcissism, scapegoating, racism, sexism, nationalism, terrorism, etc. (bodei, 1991; pulcini, 2001). certainly, trust and openness to the other entail exposure to the risk of checkmate. “two groups of men who meet can only either draw apart, and, if they show mistrust towards one another or issue a challenge, fight – or they can negotiate” (mauss, 1965, pp. 104-105). if there is no willingness to risk the “experience of the foreigner”, if those who previously recognised themselves in a pact of citizenship close themselves off in defence of their public space as if in a fortress, rejecting what mauss calls the “law of hospitality” (p. 104), they will turn the pact into a fetish, into a theological dogma not susceptible to revision or further enlargement. the consequence can only be war, mutual hostility, the servant/master relationship, or “voluntary servitude” as the other side of the “steel cage” of an economic-political power that tends to be homogeneous and unopposed. in a word, the risk is that the demos will regress to the level of the ethnos with the result of a democracy without a demos or with a people conforming to the description of the classics, from plato to machiavelli, from thucydides to hobbes, from tocqueville to ortega y gasset, from croce to canetti: a mass of individuals obeying irrational drives, prey to demagogues and barkers. in this framework, which is that of post-fordist financial capitalism, mauss’s diagnosis that homo œconomicus is in front of us and not behind us takes on renewed relevance (aime, 2013). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 75 6. a new philosophy-world it is precisely in this context – which is that of a planetary society dominated by globalised capitalism – that it becomes meaningful to take up the maussian project of a novum organum for humanities and social sciences that has the gift cycle as its gravitational centre. i refer to a more articulate discussion of this theme that i have developed elsewhere (fistetti, 2017). on the other hand, it can be said that the critical work of mauss has been moving in this direction since its inception (caillé, 2014). here i would like only briefly to try to move mauss’s line of research critique of generalised economism forward. in fact, in mauss’s perspective, it cannot be accomplished by limiting itself exclusively to the plane of scientific argumentation, but must be transferred to a new vision of life, to a civic philosophy, to a conception of living-together and being-in-the-world such that it is innervated in beliefs, habits and social practices that are alternative to the dominant ones. on this terrain we find the spinozian theme of the affections and passions in their relationship with politics and, to use machiavelli’s formula, with “civil living”. when mauss emphasises at the end of the essay that the transcultural wisdom of the gift consists in being able to invent a form of coexistence in which “to oppose without slaughtering each other”, we cannot forget that as a militant socialist, a friend of jaurès, he devoted a considerable part of his time to the foundation of production and consumption cooperatives (mauss, 1997). in this political and trade union commitment he saw the construction of forms of community life that not only raised the “social” level of the economy, but also strengthened, we might say, the power of action of individuals, i.e. the feelings of “loyalty”, “industriousness”, “respect” and mutual esteem of citizens (mauss, 1965, pp. 106-108). associationist socialism – of english inspiration, to which mauss looked sympathetically – represented for him the ideological referent of a political praxis of this kind. now, on the horizon of the global age, in order to defeat the hegemony of generalised utilitarianism, it is necessary to oppose a philosophy-world – or, as gramsci would say, a philosophy of praxis – which, far from proposing itself as a complete theoretical system, brings together the instances, affections and socio-cultural values common to the various social movements of resistance and struggle against globalised capitalism in view of a post-neoliberal world. and that, above all, is concerned with placing at the centre of the critical debate new forms of social organisation aimed at restoring momentum to the democratic ideal, once it has been ascertained that the myth of the unlimited growth of the productive forces and with it the illusion of the homo faber of finding a technical solution to the global risks to which elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 76 humanity is exposed is now unfeasible. as if the catastrophes of technological progress could be escaped by unlimitedly increasing its intrinsic logic without changing the direction of travel (dupuy, 2004). of course, it matters little whether this worldview is called convivialism or by any other name. what is essential is that it embodies a widespread culture, a common sense in gestation, a collective consciousness in fieri that walks on the legs of concrete social subjects. for this to happen, it is best not to lose sight of mauss’s lesson, namely to link the horizontal dimension of movements criticising the generalised economicist model with the vertical dimension of the re-institutionalisation of public space so that the reopening of the gift cycle produces both the legitimisation of new social subjects and the renormalisation of the economic, which has been completely deregulated following the triumph of financial capitalism (pennacchi, 2015). it is barely worth recalling the enormous importance mauss assigns in the essay to law as an instrument of institutionalisation and re-institutionalisation of social relations. thus, a civic philosophy aimed at scanning the lexicon of a possible new world in the making and experimenting its translatability into concrete practices of coexistence here and now. references aime, m. (2013). dono, dunque siamo. otto buone ragioni per credere in una società solidale. torino: utet. arendt, h. (1958). the human condition. chicago, il: university of chicago press. benhabib, s. (2006). another cosmopolitanism. oxford: oxford university press. berman, a. (1984). l’épreuve de l’étranger: culture et traduction dans l’allemagne romantique. herder, goethe, schlegel, novalis, humboldt, schleiermacher, hölderlin. paris: gallimard. eng. transl. by s. heyvaert, the experience of the foreign: culture and translation in romantic germany. albany, ny: suny press, 1992. bodei, r. (1991). geometria delle passioni. milano: feltrinelli. bonfantini, m., fabbrichesi, r., & zingale, s. (2015). su peirce. interpretazioni, ricerche, prospettive. milano: bompiani. caillé, a. (2014). anti-utilitarisme et paradigme du don. pour quoi? lormont: le bord de l’eau. chatwin, b. (1987). the songlines. london: franklin press. cristofolini, p. (2009). la scienza intuitiva di spinoza. pisa: ets. descombes, v. (1996). les institutions du sens. paris: éditions de minuit. eng. transl. by s. a. schwartz, the institutions of meaning. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2014. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 77 dupuy, j.-p. (2004). pour un catastrophisme éclairé. quand l’impossible devient certain. paris: seuil. eng. transl. by m. b. debevoise & m. r. anspach, how to think about catastrophe: toward a theory of enlightened doomsaying. east lansing, mi: michigan state university press, 2022. eco, u., & sebeok, t. a. (1983). the sign of three: holmes, dupin, peirce. bloomington, in: indiana university press. favole, a. (2016). la bussola dell’antropologo. roma bari: laterza. fistetti, f. (1992). democrazia e diritti degli altri. oltre lo stato-nazione. bari: palomar. fistetti, f. (2017). convivialità. una filosofia per il xxi secolo. genova: il nuovo me langolo. gramsci, a. (1975). quaderni del carcere, vol. ii. torino: einaudi. gramsci, a. (1995). the philosophy of benedetto croce. in further selections from the prison notebooks (pp. 498-524). eng. transl. by d. boothman. london: lawrence & wishart. habermas, j. (1962). strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit. untersuchungen zu einer kategorie der bürgerlichen gesellschaft. neuwied berlin: luchterhand. eng. transl. by t. burger & f. lawrence, the structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. cambridge, ma: the mit press, 1989. habermas, j. (1968). erkenntnis und interesse. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp verlag. eng. transl. by j. j. shapiro, knowledge and human interests. boston: polity press, 1971. habermas, j. (1973). a postscript to knowledge and human interests. philosophy of the social sciences, 3(2), 157-189. hénaff, m. (2008). claude lévi-strauss, le passeur de sens. perrin: paris. hénaff, m. (2012). le don des philosophes. repenser la réciprocité. paris: seuil. eng. transl. by j.-l. morhange, the philosophers’ gift: re-examining reciprocity. new york: fordham university press, 2020. hénaff, m. (2017). au risque de soi. parler, donner, attester. la revue du mauss, 50(2), 64-84. hénaff, m. (2018). la città che viene. roma: castelvecchi. honneth, a. (1992). kampung um anerkennung. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp verlag. eng. transl. by j. anderson, the struggle for recognition: the moral grammar of social conflicts. cambridge: polity press, 1995. lefort, c. (1974). esquisse d’une genèse de l’idéologie dans les sociétés modernes. textures, 8-9, 3-54. repris dans c. lefort, les formes de l’histoire. essais d’anthropologie politique (pp. 481-482). paris: gallimard, 1978. levinas, e. (1961). totalité et inf ini. paris: la haye. eng. transl. by a. lingis, totality and infinity: an essay on exteriority. pittsburgh, pa: duquesne university press, 1969. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa francesco fistetti 78 lévi-strauss, c. 1965 (1950). introduction à l’œuvre de marcel mauss. paris: puf. eng. transl. by f. baker, introduction to the work of march mauss. london: routledge & kegan paul, 1987. maddalena, g. (2005). introduzione a c. s. peirce, scritti scelti (pp. 9-44). torino: utet. mauss, m. (1902-1903). esquisse d’une théorie générale de la magie. eng. transl. by r. brain, a general theory of magic. london new york: routledge, 1972 (2001). mauss, m. (1925). essai sur le don. paris: puf. eng. transl. by w. d. halls, the gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. london new york: routledge, 2002. mauss, m. (1997). écrits politiques. paris: fayard. merleau-ponty, m. (1960). signes. paris: gallimard. eng. transl. by r. mc clarey, signs. evanston, il: northwestern university press, 1964. mouffe, c. (2013). agonistics: thinking the world politically. london new york: verso. nancy, j.-l. (2018). cosa resta della gratuità? milano: mimesis. pennacchi, l. (2015). il soggetto dell’economia. dalla crisi a un nuovo modello di sviluppo. roma: ediesse. prosperi, a. (2016). identità. l’altra faccia della storia. roma bari: laterza. pulcini, e. (2001). l’individuo senza passioni. individualismo moderno e perdita del le game sociale. torino: bollati boringhieri. pulcini, e. (2011). invidia. la passione triste. bologna: il mulino. sen, a. (1999). development as freedom. new york: oxford university press. sen, a. (2000). lo sviluppo è libertà. milano: mondadori. spinoza, b. (1954). ethics. edited with an introduction by j. gutmann. new york: hafner publishing company. toto, f. (2013). amicizia, gelosia e gratitudine nell’etica di benedetto spinoza. in consecutio temporum. hegeliana/marxiana/freudiana, 2(4), 270-287. riassunto in questo saggio sostengo che il “saggio sul dono” di marcel mauss (1925) non solo intende inaugurare un nuovo paradigma sul terreno dell’etnologia e dell’antropologia, ma allo stesso tempo fa del dono una sorta di novum organum delle scienze sociali e della stessa filosofia morale e politica. nella prima parte, ho ricostruito la critica che m. merleauponty e c. lefort hanno mosso alla lettura “strutturalista” di mauss da parte di lévistrauss e, in una seconda parte, ho sottolineato l’importanza che m. hénaff ha assegnato al dono cerimoniale delle società tradizionali come procedura intenzionale di riconoscielementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 79 mento pubblico reciproco tra gruppi. ma, utilizzando alcune indicazioni di a. caillé, spiego che questo dispositivo di riconoscimento reciproco e di alleanza, caratteristico del ciclo del dono (dare/ricevere/ricambiare), si applica anche nelle società moderne quando le istituzioni politico-giuridiche si sclerotizzano e perdono la loro legittimità di fronte a nuovi attori dell’azione politica (nuovi arrivate o nuovi arrivati, per usare la categoria arendtiana di natalità in senso lato). copyright (©) 2023 francesco fistetti editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: fistetti, f. (2023). the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts”. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 59-79. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-fisf elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-fisf https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 135 cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 1 learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) 2 università degli studi di bari (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-tosc giusi.toto@unifg.it alessia.scarinci@uniba.it abstract the current of cyberfeminism has been active for 30 years now, also referred to as the “third wave” of feminism. despite being an ambiguous and multifaceted movement involving multiple instances, cyberfeminism is represented in the imagination by women with strong knowledge of media and digital technologies. the purpose of this article is to analyze the socially and culturally constructed value that the media assume in this movement. the very concept of identity is undergoing a phenomenon of control whereby it is redefined by “control grids” (d. haraway) that prevent free access to participation in life on the web. the utopian theories of feminists actually alternate with fundamental gender analyses within cyberspace that determine the amount of access to resources. the last phase of this phenomenon is instead characterized by the intent to break down gender inequalities through a series of digital products that produce changes in common perceptions: online magazines, youtube channels, webinars, and entrepreneurship actions on the web. new media and, more generally, access to information are fundamental to social and political participation, in which the phenomenon of exclusion or production of inequalities is more visible. gender divisions on the web also reinforce sociocultural barriers and sometimes create regressive and destructive forms of social bonds. globalization also affects these dynamics and accentuates exaggerated forms of individualism and cognitive stiffening, which further accentuate the distinctive traits of gender inequalities in cyberspace. keywords: cyberfeminism; digital technologies; new media. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-tosc giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 136 introduction in 1994 in britain, the director of the cybernetic culture research unit, sadie plant, invented the term cyberfeminism unit at the university of warwick to define the work done by feminists with interest in exploiting, critiquing, and theorizing the cyberspace, the internet, and in general, new-media technologies (tazi & oumlil, 2020). thus, “third-wave” feminism grew from cyberfeminism, followed by the “second-wave” feminist movement, which is the contemporary feminist movement we see today. according to tazi and oumlil (2020), the “second-wave” feminist movement started in 1970. it concentrated on women’s equal rights, but as an antecedent of the, 20th century’s “first-wave” feminism focused on women’s suffrage. cyberfeminism was motivated mainly by helping younger technologically savvy women and those from middle-class, western, and white backgrounds. today, the ranks of cyber feminists are growing, but and along with the increase is the growth of divergent ideas about what includes cyber feminists’ thoughts and actions (tazi & oumlil, 2020). before the invention of cyberfeminism, the study of technology among feminists tended to develop technology as constructed culturally and socially. during this period, the main argument was that technology belongs to the masculine culture because it perceived men as good at, interested in technology, and engaged in it more than women (moghaddam, 2019). even today, feminists still argue that technology is looked at as a masculine invention, yet, throughout history, women have been actively involved in developing new technologies. for instance, moghaddam (2019) highlights that, though women were involved in creating and developing the computer, their contributions were greatly marginalized. their involvement was often written off or ignored in history. hence, feminists like judy wacjman, an australian professor in sociology at the canberra national university, and cynthia cockburn, london’s activist, and independent scholar, argue that technology should be re-conceptualized interrogated continuously. women need to become more involved in technology fields as well (moghaddam, 2019). however, richard and gray (2018) say that donna haraway, the history of consciousness program professor at the university of california, santa cruz, paves the way for cyberfeminism for women through her groundbreaking essay “a manifesto for cyborgs”. in her essay, haraway defends feminist and socialist cyborgs facing challenges of single “grids of control” and identity that prevent them and other marginalized groups from fully participating in things technology. haraway establishes that women need to become more proficient technologically to challenge these https://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 137 systems and engage with the “informatics of domination”. most importantly, haraway argues that women need to be users who are and savvy of the technological systems because only using them was not simply enough (richard & gray, 2018). as such, this paper examines the background of cyberfeminism, its development, theories, its technical analysis based on gender, and its criticism. the article also discusses how women have become savvy users and how gender inequality can be changed through information technology. 1. background to cyber feminism richard and gray (2018) continue to build on the work of donna haraway of 1997 by writing that, in 1990, cyberfeminism started and acquired an international impact. during this time, donna haraway started “cyborg feminism”, a specific feminist branch that helped women use new technologies to profit themselves and fight against patriarchy (richard & gray, 2018). haraway established a cyborg manifesto that involved technology, socialist-feminism, and science but echoed karl marx’s 1847 “communist manifesto”. haraway disapproved the second-wave feminism and echoed feminism that substituted identity from affinity. haraway deployed the cyborg metaphor to challenge feminists to participate in politics that is beyond essentialism and naturalism. within which she called the “informatics of domination”, haraway’s manifesto aimed at justifying feminists’ hesitance to acknowledge their situation (richard & gray, 2018). haraway noted that people lived in a period where circuits and wire were gaining ground instead of flesh. it was time they appreciated the cyborgization that was holding ground in different fields of advancing technology. according to haraway, a cyborg represented a postmodern utopia of a world without gender that has no beginning (richard & gray, 2018). following the prelude to cyberfeminism, cyberspace was coined by william gibson in 1982 and became a descriptor of the prevalent virtually constructed mental environment from where computer network activities take place (puente, 2018). cyberspace can be used as a symbol to define computers’ non-physical crafted environment. relatively, cyberspace and the internet are becoming doors through which women will have the opportunity for liberation (colley & maltby, 2018). cyberfeminism is concerned with opposing the accepted and recognized men dominance in the advancement and employment of online technology. cyberspace, on the other hand in is involved in allowing women to use the internet technology to share, interact, swap information, and https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 138 take part in recreation while taking part in social forums and carrying out loads and businesses for other enterprises, as stated by (puente, 2018). therefore, the internet, cyberspace, and other information galaxies are no longer viewed as masculine tools or spaces because women can not only reframe and negotiate themselves within the social structure using cyberspace, they have also embraced it. hence, women are considered producers and consumers of the internet and cyberspace. in contrast, cyberspace acts as a social capital that enables women to embrace the cyber-social communities and networks to expedite their requirements and ventures (puente, 2018). 2. the development of cyberfeminism from the above beginnings, cyberfeminism began to develop. richard and gray (2018) resonate with the writings of sadie plant, an early proponent who coined cyberfeminism who says that women are naturally suitable to use the internet because, in nature, women and the internet are similar. both women and the internet are self-replicating and are non-linear systems aimed at making connections. richard and gray (2018) continue to report that plant argues that even though earlier feminists believed that computers essentially belonged to men, intellectuals should instead see the internet and computers as an avenue for women to play and engage in new forms of work. it is a place where women are set free from traditional constraints and can gain and experiment with new avenues for demanding authority and power. plant’s view for cyberspace is a familiar and welcoming space where women can and must grab opportunities to challenge male supremacy and advance themselves (richard & gray, 2018). richard and gray (2018) think that, as younger feminists begin to work on the internet, they begin not to identify with the masculinity theoretical arguments or the similarities between computers and women. they begin to see the internet as the main space for women to use technology to claim their territory, gain power and authority in the current society. today, some women in the feminist group can reject the name ‘‘feminist’’ altogether but still view the internet as a key tool for women to engage with and learn about (richard & gray, 2018). that is why groups and individuals have coined discussion groups, websites, and other online means to advance technological ends for women concerned with learning more about technology and those already employed in areas of information technology. moreover, these groups believe that women can achieve superior knowledge in emerging technologies through empowerment and https://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 139 exceptional understanding of emerging technologies and creating extra opportunities to advance their working areas (richard & gray, 2018). ramsey and mccorduck (2005) note that, anna munster a professor from the university of new south wales, and susan luckman, an australian feminist from the university of queensland, comprise another branch of cyber feminists that are of the idea that it is reductive and simplistic for women to merely gain power and authority through the use of new media technology. munster and luckman believe that technology is permanently ingrained in the power structures that are not positive (ramsey & mccorduck, 2005). therefore, in their opinion, demands on girls and women to uphold and advance the use of new technologies uncritically do not critically evaluate the role of technology in cultures and whether culture wishes to see technology develop or not. munster and luckman agree that women must and should be part of the future of technology. however, they argue that women’s involvement must advocate for engagement in technology use and advocate for more awareness of the promises and perils that new technologies propose (ramsey & mccorduck, 2005). more critiques of the earlier work of cyber feminists suggest that calling on more women to involve themselves with new technologies is founded on wrong assumptions about actual living environments. simply said, not all women have access to the internet or the computer and will not likely access it in the probable future (ramsey & mccorduck, 2005). so, cyber feminists who simply make declarations that all girls and women need laptops or modems are ignorant of the living conditions for those who are not yet privileged like those of the western (mostly white) and middle-class background that are often referenced according to ramsey and mccorduck (2005). hence, when considering how best to advance online feminist ideas or otherwise, it is best to take account of women’s material conditions. additionally, though cyberfeminism is a growing area of thought and study, its set of ideas concerning new technology and women are not unified beyond the main idea that gender equality, mostly on new technology, is a wanted goal (ramsey & mccorduck, 2005). 3. cyber feminism theories according to milford (2015), cyber feminists explore theories expansively: they say women are naturally suited to use the internet as they equally share significant commonalities. secondly, women are best at empowering themselves to acquire expertise in technology and become fluent in online communication. lastly, women are best positioned to study how https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 140 knowledge and power are built in the systems of technology and how feminists can change and disrupt such practices for the progression of all society members (milford, 2015). critiques of these theories say that, despite their utopian look, it is apparent that online spaces are places where the manifestation of feminists’ issues occurs. kieswetter (2020) notes that frameworks of early cyber feminists reduce the inequality problem to a problem of access to training on wiring and other technicalities and other equipment. matters of online inequality extend to broader contexts of sociopolitics that influence the betterment of cyberspatial environments on cultural grounds where narrative dissertations of capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal routines are advanced within these constructs. therefore, these dissertations have the power to limit the agency of women online, possibly discouraging them from participating equally in digital societies (milford, 2015). milford (2015) further accentuates that political and policy discourses that handle issues of online inequality, plus many other current cyberfeminist discourses, also portray tendencies to embrace these narratives of linear progress. while adopting these narratives of linear progress, simplistic secondary notions related to virtual space and gender get accepted regularly instead of being critiqued. rather than complicating the connection of cyberspatial and gender environments, according to mcadam et al. (2020), critiques of cyber feminists and lawful responses to web-based gender issues have stagnated more often, investing in yet another artificial contrast. they say online spaces are either dystopian (fantasy lands) or utopian (ideal spaces), but nothing amidst them. the foreseen “brave new world” by earlier cyber feminists is becoming a troubled anti-utopia (anti-ideal) with risks of gender used to justify the contemporary tendencies in lawful reactions that comprise of surveillance, criminalization, and taking responsibility of women online (mcadam, crowley, & harrison, 2020). still, the same critiques that equalized views of early cyber feminists of cyberspaces as innately utopian can likewise be equalized as enclosing virtual spaces is the framing of innately dystopian; it is not that simple, says (kieswetter, 2020). 4. analysis technology based on gender presently, online platforms have become the key ways women are connecting worldwide. the internet has thoroughly revolved to be considhttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 141 ered an outstanding balance; nonetheless, accessing it is not uniformly shared. in connection with women, disputes related to gender rights to use the internet are found in several studies and investigations; concerning access to technology, there are gender distinctions as technology is often regarded as masculine (rossetti & frade, 2018). thus, there are more internet-savvy men as compared to women because of masculinization. additionally, there is gender division based on who participates in the production and design of technology. men are known to have higher internet skills and spend more time online than women. but many critics believe that the reasons women in india are gradually falling out of internet users are less secure due to cyber harassment, cyberbullying, and cyber teasing (kieswetter, 2020). studies also indicate that to study online pages and acquire information, literacy skills among women are important. still, many women fear using computers because of technophobia and should be taught ict skills. the gender divide in the use of the internet is particularly salient in developing countries and sets women at the threat of lagging. in india, the uneven gender ratio is reflected in its access to the internet. as many citizens are active online, the indian government plans to provide internet connections to 1.30 billion residents as research shows that women still lag behind men in accessing the internet (figs. 1-2) (consalvo, 2002). in india and the world at large, there is an observation that women using the internet in different parts of society is consistently declining. figure 1. – use of internet in india (men vs women). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 142 figure 2. – use of internet globally (men vs women). notably, the existing difference between men and women with their socioeconomic statuses is one probable clarification of the gender gap. consequently, in the ranks of internet users, men outnumber women since job status, education, and income are connected with internet use (consalvo, 2002). on the subject of gender and technology, most of the information has been derived from identity studies and culture. a better part of this work agrees that internet characteristics of gender inequality have greatly favored men despite the growth of other online resources apart from chat rooms and websites that function in favor of women. the phenomenon that is gender explicit can contribute to online gender gaps, given that these claims are founded (bimber, 2000). research indicates that india is the second-largest country with a huge online market, given that it has over 462 million internet users, followed by china. better still, it was estimated that by 2017, the statistics of those using the internet by june would rise to 465 million and 635.8 million by the end of 2021 in india, where men are said to be dominant internet users by 71% to women’s 29% (www. statista. com). recent reports also estimate that this gender gap will reduce in the coming years, where the internet usage share by women may get to 40% (fig. 3). a. t. kearney, a consultancy and tech google giant, conducted research that reported that one in every five online business customers is a woman in india. google further predicts that this pattern will increase from the present, 20% to 40% in four years to come. the google report also remarks that the online market will witness a 5x+ progress in the statistics of those women shopping online by 2023, as the significant non-adoption barriers are mitigated (consalvo, 2002). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 143 figure 3. – the percentage of female and male internet users in india. regarding the participation of women on twitter, an analysis of 23,350 tweets by the observer research foundation showed that, in microblogging sites and conversations about politics, women are underrepresented. these statistics reflect marginalization in the whole country’s political processes (bellman, 2017). additionally, men’s tweets were at 46%, with 8% less of tweets coming from women, as reflected by the report. the remaining tweets were from accounts and organizations where it was difficult to ascertain or access gender identity. of the 23,250 sampled tweets under the trending topics about politics, 7.72% of the tweets were from women, 46.15% tweets were from men, 34.83 tweets from news outlets, organizations, and other groups, while 11.30% tweets were from users without gender specifications (bellman, 2017). this means that, while the gender internet use ratio was improving slightly in india’s urban part, 40% of women are utilizing the internet against 60% of men. in rural areas, there are 75% of men internet users compared to 25% of women. globally, women seem to lead in internet handling in dominant social network sites, although the trend is different in india. recent reports from uk’s consultancy firm “we are social” on social network sites like facebook that consider india its extensive market, the ratio of women to men internet users is 1:3. india’s facebook population comprises 24% of women than 76% of men (fig. 4); these figures are more skewed by gender for bhutan and nepal’s bordering countries (www. statista. com). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 144 figure 4. – use of social networking sites globally (men vs women). the nation of south asia demonstrates uneven technology use. cell phones are the primary tools that make women’s lives more beautiful in middleincome countries and low-income countries. unfortunately, in countries with middle-and low-income, the number of women without cell phones amounts to more than 1.7 billion; 72% or 440 million indian females do not own cell phones as per gsma, an association of mobile service companies worldwide (moghaddam, 2019). also, over 100 million more men than women have mobile phones in india, which is an enormous gender gap globally. half of the worldwide gap of 200 million women accounts for those lacking phones in india. hence, about 28% of women and 43% of men have cell phones, indicating that 36% of women are likely to have phones than men. but even those women owning phones in india can only use them for communication in most cases (moghaddam, 2019). an estimated 55% of women with mobile phones in india by gsma never have or cannot send a text message which relates with men in indian who have never sent a text message though they have a cell phone at 33%. likewise, 80% of women in india with cell phones are yet to connect to the internet using their cell phones (bellman, 2017). according to cater-steel and cater (2017), technology is considered an excellent equalizer and mode of communicating with individuals who it could not have been easy to connect with before. most importantly, technology condones people’s age, looks, color, gender, and even economics. even though cyberfeminism specified that women were not technophobic in the past, today, despite being ranked behind in decision-making in https://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 145 society and fewer numbers of women in higher education, india indicates a relatively higher number of women in managerial and administrative positions at 28%. additionally, in the it field, 28% of the workforce are females, a higher ratio than other fields in the country and others (catersteel & cater, 2017). a 2016 report on industries ruled by companies such as wipro ltd and infosys gave about 51% of it jobs or entry-level tech sectors were given to women. such actions show that cyber feminists are tasked with the need to employ insights that are theoretically female bound along with strategic resources that connect them with techniques in the cyber to combat disparity, militarism, and racism automated in the hardware and software of the internet. thus politicking the environment in the end (lestari, fadilah, & wuryanta, 2020). 5. the opinion of critiques on the analysis of technology based on gender online trolling usually targets women. on politically charged matters, women occupying online space are considered intruders of the male space. regarding gender-based exploitation, many female activists and bloggers who are well known have preferred to bring down their accounts (mcadam, crowley, & harrison, 2020). critiques believe that men are believed to be the first to benefit from innovations, whereas women follow them and take over their vacated positions. colley and maltby (2018) state that jobs such as ict that are technological are often regarded as masculine, and their control and proficiency usually belong to men. further, kieswetter (2020) indicates that women are deterred from accessing information on technology by such assessments. nevertheless, in ict empowerment areas, women also play a role that exceeds stereotypes, but prejudice hampers their significance and ability to learn and apply innovative technology. however, channa (2004), while riding on the work of sadie plant, a cultural theorist and british philosopher, is enthusiastic about her zeroes + one’s work which acknowledges the ability of internet technologies to transform women’s lives. channa (2004) considers cyberspace as a liberating platform for women and female technology is advanced by the internet. moreover, the internet worth is derived from the nurturing aspects of virtual communities, decreasing hierarchies, and the free exchange of information, which are women’s values. also, the final proof of networking technology is when the internet epitomizes nothing but the death of patriarchy. moreover, channa (2004) accentuates that the fundamental belief of zeroes + ones is that technology has liberated women, and the ongoing https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 146 gender tremor is only a part of the historical process. while discussing cyberfeminism (melanie stewart millar) an advocate for women’s rights, develops on the writings of channa (2004) by stating that cyberfeminism facilitates a female-centered outlook that advocates for utilization of the latest communications and information technologies aimed for liberation. miller adds that different cyber feminists view technology as liberating and are convinced that its growth can end superiority among men leaving room for women to live exceptionally in the era of technology. 6. how women have become savvy users mohanty and samantaray (2017) says that the struggle for feminine identity is a phenomenon of social post-independence. the example of kapilaben vanka, an executive committee of self employed women’s association (sewa) member who shares how a mobile device has changed her life, will help understand the phenomenon of social post-independence. vanka is a farmer who cultivates lily flowers. to sell the flowers, vanka must wake up early to pick the flowers and later take them to the market. before buying her cell phone, she moved from market to market and from one trader to the other, spending the whole day finding the best market. today, vanka uses her cell phone to call up different traders in different markets when still at the garden. the flowers are already in the market for sale by nine in the morning. the cell phone has saved vanka tremendous time and money. she earned about 1500 to 2000 rupees as an added income since she started using a cell phone to communicate (mohanty & samantaray, 2017). thus, although vanka’s example gives hope that women are still involved and benefiting from technology, gender inequality is vast in the way technology is used worldwide. the sizable forces or the socio-cultural factors within societies and cultures repeatedly impinge on the demeanor, judgment, mindset of individuals (mohanty & samantaray, 2017). girls’ rights are restricted in the public space when involved in domestic chores, beliefs, and masculine attitudes, prohibiting them from accessing internet centers. for example, the google educative initiative that offers the internet saathi program in india is trying to change the lives of girls and women with an aim to the divide in gender technology. unfortunately, this initiative puts women at more risk of being marginalized in society (mohanty & samantaray, 2017). across the continent, as asia witnesses the growth in internet access, determining global conversations are emerging on electrical networks, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 147 influencing ideologies, and creating fresh knowledge. electronic journals, magazines, and e-books are being circulated on the global web where women share ideas; presently, online libraries are a reality for social honesty to quicken the activism process (consalvo, 2002). women clients get access to e-mail and the internet, perform word processing through the computer and get entertained with instant communications digitally. women also get help from computers when accessing their money from banks and when conducting banking activities. they are becoming the best tools for teachers and learning women. through social networking sites like twitter, facebook, blogs, e-mails, and myspace, the internet provides diverse ways for women to connect with others according to consalvo (2002). women often spend their time online to distract themselves by updating themselves with the news, watching online videos through youtube, reading e-books, playing online games, and shopping (mohanty & samantaray, 2017). according to consalvo (2002), for those women who admire or want to work as freelancers, the internet has created opportunities for them on online platforms. technology has helped women balance hobbies, family, and work in several ways; naturally, women can now incorporate technology into their everyday activities. women now utilize the telecommunication and work-from-home options. consalvo (2002) further highlights that access to information through technology is an essential tool for development and transformation in a social way; it may be taken as the basic need for women. in conjunction with web entrepreneurship, there is a need for education and requisite skills for the digital world to empower women in the tech sector. 7. changing gender inequality through information technology as full societal access to information technology gets more widespread, and technology gets more advanced, women are liberated from traditional patriarchal power structures surrounding and consuming them (luckman, 2017). luckman (2017) further illustrates that, in places where societal norms of being masculine, human, and feminine are transitioning, gender identity and roles are breaking down. technology empowers women to express their ideas and develop new business models that have to be practical, visionary, and rational to get things in motion. additionally, communication and information technology let women escape categories and boundaries that have constrained their identities and activities in the past. e-media, which can be redesigned, recorded, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 148 and reprogramed to exceed conditions, is a new technology that provides women chances to start a new, develop new programs, images, languages, platforms, multi-subject identities, and fluid identities (wilding, 1998). feminism is the starting point of cyberfeminism in its quest to concentrate on contemporary technologies while exploring the connection between technology, culture, and gender identity (mcadam, crowley, & harrison, 2020). cyberfeminism struggles to increasingly be aware of the effects of new technologies on women’s lives and gender fluidity in their daily lives. fortunately, international cyberfeminism pursues to bring together women from several different fields of visibility and involvement in developing economies and policies of electronic communication networks and technologies. finally, cyberfeminism must expand the critique about the media publicity concerning the world of technology as they offer important criticism of the medium, according to (mcadam, crowley, & harrison, 2020). conclusion communication and information technologies are meant for every person, and women must have equal beneficiaries of the benefits provided by technology and the processes and products that materialize from their use. women need information on career advancement, research, matrimony, health, infant care facilities, sexual harassment, legal provisions, entertainment, social injustice, and domestic violence. cyberfeminism emphasizes the impacts of technology on the subtle gendering of cultural technology and the lives of women in their everyday life. internet is an online device linking women worldwide, and feminists utilize the web to defeat racial and gender opportunities. notably, a country that wishes for development and advancement must not ignore empowerment and capacity building among women. likewise, since the internet and cyberspace provide both men and women with access to the same information, women must also be associated with the lifecycle of technology advancement, as they are beneficiaries and negotiators of change. cyberspace’s gender division is enforced by socio-cultural barriers, which are very multifaceted and adversely affect women. it is improbable for gender differences that arise when using the internet to naturally end on its own without targeting to involve stakeholders and policymakers. the government should provide financial support for women to easily access the immense information found on the web and support their ideas. although overcoming these difficulties and obstacles has no ‘silver bullet, ict stakeholders have many actions they can take to possibly augment the access and usage of the internet by https://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 149 women; the image of technology must change to involve female views. in certain markets, increasing the use of the internet for women might be the change needed among stable and increasing revenues and stagnant or shrinking income progression. cyber feminists understand the new technologies as necessary for the economic and social restructuring that productively affects the state of women. references bellman, e. (2017). tech sexism: the missing indian women of the internet: the numbers. retrieved (august 4, 2017) from https://blogs.wsj.com/ briefly/2016/10/13/tech-sexism-the-sexism-the-missing-indian-womenof-the-internet-the-numbers/ bimber, b. (2000). measuring the gender gap on the internet. social science quarterly, 81, 868-876. burchell, j. (2017). connected, women gain strength. retrieved (may 18, 2017) from https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/programme/ connected-women/connected-women-gain-strength cater-steel, a., & cater, e. (2017). women in engineering, science and technology: education and career challenges. genesis publishing. channa subhadra (2004). encyclopedia of feminist theory, vol. 1. genesis publishing. colley, a., & maltby, j. (2018). impact of the internet on men and women. computers in human behavior, elsevier, 24, 2005-2014. consalvo, m. (2002). cyberfeminism. in encyclopedia of new media (pp. 109-110). sage. https://study.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/ch17_cyberfeminism. pdf internet usage in india – statistics and facts (2021). https://www.statista.com/ topics/2157/internet-usage-in-india kieswetter, s. (2020). techno-feminism(s): an investigation into challenging patriarchal hegemony in new media art. doctoral dissertation. lestari, n., fadilah, a. n., & wuryanta, e. w. (2020). empowered women, & social media: analyzing #yourbeautyrules in cyberfeminism perspective. jurnal aspikom, 5(2), 280-293. luckman, susan. (2017). (en)gendering the digital body: feminism and the internet. hecate, 25, 36-48. mcadam, m., crowley, c., & harrison, r. t. (2020). digital girl: cyberfeminism and the emancipatory potential of digital entrepreneurship in emerging economies. small business economics, 55(2), 349-362. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://study.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/ch17_cyberfeminism.pdf https://study.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/ch17_cyberfeminism.pdf https://www.statista.com/topics/2157/internet-usage-in-india https://www.statista.com/topics/2157/internet-usage-in-india giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 150 milford, t. s. (2015). chapter ii. revisiting cyberfeminism: theory as a tool for understanding young women’s experiences. in j. bailey & v. steeves (eds.), egirls, ecitizens (pp. 51-81). les presses de l’université d’ottawa | university of ottawa press. moghaddam, r. (2019). struggle for equality: from the constitutional revolution to cyberfeminism with a focus on the role of new media in the women’s movement in india. freie universität berlin. mohanty, j. r., & samantaray, s. (2017). cyberfeminism: unleashing women’s power through technology. rupkatha journal on interdisciplinary studies in humanities, 9(2), 328-336. mulyaningrum, a. b., yusof, m., ahmad, s., & sahib, s. (2007). cyberfeminism: changing gender inequality via information technology. paper presented at international conference on engineering & ict – icei 2007, melaka, malaysia. puente, s. n. (2018). from cyberfeminism to techno feminism: from an essentialist perspective to social cyberfeminism in certain feminist practices in spain. women’s studies international forum, 31(6, november), 434-440. ramsey, n., & mccorduck, p. (2005). where are the women in information technology? report of literature search and interviews. prepared for the national center for women & information technology. richard, g. t., & gray, k. l. (2018). gendered play, racialized reality: black cyberfeminism, inclusive communities of practice, and the intersections of learning, socialization, and resilience in online gaming. frontiers: a journal of women studies, 39(1), 112-148. rossetti, ê. a., & frade, r. l. (2018). the construction of feminine, techno feminism, and technological paradox. in pathologies and dysfunctions of democracy in the media context. universidade da beira interior (labcom books, 144). tazi, m., & oumlil, k. (2020). the rice of fourth-wave feminism in the arab region? cyberfeminism and women’s activism at the crossroads of the arab spring. cyberorient, 14(1), 44-71. wasuna, n. (2018). hashtag feminism: how women and feminists in africa are leveraging on social media to combat gender-based violence. in changing the mainstream: celebrating women’s resilience (1st ed.). awsc african women studies centre, nairobi. wilding, f. (1998). where is the feminism in cyberfeminism? n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal 2 (july): women and new media, 6-13. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 151 riassunto la corrente del cyberfemminismo è attiva da ormai un trentennio, e viene definita anche come “terza ondata” del femminismo. pur essendo un movimento ambivalente e poliedrico e coinvolgendo molteplici istanze, il cyberfemminismo è rappresentato nell’immaginario collettivo da donne con forti conoscenze dei media e delle tecnologie digitali. lo scopo del presente articolo è quello di analizzare il valore socialmente e culturalmente costruito, assunto dai media in questo movimento. il concetto stesso di identità subisce un fenomeno di controllo che viene ridefinito da “griglie di controllo” (d. haraway), che impediscono il libero accesso alla partecipazione alla vita nel web. in realtà, le teorizzazioni utopiche delle femministe si alternano a fondamentali analisi di genere all’interno del cyberspazio, che ne determinano la cifra stessa dell’accesso alle risorse. l’ultima fase di questo fenomeno è connotata invece dall’intento di abbattere disuguaglianze di genere attraverso una serie di prodotti digitali che producano cambiamenti nelle percezioni comuni: riviste online, canali youtube, webinar, azioni di imprenditoria nel web. copyright (©) 2021 giusi antonia toto, alessia scarinci editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: toto, g. a., & scarinci, a. (2021). cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 135-151. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-20210102tosc https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-tosc https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-tosc elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio françois jullien: the double transit of human life elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa françois jullien: the double transit of human life luis roca jusmet universidad autónoma de barcelona – uab (spain) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-roju lroca13@gmail.com abstract françois jullien finds the “unthinkable” in our philosophical tradition in his journey to the chinese world. one of these ideas is precisely that of understanding nature as a process, not formulated in terms of continuity but of transit. in this transit human life is inscribed, like all lives. but in jullien there is also an ethical commitment to understand this human life as open to the possibility of another transit, that of a second life. these are interesting ideas to pick up even seeing the limitations of the chinese approach. as françois cheng points out, the ideas of subject and right are missing. we could go further and say that the idea of freedom is missing. but jullien overcomes these limitations by pointing out this lack and overcoming it in his proposal. but as he also underlines, it is precisely this idea of transit as a way out of our dualisms and polarities that can teach us the most, as westerners. keywords: china; duration; françois cheng; françois jullien; freedom; process; real life; second life; silent transformation; time; transit; true life. françois jullien (1951) is a french philosopher, trained in hellenism, who makes his geographical, cultural and linguistic journey to china to access, from the most distant, the unthinkable in our greco-roman-european tradition. jullien finds in the classical chinese texts fascinating ideas that arise from a way of thinking differently from that of conceptualization and argumentation. in chinese logic, everything is conditional and complex, and we are part of a process that is never closed, that is always open to new combinations. françois jullien not only deals with the issue of efficiency in terms elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 27 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-roju mailto:lroca13@gmail.com https://www.ledonline.it/elementa luis roca jusmet of strategy, but also offers an approach to its morality from a reading of mencius, compared with kant (jullien, 1997). what jullien proposes, rather than focusing on the differences between european and chinese approaches, is that we need to build a bridge instead of noting the distance between one and the other, which would consist of taking the chinese idea and putting it in dialogue with our own to create new conceptualizations. one of them is to understand human life as a double transit. on the one hand, we are part of life as a transit because we are part of nature. on the other hand, he proposes an ethics that has as one of its keys what he calls the second life. 1. the first transit: life as a process of silent transformation the theme of time is another key issue. jullien deals specifically in a book with the theme of time as an element of a philosophy of life (jullien, 2001). in the chinese language there are no verbal tenses, the being is always a being in phase and the basic notion is that of duration. there are no abstract concepts of space or time, but at the same time in china both space and time are always present in a qualitative way in the form of locations and moments. time understood as eras, seasons and epochs. spaces as domains, climates and orientations. always linked to each other: each period in solidarity with a climate. the basic notions are moment-occasion and duration. it is necessary to follow the natural course, not to force it. everything is immanent. time is understood as a “between moments”, that is to say as transits. our being in the world is seasonal, which means that it is the transit between one season and another that marks our vital rhythm. there is no conception of continuity either in space or in time. the cyclical character is marked by this idea of transition, which is neither a circular nor a linear process. it is the idea of the return of transitions that determines the way in which temporality is experienced. all are transformations in which continuity and modification unfold at the same time. everything is based on the existence of two principles, yin and yang, and the change that takes place in the dominant factor. in the human case, aging is understood not so much as a journey as a transit. one does not pass through different stages in the path of life: birth, childhood, youth, maturity, old age. growing old is the transit of life, the one that goes from birth to death. it is not about “living in the present”, which is based on a past-present-future scheme that is not contemplated in china. it is about living in the moment, adapting to the process in which elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 28 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa françois jullien: the double transit of human life it is inscribed, being open to grasp the opportunity that each moment gives us. the theme of time is taken up again in his book on silent transformations (jullien, 2009), which indicates that change is not what manifests itself when there is an apparent rupture. rather, it is the consequence of a silent transformation from a subtle, almost imperceptible twist of which it is the result, a visible emergence of a long invisible process. the cause/ effect relationship itself is diluted in this approach, since it is necessary to refer to the duration of the process and the global framework in which it is framed. it is necessary to situate all the conditioning factors that allow us to understand what is happening. aging, for example, is neither decadence nor degradation but one more element in the process of living. death is not a rupture but just another consequence of life; there is neither christian drama nor greek tragedy, not even the melancholic heroism of romanticism. what matters is not the extraordinariness of the new event that may come, but the persistence of the ordinary. it is like the seasons, which transform one into the other without a strict limit that marks their separation. the chinese sage has no ideas (jullien, 2001) because he knows that any vision is partial and what he wants is to be open to the whole and not to distort it with prejudices. the idea of duration is complemented by that of the moment, which allows us to get out of the impasse of a present, different from the past and the future that wants to materialize in an instant that always escapes it. chinese thinking is fundamentally strategic (jullien, 1999), but with a conception of effectiveness based on the idea of transformation through indirect and oblique action. we must not force, we must not control, we must follow the propensity of things, take advantage of what we call the potential of each situation. for this we must facilitate the most favorable orientation, the conditions in which what interests us appears as a consequence of the natural process. for this we must, of course, be open. this approach is not based on any of the dualities with which we move: theory/ practice, ends/means, model/application, objectives/plans. there is neither decision nor dramatic choice, only adaptation to the course of things we are a part of. we must seek the potential energy of each situation and obtain much effect with little effort, adapting to the circumstances by gathering what is best for us, facilitating what is favorable to our own advantage. there is no established plan because what we have to do is to be alert to what is happening, always evaluating the forces that come into play. the art of governing consists of invisibly making others converge naturally in the position we seek from others. if it is necessary to act, it must be done as soon as possible, before the process is structured, to modify what is elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 29 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa luis roca jusmet soft before it becomes rigid. chinese rationality is established on the basis of the relationship between condition and consequence, while western rationality is established between means and ends. in the first case, we always look for the most favorable conditions and gather the most profitable, and in the second case, it is posed in terms of calculation and success or failure, victory or defeat. on the greek side, origin of the european, the strategist is like a ship’s pilot who sails on the high seas to reach his destination overcoming unforeseen threats: it is the epic and the heroic in a dramatized narrative. at the same time, the idea of the necessary emptiness is also important: one must not fill anything completely or fill everything: one must always leave a margin, an empty space. the chinese reference is agriculture, the growth of plants. it is not necessary to push the plants to make them grow faster, it is necessary to facilitate their growth by separating everything that hinders their development. it is necessary to try to win without confrontation, to prevent conflict before it appears. with chinese wisdom, life is understood as a process that matures, giving a consequence, which is the good harvest. it should also be noted the approach that the french philosopher makes, from the classical chinese texts, to the figure of the sage (jullien, 2021). the chinese sage “has no ideas”. this means that he is not imprisoned by an ideology, by a particular way of looking at things. it is not that he has no ideas, it is that he does not put any of them before the others so as not to fall prey to partiality. the choice of wisdom is that of variation, not progression. we do not go forward on a certain path that prevents us from seeing the other possible ways. we must not close ourselves off, we must always remain open, we must embrace everything. he does not conceptualize, does not argue, does not demonstrate. he approaches by surrounding, observing, looking for the evident. and he speaks little, only to indicate, to point out, to evoke. the rules depend on the situation, they do not pretend to apply universally to all situations. the sage knows when to be rigid and when to be flexible. the wise man keeps his mind sufficiently empty to be available, to be able to see the obvious that our prejudices hide. it is the paradox of relativizing everything without being relati vistic. living is like a maturation process in which one must direct one’s energy well, without dispersing or wasting it. the greek-european notion of happiness, absent from chinese wisdom, implies fixity and finality, whereas what the chinese sage does is to develop one’s own capacities in a natural way, without aim. it is the unintended result that counts, the natural attainment of a wise attitude towards life (jullien, 2007a). it is to go towards harmony, which is a self-regulated dynamic balance. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 30 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa françois jullien: the double transit of human life 2. the transition to the second life we are going to enter into the work that jullien has been doing in the last few years along the lines of the construction of the ethical subject for a true life. it is about the transition to a second life. in filosofía del vivir (jullien, 2012), the first approach is the need to be present, but without understanding it exclusively in terms of something that has already been insistently said, which is attention. it is to approach time as a moment, finding the balance between not procrastinating but counting on the delay that involves accepting the maturation process in which it is framed. because carpe diem has something of haste. it is necessary to move towards what is evident, what we see clearly, but knowing how to withdraw so that the new can emerge. jullien thus conceptualizes the importance of the “between” in life, this frontier where things are not between what they are and what they are not, this gray, transitory moment, which flees from this need of our culture to choose between black and white, to flee from the ambiguous, which is what is at the bottom of everything if we do not force it into polarizations. it is a question, for example, of not having to choose between being selfish or altruistic, but to move in this “between”, which is still the world of nuances. here appears, for the first time, the possibility of a “true life”. here he will also quote pierre hadot and his proposal of “spiritual exercises”. to keep always “on the lookout for things”, as the japanese poet basho says. to be alert, ready, available, to seize the opportunity, the good encounter. to avoid concatenating too much, to avoid being chained to the discourse, to be open to immediacy. it is not about looking for models, nor rules or formulas that tell us how to know, how to live. it is about living in transparency, in the sense that things show themselves to us. but this world is not given to us beforehand either, it is not a matter of wanting to return to the naivety of the lost paradise. but neither is it necessary to invent finalities or to duplicate it in another ideal world. we remain in immanence, renouncing postponement in order to be able to see, when it appears, the opportune moment. allowing it to arrive when it has to arrive, knowing how to delay it. a life that is sustained in “a between” that we must know how to manage without the need to polarize ourselves because it does not allow us to grasp this background of ambiguity of things. we do not dream then of a “true life” but we have access to it. in 2016 jullien published in french edition his work vivre en existant. une nouvelle éthique (jullien, 2016), which we can consider his first clear essay in this line of what i pointed out with regards to how to build an ethical subject for a true life. in this essay the philosopher orients all that he elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 31 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa luis roca jusmet learned in his dialogue with china in a double proposal of transformation of the self. “living by existing” is an ethical proposal that implies an inner work that consists in establishing a distance with respect to what jullien calls our surface of adherence, which is the first thing we are attached to. it is about having the capacity to decide on that which in a primary and largely unconscious way we invest with affection, with desire. from this point of view, freedom is, in a certain way, the capacity to break these primary automatisms, to let go of those moorings that chain us. but it is also the ability to invest desire, in a light way, without dependencies, which can nourish our vitality. it also implies the need to resist, understanding in a dialectical way the value of negation that opens the way to the possible. it is therefore necessary to avoid stagnation, to avoid getting bogged down in inertia, in routine. it is a process that supposes a work on oneself in which we learn to grasp both the turn that leads to stagnation and the one that will take us out of it. this occurs, most of the time in the framework of silent transformations (jullien, 2010). although it sometimes appears as a rupture, whether it is meant as a beginning or as an end, in most cases it remains an illusion because it is still the consequence of a process. this happens both when something visible emerges or disappears. as paul eluard told us, to live means the hard desire to last. we all live, says jullien, but we must “exist”, which means transforming this desire to live into vital power. in order to do so, one must un-coincide with oneself, not identify oneself with a self-image. duration is maintained by its continuous process of renewal, of actualization of energy. to dis-coincide means not to identify oneself, not to fix oneself, to keep the spirit open. certainly, it is necessary to live “here and now”, which does not mean to understand it as doing it in the instant but to live it as a process, since our present is this permanent passage from the future to the past. to live in the immanence of this world, of this whole of which we are a part. existence is verified directly in experience, learning from it … françois jullien continues this conceptualization in a very important essay, which is where he conceptualizes what he calls “a second life” (jullien, 2017b). there is a step from life to existence, he told us, and he calls this step “a second life”. the starting point is immanentist: we have only one life, from which there is no replacement, from which we cannot leave and re-enter. the second life is therefore a transformation. but a transformation that does not arise from a rebirth or a conversion, nor from the voluntaristic act of reinvention. it is the result of a maturation, of the silent transformation to which our own experience leads us. it is the result of the lucidity that we acquire through the elaboration of what we have lived, which separates us from illusions. it is the consequence of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 32 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa françois jullien: the double transit of human life continuous work on oneself. but it is not the spontaneous result of old age either, but rather the turn we acquire from this will to “live while existing”. the second life becomes the good “winter” of our life if we have prepared ourselves for it. all this concludes in what he calls the “true life”. in his latest book, entitled de la vraie vie (jullien, 2020) francois jullien comes to summarize in a very lucid way the proposal. it is not to aspire to another idealized life, it is not to lose oneself in illusions nor to look for extraordinary moments. it is to be able to try to live a life worthy of being lived, accepting what there is of tension and ambivalence, in a permanent and daily combat against inertia, routine and stagnation. to live in dis-coincidence, in an opposition that we are able to sustain without provoking conflict. it is a life lived in the moment, not alienated in the banal or in absence. it is not a conversion but a transformation without idealization or intensification. it is an open process that is moved by desire. it is a power that is being lost but that must be recovered through emotion. it is an attempt to live that is to experience the difficulty of living and to survive the non-life that withers life. it is both a yes and a no, a yes to life and a no to non-life. this tension cannot disappear, there is no conversion that eliminates the no in order to install us in the yes. true life is, then, a combat that does not rest on a determined conception. 3. transit and freedom the approach of life as a double transit is interesting. but jullien himself already points out in his book on silent transformations that a historicalstrategic-political concept is missing (jullien, 2009). this concept is that of the free subject, with all the ethical and political implications it entails. china has traditionally accepted its political system and has had a communitarian idea in which the communitarian has prevailed. or, in the taoist proposals, an individual autonomy based on a certain withdrawal from society. the idea of a subject that can be built ethically and cooperating with others in a democratic system is missing. françois cheng (1929) spent his childhood and adolescence in china and as a young man settled in paris. he is one of the clearest examples of the power that interculturality can have in the same subject (cheng, 2002). precisely what he tells us is that china must learn from the west the idea of subject (autonomous, beyond the community) and law (just, beyond positive laws). both ideas refer to the idea of freedom. but what the west has to learn from china is this idea of transit, what he calls “half-empty”, which is precisely what allows this transformation and allows to get out of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 33 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa luis roca jusmet the conflict of polarities. in this way, transit and freedom complement each other in an ethical and political proposal that can open a very suggestive horizon. references cheng, f. (2002). el diálogo. pre-textos. jullien, f. (1997a). fundar la moral. dialogue of mencius with a philosopher of the enlightenment. taurus. jullien, f. (1997b). le détour et l’accès. stratégies du sens en chine et en grèce. éditions grasset & fasquelle. jullien, f. (1999). tratado de la eficacia. siruela. jullien, f. (2001). un sabio no tiene ideas. siruela. jullien, f. (2005a). la china da que pensar. anthropos. jullien, f. (2005b). of “time”. elementos para una filosofía del vivir. arena libros. jullien, f. (2006). si parler va sans dire. du logos et autres ressources. seuil. jullien, f. (2007a). nourishing your life: beyond happiness. katz. jullien, f. (2007b). chemin faisant, connaître la chine, relancer la philosophie. seuil. jullien, f. (2008). la urdidumbre y la trama. katz. jullien, f. (2009). l’invention de l’ideal et le destin de l’europe. gallimard. jullien, f. (2010a). las transformaciones silenciosas. ediciones bellaterra. jullien, f. (2010b). de lo universal, de lo uniforme, de lo común y del diálogo entre las culturas. siruela. jullien, f. (2012). filosofía del vivir. octaedro. jullien, f. (2013). five concepts proposed to psychoanalysis. el cuenco de plata. jullien, f. (2016). vivre en existant. une nouvelle éthique. gallimard. jullien, f. (2017a). dé-coïncidence. d’où viennent l’art et l’existence. le livre de poche. jullien, f. (2017b). une seconde vie. éditions grasset & fasquelle. jullien, f. (2019). de l’écart à l’inouï. éditions de l’herne. jullien, f. (2020). de la vraie vie. l’observatoire. roca jusmet, l. (2012). françois jullien. una mirada filosófica a china. en l. llevadot & j. riba (eds.), filosofías postmetafísicas. 20 años de filosofía francesa contemporánea. uoc. roca jusmet, l. (2017). ejercicios espirituales para materialistas. el diálogo (im) posible entre pierre hadot y michel foucault. terra ignota. roca jusmet, l. (2021). construirse como sujeto ético para una vida verdadera. enrahonar, 67, 159-172. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 34 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa françois jullien: the double transit of human life riassunto françois jullien incontra l’“impensato” della nostra tradizione filosofica nel suo viaggio attraverso la cultura cinese. una delle idee che ricava dal quest’ultima è intendere la natura come un processo, non formulato in termini di continuità ma di transito. in questo transito, come tutte le vite, è inscritta la vita umana. ma in jullien c’è anche un impegno etico a comprendere questa vita umana come aperta alla possibilità di un altro transito, quello di una seconda vita. si tratta di idee interessanti da riprendere, ma all’interno dei limiti dell’approccio cinese. come sottolinea françois cheng, infatti, mancano in questo approccio le idee di soggetto e di diritto. andando oltre potremmo dire che manca l’idea stessa di libertà. jullien tuttavia supera questi limiti, evidenziando egli stesso queste mancanze e provando a risolverle all’interno della sua proposta. come evidenzia sempre cheng, è proprio l’idea del transito come via d’uscita dai nostri dualismi e polarità che può insegnare qualcosa di più e di nuovo agli occidentali. copyright (©) 2022 luis roca jusmet editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: roca jusmet, l. (2022). françois jullien: the double transit of human life. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 27-35. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-roju elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 35 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-roju https://www.ledonline.it/elementa sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 153 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 1 università degli studi di foggia (italy) 2 learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-trdo luigi.traetta@unifg.it federica.doronzo@unifg.it abstract the aim of this paper is to retrace the evolution of the super-ego, in psychoanalysis and phenomenology, describing its effects on education, starting with the formation of individual morality. in the broadest sense, the reflection concerns not only the role that the family can play in this direction, but above all the contribution that schools can make to the formation of individual morality. the structuring of the super-ego is thus built up in the family system by being influenced by the socio-educational environment. the importance of a healthy structuring of the super-ego emerges in the increased risk of alteration of the intersubjective sphere, in cases of dysregulation of the super-ego, a process that is fundamental to psychotic disorder. keywords: education; socio-educational environment; super-ego. introduction in 1914, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the high school he had attended as an adolescent, freud wrote a short essay entitled “zur psychologie des gymnasiasten”. taking his cue from personal recollections, freud dwelled on the ambivalent relationship that bound the high school pupil to the professors and underlined its importance for individual development, since this relationship occurred at the stage when “the child begins to come out of the nursery” and “discovers things that https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-trdo luigi traetta federica doronzo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 154 undermine his original adiration for his father” (freud, 1914, p. 480). the professor, in short, becomes for the high school student the substitute of the omniscient father, capable of arousing love and hate, criticism and veneration, in a confused mixture of affectionate and hostile impulses. freud’s reflection shows a stringent coherence provided, however, that it is contextualised in the historical period in which it takes place, in a period, that is, during which the father figure has a series of defined characteristics, starting from the one known to have passed into history as the main architect in the formation of the super-ego. there is a vast scientific literature on the function of the super-ego and its relationship with the development of individual morality which, starting with freud’s contribution, identifies a series of main stages that mark the history of this controversial category. the debate, of course, has come down to the present day and reinterprets the super-ego in the light of the profound changes that have affected society and the role of the family in recent years. the aim of this paper is to retrace the evolution of the super-ego, describing its repercussions on education, starting from the formation of individual morality. in a broader sense, the reflection concerns not only the role that the family can play in this direction, but above all the contribution that schools can make to the formation of individual morality. extrapolating the freudian thesis, can the teacher – this is the key question of the essay – in some way represent the substitute of the omniscient father? the answer concerns not only the figure of the father in contemporary society, but above all the role that the teacher can play in contributing to the construction of individual morality. 1. structuring of the super-ego freud, in his search for a psychological science, introduced the “structural theory” in 1920 in his essay jenseits des lustprinzips. this second topological coordinate divides the psychic apparatus into three psychic agencies: id, ego and super-ego; the intention is to measure the operations that unfold in the psychic sphere. the theorised mental functioning is based on the organism’s adaptation to the environment: from the drive core (id) there is an organised psychic agency (ego), responsible for surface psychic functions, such as perception and memory, and then in the course of development the super-ego is structured. this last psychic agency, in freud’s sense, indicates that part of the mind that controls and modifies the antisocial instincts deriving from the id to adapt them to the demands https://www.ledonline.it/elementa super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 155 of the environment. super-ego develops through the internalisation of values and moral norms first from the parents and then from the environment. the functions of the super-ego are defence and reward, and criticism and punishment (lis, stella, & zavattini, 1999). the structural model encourages further research and investigation, in the following generations of psychoanalysts, inaugurating new meanings of the super-ego. if freud theorised its structuring just before school age, when the child assimilates parental values and cultural customs, klein (1963) places its origin at a very young age in association with parental punishment and identifies it as a bad object self introjected due to a lack of maternal containment of the child’s projective identifications; fairbairn (1944) gave greater weight to object relations and refuted the concept of the death instinct by introducing the term internal saboteur; otto kernberg (1975) described various pathological formations of the super-ego, on the basis of which he differentiated between the various types of personality disorders; in conclusion we quote bion who introduced the ego-destructive super-ego understood as “morals without morals” that dominate the psychotic part of the personality (weiss, 2020). the foundations for understanding psychopathology and psychosis in particular are laid. in 1932 freud clearly defines the relationships between the psychic agencies and theorises the processes characterising psychotic disorder: the pleasure principle and the function of ideal, fulfilled respectively by the id and the super-ego, deconstruct the function of conciliation of the ego that detaches itself from reality. the cause may be either the overpowering of the unconscious repressed on the conscious or the tormenting and pressing reality that pushes the ego to embrace only the unconscious drives. the needs of the species (id) and the needs of society (super-ego) therefore dissolve the ego by suppressing any space for mediation between the two conflicting forces generating psychosis (galimberti, 2018). since freud, numerous scholars have contributed to the definition of the nature and role of the super-ego, and of the internal psychic conflicts, which determine the aetiology of psychotic symptoms. in this debate there are two models, the phenomenological and the psychoanalytical, between which the concept of the experienced world builds a bridge of reconciliation (rossi monti, 1999): although the first approach is based on datum of awareness and the second on unconscious mechanisms, both share the generative processes of psychosis and the objective to be pursued for healing. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa luigi traetta federica doronzo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 156 2. deconstruction of the super-ego: from the onset of psychosis to the process of mirroring in the other the concept, introduced by freud, of the conflict between the superego and the ego, which produces a feeling of anguish with a destructive valence, is the fulcrum of kleinian theorizing on evolutionary development. precisely in the psychic dynamics traced by the psychoanalyst it is possible to identify the foundations for understanding psychosis. in healthy psychic development the passage from the schizo-paranoid position to the depressive one determines a process of maturation of the super-ego breaking the vicious circle of heterodirected and self-directed destructiveness. otherwise, the failure to develop the super-ego leads to the structuring of a dysfunctional psychic agency that colonises the mind, leading it towards a loss of contact with reality. the dominance of the super-ego prevents the balance with the experience of the world and attacks the emotional ties with the other (de masi, 2002). klein considers the super-ego in this case as a bad object self introjected in response to a lack of maternal care (klein, 1940). the failure of the first object relations and the mother’s refusal to accept the child’s first projective identifications generate a super-ego that develops before the ego, opposing growth, vitality and infantile curiosity (bion, 1959). the failure to regulate each other produces organismic anguish, which is why the sense of self becomes discontinuous. a failed structuring of the super-ego is associated with an increased risk of psychopathologies, in particular rosenfeld (1971) and meltzer (1973) consider this process to be the origin of psychosis, perversion and narcissism. in the aetiology of psychosis, we observe a dysfunctional structuring of the three psychic agencies determined by a loss of integration and synthesis of the ego. this impairment thus originates from regression or fixation on the schizo-paranoid position in which the ego was not integrated but separated into settling nuclei. the subject, however, reacts to the disintegration of the ego and brings into play psychotic restitution (positive and negative symptoms identified as signs of the illness) which is a constructive process that testifies to the tendency towards recovery (freud, 1914). restitution is the reorganisation of the ego and the super-ego in order to survive the psychic defeat and to give an internal coherence to the ego following a subjective logic far from that of common sense. paradoxically, the mind survives precisely because of a lack of discrimination between subject and object, ego and non-ego (bleger, 1970). the confusion between the inner and outer worlds is generated by the stationing in the schizo-paranoid phase that does not allow access to healthy and mature defence mechanisms aimed at relieving https://www.ledonline.it/elementa super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 157 anguish, and involves an intense and frequent use of primitive defences such as splitting, projective identification, projection and denial. the lack of ego integration thus structures a pathological self (winnicott, 1960) that generates a neoreality. freud and later psychoanalysts agreed with the theorisation of a conflict between environment and psychic processes, which generates a state of disintegration of the ego and a destructive domination of the super-ego. the resulting compromise for psychic survival is the formation of a subjective reality. the super-ego in excess is incompatible with inter-human relations because the guilt in excess takes on the character of internal persecution by promoting acts of destruction. the blocking of the evolution towards the benevolent super-ego generates a distortion of reality replaced by fantasies that edify the delusional state. there is a destruction of the subject’s communicative function, the loss of his capacity for self-observation, awareness of his mental processes and the possibility of managing his emotions. consequently, the sense of reality and the balance of personal identity are compromised (de masi, 2002). this is the background to the phenomenological approach, whose field of research is no longer the unconscious but the datum of awareness. the aim is to study neo-reality, derived from psychotic restitution, which rejects natural evidence, leading the patient to construct subjective meanings that are not conventionally accepted. the object of study is therefore the patient’s conscious psychic happening in order to recognise and understand him (jaspers, 1959). this means starting from the patient’s self-narrative to co-construct the intersubjective space that mediates differentiation from the otherness of the other. re-founding the functional infant-caregiver relationship means repairing the affective deficiencies that have destructured the psychic psychic agencies (ballerini, 2011). the natural evidence, therefore the common sense of the everyday world, can be reconstructed in the intersubjectivity. the insufficiency in the intra-subjective construction of the self corresponds to a problem in the inter-subjective construction. the phenomenological model, in line with the psychoanalytic theorisation of the onset of psychosis, proposes a concrete approach that starts from the contents of consciousness in order to reconstruct the lost psychic balance. according to this approach the disintegration of the ego and the paranoid dimension of the persecutor determine the failure of the ego in its movement towards the other preventing the construction of the natural self. the psychotic subject therefore folds in on himself, replacing reality with hyper-reflexivity that perpetuates wandering in a world that is foreign to him (ballerini & di petta, 2015). the healthy super-ego uses human nature’s natural predisposition to sociality to produce a collective https://www.ledonline.it/elementa luigi traetta federica doronzo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 158 consensus on a socially accepted order. the deconstruction of the superego, on the other hand, leads to a compromised identification with the other and a destructive persecutory anguish. this interpretation is in line with the phenomenological interpretation according to which reality is only that imposed by the majority and the loss of this foreknowledge breaks the balance of the ego determining a reinvention of reality and an exclusion from human relations. in this regard, di petta writes: “il folle disobbedisce allo spirito del tempo” (di petta, 2018, p. 162). the being with of the therapist with the patient can repair the fracture of the ego accompanying the subject to the implicit rediscovery of his own identity. the process of epochè implemented by the therapist, understood as the loss of common sense, can generate a contact with the patient by mediating an encounter between i and you and thus inaugurating the construction of the we (di petta, 2018). the truth deprived of the idios kosmos (own world) can reopen to the mit-einandersein (being-one-withother) by reconnecting to reality. the instrument to lead the subject to the restructuring of psychic agencies is the understanding that gives him dignity and legitimacy (stanghellini, 2008). the therapist performs the maternal functions by valuing and empathically welcoming the other, thus mediating a re-implementation of the evolutionary process of the ego and a restructuring of the super-ego. the mirroring of the sick person in the other allows a re-appropriation of the self by redefining the boundaries of ego and non-ego, entering into a reciprocal relationship means “riconoscere l’esistenza degli altri in quanto esseri dotati di una mente sostanzialmente simile alla propria” (stanghellini, 2008, p. 85). returning to klein’s initial vision, the therapeutic project outlined is reconciled with her objective of healing the patient by overcoming the schizo-paranoid position towards the depressive one: the subject splits ego and world and becomes aware of the impossibility of omnipotent control over the object, which is now perceived as more real and separate. the individual can take personal responsibility and perceive himself and the other as separate. 3. at school of… super-ego structuring and de-structuring of the superego, with the enormous theoretical and psychopathological burden that they entail, allow us to introduce the reflection on the role that education could play in the processes of formation of the individual. the real educational emergency that characterises the contemporary school, brings back to the centre of reflection the concepts of standards, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 159 rules and procedures (d’alonzo, 2017) to be used in the management of the class group, also as an initial moment of the formative pact. rules, in particular, even by education professionals, have been the subject of several prejudices, among which the most typical can be summarised as follows: • addressing the issue of rules, during teaching activities, necessarily implies a waste of time with respect to planned objectives and contents; • discussing rules is completely pointless because pupils only respect them if they are threatened; • pupils do not like teachers who enforce the rules. however, the reality appears to be quite different, as a number of recent studies tend to show: in schools, the question of rules has now become so central that it has a profound effect on the classroom climate (zobbi, 2021). and it could not be otherwise. conclusion especially in the light of the renewed perspective that sees, nowadays, the paternal figure on an equal footing with the mother in the process of bringing up children, the structuring of the super-ego takes on considerable value. in the society freud had in mind, the father was essentially an absent figure from the growth path of children and the educational role was limited to a set of commands and punishments. the father model today is decidedly oriented towards the attachment relationship whose direct and indirect effects on the development of the individual are undeniable. the role of all members of the family and society in the structuring of the self and the pivotal role of the super-ego in the origin of mental disorders and discomforts was thus rediscovered. references ballerini, a. (2011). esperienze psicotiche. giovanni fioriti editore. ballerini, a., & di petta, g. (2015). oltre e di là dal mondo. l’essenza della schizofrenia. giovanni fioriti editore. bion, w. r. (1959). attacchi al legame. in analisi degli schizofrenici e metodo psicoanalitico. armando editore, 1970. bleger, j. (1970). il concetto di psicosi. intervento presentato all’associazione psicoanalitica argentina il 15 settembre 1970. d’alonzo, l. (2017). gestire la classe nella pratica didattica. giunti. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa luigi traetta federica doronzo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 160 de masi, f. (2002). quale super-io nella clinica analitica? rivista di psicoanalisi, 48(3), 517-535. di petta, g. (2018). il mondo vissuto. edizioni universitarie romane. fairbairn, w. r. d. (1944). endopsychic structure considered in terms of objectrelationships. international journal of psychoanalysis, 25, 70-92. freud, s. (1914). on narcissism: an introduction. in the standard edition of the complete psychological works of sigmund freud, vol. xiv (pp. 67-102). hogarth press. freud, s. (1920). al di là del principio del piacere. bruno mondadori, 2007. freud, s. (1932). introduzione alla psicoanalisi. newton compton editori, 2010. freud, s. (1991). zur psychologie des gymnasiasten. in s. freud, gesammelte werke, bd. x: werke aus den jahren, 1913-1917 (pp. 204-207). s. fischer. galimberti, u. (2018). nuovo dizionario di psicologia. psichiatria, psicoanalisi, neuroscienze. feltrinelli. jaspers, k. (1959). psicopatologia generale. il pensiero scientifico, 2012. kernberg, o. f. (1975). borderline conditions and patological narcissism. jason aronson. klein, m. (1940). il lutto e la sua connessione con gli stati maniaco-depressivi. in m. klein, scritti 1921-1958. boringhieri, 1978. klein, m. (1963). our adult world, and other essays. basic books. lis, a., stella, s., & zavattini, g. c. (1999). manuale di psicologia dinamica. il mulino. mancia, m., & rubin, m. (2007). vulnerabilità alla psicosi. rivista di psicoanalisi, 53(2), 558-562. meltzer, d. (1973). stati sessuali della mente. armando editore, 1983. rosenfeld, h. (1971). a clinical approach to the psychoanalytic theory of the life and death instincts: an investigation into aggressive aspects of narcissism. international journal of psychoanalysis, 52, 169-178. rossi monti, m. (1999). psicopatologia della schizofrenia. prospettive metodologiche e cliniche. raffaello cortina editore. stanghellini, g. (2008). psicopatologia del senso comune. raffaello cortina editore. weiss, h. (2020). a brief history of the super-ego with an introduction to three papers. international journal of psychoanalysis, 101(4), 724-734. doi: 10. 1080/00207578.2020.1796073 winnicott, d. w. (1960). the theory of the parent-infant relationship. international journal of psychoanalysis, 41, 585-595. zobbi, e. (2021). l’atmosfera morale scolastica come complesso di norme e sistemi di significato. una ricerca esplorativa su concezioni e interventi. ricerche di pedagogia e didattica, 16(1), 123-135. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 161 riassunto obiettivo del presente contributo è ripercorrere l’evoluzione del super-io, in ambito psicoanalitico e fenomenologico, descrivendone le ricadute, a partire dalla formazione della morale individuale, in campo educativo. la riflessione riguarda, in senso lato, non solo il ruolo che la famiglia può svolgere in questa direzione, ma soprattutto il contributo che la scuola può fornire nella formazione della morale individuale. la strutturazione del super-io si edifica quindi nel sistema-famiglia subendo le influenze dell’ambiente socio-educativo. l’importanza di una strutturazione sana del super-io emerge nell’aumento del rischio di alterazione della sfera intersoggettiva, nei casi di disregolazione del super-io, processo fondante il disturbo psicotico. copyright (©) 2021 luigi traetta, federica doronzo editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: traetta, l., & doronzo, f. (2021). super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 153-161. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-trdo https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-trdo elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio educating for transition in work contexts elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa educating for transition in work contexts gennaro balzano vito balzano università degli studi di bari “a. moro” (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-balz gennaro.balzano@uniba.it vito.balzano@uniba.it abstract today’s scenarios of constant transformation of society call for a necessary reflection on work from an exquisitely pedagogical point of view, in consideration of the multiple transitions that we are witnessing because of phenomena such as progress, forced digitization, the covid-19 pandemic, conflicts and economic-financial crises. it’s essential to move, for an education to the transition to the recommendation of 18 december 2006 of the european parliament on key competences for lifelong learning, from learning to learn. it is one of the eight competences, but essentially the most characterizing so that “learners take the starting point from what they have previously learned and from their life experiences to use and apply knowledge and skills in a whole range of contexts: at home, at work, in education and training”. keywords: education; person; planning; transition; work. 1. introduction the reflection on the existential situation in which man lives, recalls, without any doubt, certain reflections on the value of pedagogy. doing so implies the abandonment of the logic of objective knowledge, as well as the adoption of a healthy anti-dogmatic attitude. in relation to the theme of work, the need to refer to a pedagogy understood as practical-design knowledge is better understood, thus shifting attention from a science capable of building systems of knowledge to one capable of orienting educational action to carry out processes of change and transformation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 101 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-balz mailto:gennaro.balzano@uniba.it mailto:vito.balzano@uniba.it gennaro balzano vito balzano of educational action. hence the need for a cultural redefinition of the subject-man-person which, by strengthening and promoting the cultural and spiritual energies of individuals, makes everyone capable of being an active protagonist of the associated life. archived for some time now the quiet certainties deriving from the stability of the job guaranteed for life, are now more and more numerous having to face the trauma of the loss of the job and therefore to have to manage […] the difficult condition of the unemployed […] to have to re-question themselves on “what to do with their lives” when those economic security (even minimal) that allowed them to guarantee a dignified existence to their family are lacking. (loiodice, 2012) 2. the unstable man, worker, and victim of the times work and person are closely related, just as there is a direct relationship between work and social well-being. therefore, the crises of our time by urging a (re)education that revolves around the theme of transition, therefore a (re)design of one’s own life path. this is even more true if we consider how job insecurity – in today’s reality – is heavily reflected on an existential level. “economic problems are accompanied by existential ones. jobinsecurity (threat of job loss, threats to work) and confusion/loss of identity seem increasingly inseparable. […] this negatively affects the perception of continuity of existence and tradition, undermines the characteristics of stability, duration, and permanence of the character and therefore the integrity of the ego” (rossi, 2010, pp. 45-46). not fundamental, but certainly useful, to look at other models. for example, hyper-skilled and sectoral workers, specifically trained, especially in english-speaking and american countries, to the continuous change of their labor relations and the continuous change of contexts. all this with a view to continuous reorganization of one’s professional life: “the spirit of initiative, the proactive attitude, the creative thinking, the ability to become entrepreneurs of oneself, to take the risk of the uncertain as a function of continuous emancipatory growth represent the ‘heart’ of those intangible skills, of a strategic type and transversal to several areas of knowledge and experience without which it is not possible to walk on quicksand” (bauman, 2006) of the liquid society, without dispersing, without “being crushed, precisely” (loiodice, 2012). the changes on the work front but also properly of the organizational contexts considerably affect the well-being of the person, but not only. “sustaining change means abandoning previous behavior before, or at least, at the same time as learning the new procedures: a process called elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 102 educating for transition in work contexts unlearning” (piazza, 2019, pp. 274-275). however, the theme of the continuous obsolescence of knowledge can only solicit a reflection on the front of education throughout the course of life and therefore act as a stimulus to an education to transition, which in fact determines a continuous redefinition of cognitive maps and mental models (delahaye, 2000). 3. planning, a fundamental category for a transition education the well-made head, to quote morin (2000), needs a rethink in the light of continuous changes and this can only be a properly pedagogical field. laying the foundations for a transitional education means building a discourse starting essentially from one of the founding categories of pedagogy: planning. the design specificity of the person is repeatedly reiterated in the pages of flores d’arcais, which precisely emphasizes the design aspect of the person, explicitly declaring that it “it is, inherently, a project”, that personal life is all in its to be done, in its tireless projection beyond the present, in its constitution, in its formation. planning, an ontological category, as pati (2004, pp. 13-41) recalls, is the exquisitely human ability to elaborate an image of oneself and to pursue it by projecting it into time and space; to man constitutively belongs that thirst for research which leads to the permanent becoming and to the continuous journey towards the full meaning of living. the author writes again: to wait for the concrete of one’s own life project means to measure we with choices whose outcomes are unknown. conversely, to renounce to plan life is to say “no” to the possibility of growing, of “humanizing”; to become according to an original perspective intentionally chosen, to the benefit of existential inauthenticity, behavioral randomness, passive adaptation to the progress of events. it follows that education, while it is strongly qualified by its occurrence in the present, is a relationship/process aimed at building the future. (pati, 2004, p. 20) the education of man is strongly characterized by planning, it is even more so when it dialogues with work, understood as a place of education and a context for the construction of one’s own identity and one’s own being a person among others. it is necessary, however, in addition to being, also, to remain projectual (musi, 2010), to be able to give shape to new possible horizons. the greatness of the human being lies in not being exhausted in a single predefined life plan. nothing of our actions is definitive. the possibility of being reborn with a new choice – of making – is an intentional elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 103 gennaro balzano vito balzano search for new landings – of meaning, of existential turns, of meaning of life. “those who rely on the fatalities of nature to deny the possibility of man abandon themselves to a myth and try to justify a renunciation” (mounier, 1952, p. 21). the possibility of man must, in this framework, support human becoming, in accordance with freedom and the very possibility of deciding. in fact, “the person who becomes is the person who designs and pursues an image of himself in time and space for which it is of fundamental importance the openness to the other and to others” (granato, 2010, p. 63). in the time in which planning life is difficult, strong relationships and the responsibility of choices can avoid the danger of loss of the person, of the human being, of the worker (d’aniello, 2019). the multidimensionality of the object of investigation (the work), but also the strong interdisciplinary characterization, which sees different researches interact with each other – philosophy, psychology, sociology, politics, organizational sciences, economics – functional both in the perspective of being able to grasp their own purposes and in giving significance to their scientific arguments, finds decisive explanation in the project of life for man, a person who grows and grows in work he founded his own existential project (walker, 2014). in this sense, therefore, planning becomes the founding category of a new pedagogical direction: education for transition. in the process of building this educational typicality, two preliminary aspects can be considered: design skills, that is, to design and re-design one’s own action, and resistance to change. two issues that can facilitate, the first, and contrast, the second, the possible paths of education to the transition. also in this regard, the first support comes from planning. 4. transition education in modern education systems educational systems cannot fail to consider the need, on the one hand, and the possibility, on the other, of being able to educate in transition. in the medical record of the late twentieth century, drawn up by the state of health of education in the old continent (report lisbon 2000) the european union has shaken the planet with this cry of alarm: if the twenty-first century does not invest huge resources on the tandem knowledge-training will risk a lot. it is necessary to widen the gap between cultured (rich) and uncultivated (poor) humanity, both to make it difficult to treat the two pathologies that populate the south and north of the planet: the chronic disease of illiteracy (which denies education to almost two billion children in the southern hemisphere, south of the equator) and the neo-illiteracy disease (which affects the schooled northern hemisphere, north of the equator), where a elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 104 educating for transition in work contexts large number of young people lose their alphabets early a few years after leaving school. it is in this perspective that the european union strongly recommends knowledge as an intangible good that every nation will no longer be able to do without, an element of constant and lasting transition over time. having a european gaze means printing clearly visible on the sail of the first hull the futuristic image cut out in lisbon 2000, where the european union has launched a vibrant appeal to the old continent to disseminate knowledge and still knowledge about its entire citizenship. starting from the youth planet, since the competitiveness and fortune of a socio-economic system are played on the schooling accomplished and on the well-made heads of the younger generations (bonnard, 2020). in this direction, the first transitional goal has the name of institutional democratization: that is, the right of all to access and success of the school system. the second goal has the name of cultural modernization or a path of transition towards the development and modernization of educational systems. the greatest urgency is certainly to identify a pluriverse of educational systems, declined within the social world. in a very general sense, we are faced with the difficulty of building an educational project capable of taking care of the person, the true central element of new work practices. what is needed, therefore, is the coherence with which to look at the problems, managing to highlight the centrality and primacy of the person, as the fine subject of educational action, as well as the willingness to eliminate any pre-established a priori assumption and start from personal experience and from the questions that each person can feel. (balzano v., 2020, p. 3) the configuration of the education system, however, has an important impact on the way in which young people go through the school-work transition, which in turn influences the quality of their professional path and the opportunities to access decent work (tuononen, parpala, & lindblom-ylänne, 2019). unfortunately, a perfect educational system in the transitional sense does not exist, it seems necessary to reflect and develop regimes of passage that combine and maximize the benefits of each educational system, to make possible progressive and inclusive transitions. one way in this direction would be to revisit the system of alternance vocational training, whose transitional advantages are undeniable and probated, so that it is not a vehicle for social inequalities and negative first professional experiences. it is important to aim for an educational system that allows the greatest number of young people to make choices and carry out professional projects that correspond to their aspirations. in this sense, the application, to transitional challenges, of the concepts of agency (boeren, 2019; elfert, 2019) and ability to aspire looks promising. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 105 gennaro balzano vito balzano 5. the true person transitional element the subject-person as it is designed on the epistemic level, by the most advanced frontiers of european pedagogy tends to be equipped with both existential freedom and intellectual autonomy. non is founded, therefore, neither by individual subjective experience, nor by objective socio-cultural experience, nor by their mutual integration. the latter, therefore, is existentially equipped with only acts of choice, or personal options that guarantee freedom and that create a true system of values: the choice between authentic and inauthentic existence, between the possible and the everyday. the person, as an infinite process is always open to the integration of subjectivity and objectivity, cannot be configurable a priori in a definitive or definable essentiality. this is because “the idea of personality gives light to the educational horizon when planning a life free from dogmatic and unilateral approaches: only the concrete psychological-historical-cultural experience of the individual and the society in which he lives can determine concrete values and meanings” (bertin, 1968, p. 96). continental pedagogy opts without uncertainty for the image of a copernican man and woman, equipped with a heavy backpack when they embark on the impervious journey that leads to the crossroads between cultural directions and different value horizons, sometimes a thousand miles away from each other. at the many crossroads of personal life, pedagogy does not lose sight of two inescapable ideas of education: the idea of culture and the idea of value. the first one does “one with the adventure of the homeric mind on the borders of the columns of ercole. a culture free both to explore (free of dogmatic and metaphysical prejudices) the disturbing abysses hidden in the darkness, and to challenge the impossible neutrality of knowledge and science. the idea of value, on the other hand, is one with an axiological itinerary of personal life whose direction of travel is never on probation, under the control of confessional constraints” (cerrocchi & dozza, 2008, p. 18). humanity builds within history the ideal and moral options that give light to the horizon of personal choices, without any recourse to absolute hypotheses: this is because one can respond to the need for universality without paying the legitimate metaphysical tolls. in other words, education is configured as the natural terrain in which the person-value grows luxuriantly with multidimensional, integral, total figures, due to the interactivity and transversality of its group dimensions (bodily, affective, cognitive, ethical, social, and axiological). in the wake of this idea of person, the face of the generational ages that inhabits the pages of the most accredited pedagogy in the old continent is far from the one that populates today’s elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 106 educating for transition in work contexts consumer civilization, precisely because it prints children and young people transformed into a humanity-mannequin: created and set culturally for market reasons by today’s commercial industry (clothing, food, health) and mass media (tv, radio, advertising, comics, internet). for these reasons, we seem to be able to say that european pedagogy is promoting the cry of alarm about the disappearance of the first ages of life, which is alarming much of the debate that has opened on the society of knowledge and training. “observing the educational processes throughout the history of humanity, a significant part of the scenario is made up of unofficial, informal, and so-called community components (relational systems with learning outcomes between subjects permanently residing in a limited territory and linked by mutual bonds): in short, unofficial, and non-formal educational experiences” (tramma, 2019, p. 6). the importance of these components of social education has certainly not been exhausted only in the places and times in which school education has been residual, because it is not widespread or because it is addressed only to the elites, but also remains in those societies, such as the present ones, in which the school institution is widespread present and active. even in developed societies, in which widespread education is contemplated entrusted to adequately trained professionals and sufficiently scientific operational methodologies are used, social education acts, because it provides the subjects involved as educators (trainers) or educators (trainees) some basic structural knowledge and skills that interact with those formally assigned to them, as regards both being trainers and being trainees. social education provides, in fact, knowledge and skills that can ally or conflict, rudely, with those provided for by the social mandate or claimed, in a small or loud voice, by the so-called public opinion (sechrist, 2018). 6. conclusion the pedagogical science that we want to outline in its theoretical assumptions is receiving wide consensus in the old continent precisely because it fights without ifs and buts both the mercantile culture, which denies the historical social identity to young people and consequently their rights of citizenship, and the ptolemaic pedagogies ideologically at the service of the today’s society of globalizations, markets and culture, which tend to imprison childhood as well as adolescence in false hagiographies, reassuring metaphors, ideological rhetoric. these are worn out pedagogies that allude to a metaphysical, ahistorical person, without an anthropological face. we are faced with a context of profound “anthropological deprivaelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 107 gennaro balzano vito balzano tion” (balzano v., 2020, p. 74), that is, a place where social life cannot be separated from the analysis and study of the concept of responsibility, understood first as a fundamental pedagogical category, and later rethought from a socio-political point of view. the reflection, here, focuses on the link between man and education-responsibility, and opens a very interesting scenario: beliefs in certain values change and those attitudes pedagogically defined as pragmatic, supported by a certain mass efficiency, take over. man feels the need for a strong educational tension and seems more accustomed to the evil of living. there are numerous needs that have created a deep crisis in the person; we exist in a form of elective mutism that causes a feeling of fulfillment for human minds in everyday storytelling, and that leads to that false myth that tells us that the word must not be cultivated and promoted by man, but simply reveal itself in the natural fury of events (eschenbacher, 2020; stanistreet, elfert, & atchoarena, 2020). the true educational transition cannot be separated from a pedagogy understood as development and educational practice, which becomes an essential element for the analysis of what is happening in our day. seen also as a practical design science, it will allow us to understand the essential and value problems of a difficult transition, especially for the younger generations. in other words, the singularity understood as a tension to freedom, as a horizon open to an infinite repertoire of testimonies, options, psychology. the pedagogical idea that underlies it is strongly assumed in the continental context for its theoretical disruption: because pedagogy riding the singularity opens up both to the prairies of the possible, of the future, of the utopian, and to the ultimate frontier of the subject-person, the only one able to detach himself from the metaphysics that expropriate the existential kit of the subject, as well as the romantic illusion of an individual naturalness as an absolute value. references balzano, g. (2011). educazione, lavoro, impresa. quale legame. armando. balzano, v. (2020). educare alla cittadinanza sociale. progedit. bertin, g. m. (1968). educazione alla ragione. armando. boeren, e. (2019). understanding sustainable development goal (sdg) 4 on “quality education” from micro, meso and macro perspectives. international review of education, 65, 277-294. bonnard, c. (2020). what employability for higher education students? journal of education and work, 33, 425-445. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 108 educating for transition in work contexts cerrocchi, l., & dozza, l. (a cura di). (2008). contesti educativi per il sociale. approcci e strategie per il benessere individuale e di comunità. erickson. curdt, w., & schreiber-barsch, s. (eds.). (2020). abilities in the blind spot of testing regimes: eliciting the benefits and the limitations of participatory research approaches for numeracy in adult basic education. international review of education, 66, 387-413. d’aniello, f. (2019). il lavoro per la persona. la storia della pedagogia del lavoro per il futuro dell’educazione. studium educationis, 3, 117-126. delahaye, b. (2000). human resource development: principles and practice. wiley. dismore, h. (2014). experiencing the transition from an apprenticeship to higher education. journal of education and work, 27, 585-607. elfert, m. (2019). lifelong learning in sustainable development goal 4: what does it mean for unesco’s rights-based approach to adult learning and education? international review of education, 65, 537-556. eschenbacher, s. (2020). transformative dimensions of lifelong learning: mezirow, rorty and covid-19. international review of education, 66, 657-672. flores d’arcais, g. (1987). le ragioni di una teoria personalistica dell’educazione. la scuola. granato, f. (2010). persona e democraticità. guerini e associati. haapakorpi, a. (2022). the quality of a professional portfolio career in the postindustrial era. journal of education and work, 35, 441-454. kanizsa, s., & mariani, a. m. (a cura di). (2017). pedagogia generale. pearson. loiodice, i. (2012). orientamento come educazione alla transizione. per non farsi “schiacciare” dal cambiamento. metis journal, 2(1). marshall, t. h. (1964). class, citizenship and social development. doubleday. morin, e. (1999). la testa ben fatta. riforma dell’insegnamento e riforma del pensiero. raffaello cortina editore. mounier, e. (1952). il personalismo. garzanti libri. musi, e. (2010). rimanere progettuali tra criticità ed emergenze. in v. iori, a. au gelli, d. bruzzone, & e. musi, ripartire dall’esperienza. direzioni di senso nel lavoro sociale. francoangeli. pati, l. (2004). progettare la vita. itinerari di educazione al matrimonio e alla famiglia. la scuola. piazza, r. (2019). apprendere e disapprendere nelle smart city. l’impatto e le sfide delle nuove tecnologie digitali sull’apprendimento degli adulti. pedagogia oggi, 17(2), 271-284. rossi, b. (2010). lavoro e vita emotiva. la formazione affettiva nelle organizzazioni. francoangeli. sechrist, f. k. (2018). education and the general welfare: a textbook of school law, hygiene, and management. sagwan press. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 109 gennaro balzano vito balzano stanistreet, p., elfert, m., & atchoarena, d. (eds.). (2020). education in the age of covid-19: understanding the consequences. international review of education, 66, 627-633. stenvall, j., kinder, t., kuoppakangas, p., & laitinen, i. (2018). unlearning and public services. jace, 24(2), 188-207. tramma, s. (2019). l’educazione sociale. laterza. tuononen, t., parpala, a., & lindblom-ylänne, s. (2019). graduates’ evaluations of usefulness of university education, and early career success: a longitudinal study of the transition to working life. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 44, 581-595. walker, m. (2014). education, work and identity. british journal of educational studies, 62, 364-366. riassunto gli scenari odierni di costante trasformazione della società impongono una necessaria riflessione sul lavoro da un punto di vista squisitamente pedagogico, in considerazione delle molteplici transizioni a cui stiamo assistendo a causa di fenomeni quali il progresso, la digitalizzazione forzata, la pandemia di covid-19, i conflitti e le crisi economicofinanziarie. è fondamentale passare, per un›educazione alla transizione alla raccomandazione del 18 dicembre 2006 del parlamento europeo sulle competenze chiave per l›apprendimento permanente, dall›imparare a imparare. si tratta di una delle otto competenze, ma essenzialmente la più caratterizzante per cui “gli allievi prendono spunto da ciò che hanno precedentemente appreso e dalle loro esperienze di vita per utilizzare e applicare conoscenze e abilità in un’intera gamma di contesti: a casa, al lavoro, nell’istruzione e nella formazione”. copyright (©) 2022 gennaro balzano, vito balzano editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: balzano, g., & balzano, v. (2022). educating for transition in work contexts. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 101-110. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-balz elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 110 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-balz https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_2-2022-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference alessia franco università degli studi di bari “aldo moro” (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-fran alessiafranco1990@gmail.com abstract this paper aims to illustrate paul b. preciado’s thought on the epistemology of transition, which should take over from the current epistemological regime of sexual difference based on heterobinarism. starting in particular from the lecture given by preciado in paris in 2019, we intend to focus on the main axes of preciado’s thought on the topic: first and foremost, the necessity of the denaturalization of gender with respect to biological sex; the denunciation of the normalization and medicalization endured by trans or intersex bodies, “deviants” with respect to heterobinarism; the ethnocentrism and necropolitical power of medical and disciplinary institutions vis-à-vis “deviants” and “monstrous”; and the concept of “transition” elaborated by preciado as a decolonization with respect to the epistemology and disciplinary institutions of the current regime of sexual difference. keywords: decolonization; epistemology; gender; intersexuality; paul b. preciado; psychoanalysis; regime of sexual difference; transexuality; transfeminism; transition. 1. the word of peter the red, monsters and mutant bodies on the occasion of the école de la cause freudienne’s international days on women in psychoanalysis in november 2019 at the palais des congrès in paris, paul b. preciado spoke before the academy, represented by 3,500 psychoanalysts. in the opening of the volume in which his paper is published elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 51 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-fran mailto:alessiafranco1990@gmail.com https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessia franco (preciado, 2020c), preciado reports that he was greeted by an audience that was skeptical, when not irate. before calling on psychoanalytic medical institutions to take responsibility, he addressed the audience by asking if any homosexual, trans or nonbinary psychoanalysts were present, receiving in response a heavy silence and some nervous laughter. preciado recounts that after expounding his talk with the difficulties due to an unwelcoming audience, he was forced to conclude hastily amid aggressive comments from some bystanders; days followed in which excerpts of the talk, filmed and put online, were circulated, commented on, transcribed in partial and more or less accurate ways. hence preciado’s choice to finally publish the original text of his own talk in volume, in order to offer a more immediate and clearer contribution to the debate in its entirety. the same audience that preciado found himself in front of at the palace of congresses in paris must have partially and superficially grasped the arguments that were being proposed to him: because they were expounded with all the limitations of orality under adverse expository conditions, and because they were profoundly dissonant with the training that those present in the room had received as psychoanalysts. at the paris event, preciado says he placed himself before the audience by recalling the character of peter the red, the protagonist of the kafkaesque short story ein bericht für akademie [a report for an academy]. peter the red, the narrator, is a monkey who, in order to speak before an audience of scientists, had to assume anthropomorphic attitudes, learn human language, until he turned into a man. this was not an evolutionary triumph of some sort, preciado notes in the wake of kafka, but a forced disguise to which the subject “deviant” from the norm was forced to undergo in order to be taken into consideration by the institutions by which that norm is enshrined. preciado emphasizes how the humanization process experienced by peter the red does not constitute a path of emancipation, an ascending and improving evolution from animality to humanity but, on the contrary, a path of progressive imprisonment. the monkey is forced to take on guise acceptable to the scientific community in order for it to be granted the right to speak, but for it this means caging itself in a form that does not belong to it, that does not reflect its own subjectivity. peter the red manages to escape the cage of hagenbeck’s circus only to end up in the cage of “european colonial humanism and its anthropological taxonomies” (preciado, 2021, p. 15) peter the red undergoes his own enmeshment in the rigid patterns predisposed by the human scientific community, and the continuation of the narrative sees him become an alcoholic in order to cope with his own new conditions of life in the society of human beings and his own new human identity. peter the red had to elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 52 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference learn to speak the language of human beings for him to be granted speech, and so too preciado tells of his studies to appropriate the: “language of freud and lacan” (preciado, 2020c, p. 19), the language of colonial patriarchy, in order to be heard. preciado claims peter the red as the alter ego of trans bodies that dominant thought, through its discursive but also clinical practices, seeks to force into the ontological cage of binarism, into the epistemological cage of sexual difference. the blatant irreducibility of trans and non-binary bodies to those cages, preciado denounces, has not so far led psychoanalysis to question the validity and universality of those rigid epistemologies and the political devices that constitute them, in order to adapt them to the multiformity of living bodies, but on the contrary: living and multiform bodies have been pathologized, subjected to even violent processes of normalization and medicalization, relegated to the realm of dysphoria, neurosis, and psychiatric disorder. one has not dared to question the validity of the theory even in the face of the variety and multiplicity of life that proves, by its very existence, to exceed that theory: the academy and official medical practices have rather preferred to “resolve” that excess, denying its legitimacy, relegating it to the realm of a pathological to be reabsorbed and corrected. thus preciado presents himself before psychoanalysts knowing that they will deem him to be mentally ill: he presents himself as a deviant, a mutant, a “monster”, who nevertheless is produced as such by their own clinical practices. 2. naturalization and historicity of the regime of sexual difference by his mere presence at the paris palace of congresses, even before his own content, preciado frontally attacks the traditional discipline, even belittling the meaning of the study days that gathered psychoanalysts there: the theme of the days was in fact women in psychoanalysis. the mere presence of a trans and non-binary body, which is granted the floor, undermines the assumption, underlying the choice of the theme and the overall setting of the discipline, that there is such a thing as “women”. the radical nature of preciado’s questioning is due precisely to his directly corporeal constitution: “his truth emerges embodied in the visible metamorphosis of his body-language. his desire is not only printed in the signifiers he uses employs, but also in the mutant character that his body-language takes on” (martins parente & silveira, 2020, p. 2). preciado asserts – and at the same time performatively demonstrates this by his own mere existence – that the thesis of the existence of “women” elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 53 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessia franco as a particular type of animate being, endowed with certain distinctive specificities within the sphere of “psychoanalysis”, should nowadays be radically problematized. although maximally general, this first critical note offered to psychoanalysts by preciado’s intervention is also radical in the etymological sense of undermining the now-naturalized assumptions of the psychoanalytic discipline under the discursive aspect and under the aspect of medical practice. from the observation of how a trans body knows how to radically challenge the whole edifice of traditional, that is, rigidly binary and heteropatriarchal, psychoanalysis, ultimately derives a political invitation: precisely that of assuming its responsibilities under the epistemological, medical-scientific, and precisely ethical-political aspects. preciado invites the academy and traditional psychoanalysis to accept being called upon to problematize the thesis, widespread in common sense and mostly uncritically upheld in the academic and medico-scientific world itself, that naturalizes “men” and “women”, as the same heteropatriarchal and binary regime that rests on such naturalization. the naturalization of “woman” and “man” clearly rests on the anatomical and physiological evidence of biological sexes. the persistence of such a theoretical operation of naturalization is intuited as fallacious for at least two reasons: because gender is not immediately reducible to biological sex – as the social sciences have now largely taught – and because, even if it were, not all living bodies are reducible to the two biological sexes recognized by the heterobinary system – think of the crisis of medical practice and even of scientific epistemology in the face of intersex bodies. the disarticulation of gender identity from biology and the anatomical endowment of human subjects has a long history in the feminist movement and contemporary philosophies. the entire first chapter of the  second sex is devoted by simone de beauvoir to highlighting the relativity of the value to be attributed to the data offered by biology in designating the socially normative aspects of sexual and gender identity (de beauvoir, 1953, pp. 33-64). beauvoir herself can now be considered a cult thinker in the bosom of the academy in western countries, a more or less integrated element in the pantheon of the great philosophers studied in our universities: she has been partially monumentalized by scholars while simultaneously being overtaken by more radical and inclusive feminisms, especially from the global south, with their histories of claims and progressive revivals. yet, one of the major theoretical axes of the second sex, preciado shows us with his experience at the palace of congresses in paris, has been monumentalized as much as not assimilated: no matter how much beauvoir is present in the teaching programs of universities, the academy as a whole still today, more than seventy years later, shows very elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 54 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference serious difficulties in admitting that now trivial disconnect between the biological-anatomical dimension of human beings and their gender identity, and the baggage of social norms that directly derive from the latter. it is still destabilizing to the dominant discourse that social expectations of gender cannot be naturally assigned to sexed bodies through the assignment at birth of male and female roles. and it is all the more intolerable for the entire psychoanalytic edifice, which on heterobinarism immediately bases most of its theoretical and clinical tools. naturalistic positions manifestly reveal their obsolescence and the weakness of the still-proposed attempt to eternalize – that is, destoricize – social and political categories by disguising them behind the data of biology. what traditional psychoanalysis, as well as common sense and dominant discourse, considers “natural men or women” are actually the product of a political device long since unmasked by critical thinking. paul b. preciado resolutely disputes: “the natural existence of masculinity and femininity” (preciado, 2021, p. 14) and decides to use his own experience as a non-binary trans person to demonstrate the far from natural or obvious status of gender connotation. of the latter, on the contrary, it is necessary to highlight the historicity, and with it immediately also the susceptibility of transformations, oscillations, changes of status over time and according to the broader cultural and anthropological developments of societies. beauvoir’s long-standing thesis that women are not born echoes in preciado’s living experience as told to her psychoanalytic audience. recalling her own memories as a child in francoist spain, in a body recognized by society as unequivocally female at birth, she asks, “what was there in my childhood body that allowed her to predict my whole life?”. the experience of the trans and nonbinary subject, with her own factual existence, shows the non-exhaustiveness of gender assignment at birth according to the genital apparatus with which one comes into the world, and the no longer sustainable arbitrariness of assigning social roles according to that same anatomical endowment. it was impossible for young beatriz preciado to mechanically trace her destiny of becoming a heterosexual bride and mother to her own mere infant physicality. the arbitrariness of the assignment becomes even more blatant when one sees how the attribution of gender roles does not even have to wait for the act of birth: an ultrasound scan of the fetus, which identifies its female biological sex, is enough to predict a future as a heterosexual wife and mother, even before its constitution as a subject. a human being, born with a given chromosome set and genital apparatus, “having been assigned to the female gender at birth” (preciado, 2020c, p. 23), for that reason alone should submit to the naturalness of a whole series of social expectations that to those “data of biology” elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 55 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessia franco serve as a seemingly necessary corollary. the first, truly basic step of a countersexual proposal is to first point out how the normativity of gender conduct is not naturally determined but socially constructed, and thus to reject it as a device of political control and over-termination: it is about stop doing what one’s gender prescribes, for example about abandoning, the spaces of victimization, caring, gentleness, seduction, availability, and listening for which we cis-female have been pharmacopornographically programmed since childhood. (preciado, 2020c, p. 278) 1 the mere experience of a trans person, with its own uncomfortableness, demonstrates the rigidity and at once the violence of gender attribution: femininity, young beatriz felt, was a cage. however, the rejection of the naturalization of femininity is only the first in a series of escapes. here the need for transition is grafted as much as the denial of a certain still rigidly binary way of understanding transition itself. in choosing to break out of the cage of femininity, preciado explains, it is not a matter of ceasing to be a woman in order to “become a man like the others” (preciado, 2020c, p. 28). that is, to enter immediately into the other cage, that of masculinity. a transition understood as mere migration from one gender assignment to another, from one bank to another of obligatory heterobinarism, is not a sufficient tool to challenge that binarism but on the contrary becomes an experience capable of reinforcing it as an institution and as an epistemology. this is a real epistemological insufficiency, which reaffirms the impositional violence of gender binarism, if the only escape from compulsory femininity is identified in the entry into compulsory masculinity. the overcoming of naturalistic positions in the epistemology of sexual difference, and thus the reconfiguration of genders as not naturally implicated by biological sex, is still but a step in the even more radical path of the abolition of gender as such. preciado goes beyond butler, beyond the performativity of gender, and much more radically rediscusses the very need for “gender” to be posited. the latter after all, preciado denounces, since its conceptual birth with the work of john money has been configured as “el instrumento de una racionalización de la vida en la que el cuerpo no es más que un parámetro” (preciado, n.d. link). this means first and foremost that “gender” is a (bio)political device: “es ante todo un concepto necesario para la aparición y el desarrollo de un conjunto de técnicas de normalización/transformación de la vida” (preciado, n.d. link). and it 1 the section in chapter 12, entitled ejercicios de programación de género posporno. coaching viril in the anagrama edition (pp. 277-279) is absent in the feminist press edition. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 56 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference is also a politically and socially configured device that does not hesitate to shred real nonconforming living bodies. after rejecting the “naturalistic” foundation of the heterobinary sexgender system, preciado seeks to dismantle this system itself, and to demystify the apparent obligatory nature of gender choice. preciado’s rejection is about binary gender identity and the legitimacy of its derivation from biology, not about the actual “natural” existence of gendered bodies; in this sense, if this rejection has been traced back to solanas’ “extinctionist approach” as it emerges from his scum manifest (evans, 2018, p. 287), it seems to me that it can be rather traced back to the work of shulamith firestone and should be framed within the general perspective of gender abolitionism as it is configured in xenfeminist perspectives (hester, 2018, pp. 22-32). as an inhabitant of uranus, preciado wrote: i am not a man and i am not a woman and i am not heterosexual i am not homosexual i am not bisexual. i am a dissident of the sex-gender system. i am the multiplicity of the cos-mos trapped in a binary political and epistemological system, shouting in front of you. (preciado, 2020b, p. 37) 3. another “transition” preciado then proposes the category of trans as something radically different from the transition from male to female status or vice versa: transition is not mere permeability of the barrier between male and female, to allow the unidirectional transition from one side to the other, but is radical questioning of the dichotomy itself. the transition affirmed by preciado has value as a powerful epistemological tool insofar as it offers itself as a way out not with respect to one gender or the other, but with respect to the very fanaticism of sexual difference, to the overall cage of the false alternative between “natural” masculinity and femininity. it is a matter here, preciado says, of negating another mistaken view, because it is too rigid and because it again reaffirms patriarchal heterobinarism, of transition, linked to the bogeyman of irreversibility. every trans or near trans person is strongly discouraged, especially at a young age, from embarking on their own path of transition, with the argument that they might later regret it: there is no turning back from transition. transitioning from one gender to another involves status, physical, hormonal, possibly surgical, aesthetic, and performative changes that do not tolerate backtracking. the assertion of such rigid affiliation between the trans person and his or her target gender is, from an epistemological perspective, no less conservative than the principled denial of the legitimacy of the transielementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 57 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessia franco tion itself. the thesis that the target gender is irrevocably assumed is not qualitatively more progressive than the thesis of the naturalness of gender assignment at birth: it concedes a “correction” of the natural error and, on the basis of the intervention to amend it, reaffirms the incommunicable alternative between the two traditional genders. it is possible to bring the trans body back to normative heterobinarism by forcing it to jump from one gender assigned at birth on the basis of genital endowment to the opposite gender through the “pharmacological and psychiatric ritual” (preciado, 2020c, p. 35). to be swallowed up in the opposite gender to the one assigned at birth is to fall back into normal and naturalized heterobinarism; it is to have not escaped the rigidity of the regime of sexual difference but to have remained under its yoke, thereby reaffirming its epistemological and practical validity. it means having to learn the codes of dominant masculinity in order to conform to one heterobinary norm rather than the other. this would be mere “mimicry”, a concept that preciado sharply rejects to speak of gender transition, which risks being seen as reduced to simulation or imitation of the chosen gender. here preciado highlights the radical nature of his own conception of transition: it is properly so if it is permanent, that is, if one assumes it as a process that is possible to travel in both directions. denying that transition is a one-way journey constitutes the radical rejection of the epistemological approach to sexual difference: it invalidates its underlying dichotomy, defusing the obligation of choosing the cage in which to allow oneself to be imprisoned. the epistemologically revolutionary act is no longer to grant that there can be transitions from one status to another – from female to male or vice versa – but to deny that the definition on natural and biological grounds of each is exhaustive of the variety and multiformity of existing bodies. the concept of transition outlined by preciado then seeks to reaffirm life in its multiplicity that does not allow itself to be reduced to the norms of obligatory heterobinarism, and is surplus to the latter’s ontological and epistemological categories. preciado writes that “gender transition is an antigenealogy” (preciado, 2020c, p. 49). it is no longer just a matter of “inventing a mechanical adjustment”, whether hormonal, surgical or variously expressive, to hide the phenotype of the gender assigned at birth in order to acquire a different one, but it is a matter of accepting to make room in one’s body for a parallel evolution of life that would otherwise never be expressed. the medical-surgical, technical and capitalistic dimension of the process under the physiological aspect does not exhaust it as a creative act; “naturalistic” readings, which would reduce transition to an extraordinary correction of natural and biological life, cannot recognize transition as the means of realizing, in the same body, another of the elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 58 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference possibilities of the multiformity of life. the latter no longer accepts being reduced to biology. preciado’s discourse, which has invested the historicalanthropological dimension, now opens up to the vastness of the futuribles to which transition finally allows access, in a theoretical-practical sense and as an epistemological paradigm break: “to be trans”, preciado writes: “one must accept the triumphant irruption of another future within oneself ” (preciado, 2020c, p. 49). 4. toward a new epistemological paradigm the historical-anthropological dimension of preciado’s discourse first emerges in his assertion of the historicity and ethnocentrism of the regime of sexual difference, as of the disciplines it informs, first and foremost traditional and heteropatriarchal psychoanalysis. preciado recalls the case of intersex births, to show in one respect the non-absoluteness of the binary model of the sex-gender system, which fails to subsume all the cases actually offered by nature – thereby debunking the claim that it would be nature with its eternal and superhuman categories that would ground heterobinarism itself. second, the historicity of the regime of sexual difference emerges, for example, from a consideration of the single-sex epistemology in force in europe in the middle ages and the early centuries of the modern age, according to which there was strictly speaking only one sex, the male, while women constituted imperfect, deficient males. the fanaticism of sexual difference, which can be considered as belonging to a now traditional epistemology, is not eternal, however, but historically determined – and also relatively young. the idea that a new epistemological upheaval will still take place to overcome the epistemology of sexual difference is not utopian, but a historically and anthropologically realistic scenario; especially since, as preciado reconstructs in his paris report, the model that is still dominant today nevertheless already entered an irreparable crisis after world war ii. overcoming the regime of sexual difference is not only predictable from the epistemological aspect, but is desirable from the political aspect. the regime of sexual difference, in fact, is a semio-technical and cognitive lattice, which constitutes a limitation for our perception, for our expression, for the possibility of establishing relationships. in pretending to be universal, it edifies a whole complex of discursive and clinical practices with immediate effects on the political subjectification of “deviant” or “monstrous” bodies, as well as on the delegitimization of “deviant” forms of sexual and sentimental relations – that is, all those different from heteroelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 59 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessia franco sexual monogamy. the arrogance of claimed universality is justificatory of the disposition of political and precisely necropolitical practices. recalling mbembe, for whom “exercising sovereignty means exerting control over mortality and defining life as the unfolding and manifestation of power” (mbembe, 2016, p. 8), one can observe the connection between the absolutist claims of the regime of sexual difference and the consequences on the lives of subjects reduced by it to the margins. preciado, moreover, criticizes in this respect the theoretical – or psychological – identity trap, according to which only subalterns would have one: this is the illusion that induces the hetero cis bourgeois white male to consider himself the universality of the human, and not one identity among others. just as in the single-sex regime woman was identified with not “succeeding” in being as physiologically perfect as man, subaltern identities today would be characterized and connoted by defect, according to shortcomings with respect to the universal human model. identity would thus be configured as the profile of any minority that cannot aspire to place itself as universal. the characteristics of the hetero cis and bourgeois white male configure one type of identity among a great many others possible and existing de facto, but at the same time they delimit that specific identity that enjoys the power, historically and socially constituted, to legitimize or not all others, and to sanction which among all others do or do not deserve to continue to exist, and under what conditions: it is in this sense that preciado speaks of a “necropolitical animal”. heteropatriarchal and colonial psychiatry and psychoanalysis – themselves victims of the illusion of universality, which blinds them to their own historicity and ethnocentrism, for that matter long denounced by ethnopsychiatry and decolonial studies – can legitimize or not legitimize processes of political subjectification. in our societies, they may in fact necropolitically deny the right to exist and to speak of subalterns who are not ascribable to the codes of the purported white western heteropatriarchal universality. the cost of granting life, speech and political subjectivation is the sacrifice of “deviance” through more or less forced medicalization, psychiatric, hormonal or even surgical normalization. all the limitations of the approach that neglects the ethnocentric element of this epistemology, which grounds clinical practices and political denials of subjectivity, are revealed in the case of intersex births. the medical-clinical practice of the instantaneous “normalization” of new intersex births in recent times is increasingly debated and no longer universally practiced, but it remains revealing of the practical violence that the regime of sexual difference is capable of exerting. recognized as “deviant” and “deformed”, the bodies of the many infants whose biological sex could elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 60 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference not be uniquely identified because of particular conformations of the external genital apparatus, have in large numbers been surgically operated on, with the utmost ease, to be reduced to one sex or the other – with often dramatic psychological consequences, as intersex rights activism now energetically documents and publicizes. trans bodies, while having historically and biographically specific experiences compared to intersex births, regularly experience similar attempts at pathologization and subsequent medical normalization, primarily through psychiatric categories and practices. significantly, the crisis of the current epistemology of sexual difference has deepened and extended through the work of struggle movements that explicitly set out to deconstruct dominant thought in its various meanings: the labor, feminist, homosexual, colonial critique, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and lgbtqi+ movements. the multiplicity of forms of deviance and resistance with respect to normative heterosexuality reflects the processes of political organization and subjectification of those minorities marginalized by the universal and colonial human – even butler recalled the closeness between minority identities and the postcolonial subject, highlighting the concurrence between certain aspects of his own work and that of saidiya hartman, homi k. bhabha and other authors, with reference to, among other things, the process of “appropriation of the colonial ‘voice’ by the colonized” (butler, 2006, p. 206). more or less figuratively, preciado speaks of the very construction of a transitional epistemology as a process of decolonizing epistemology: the breaking out of the cage of sexual difference, in his autobiographical account, had for him the meaning of debinarizing, disidentifying, decolonizing. the process of transition itself is a process of reasserting one’s subjectivity, of decolonizing one’s body, the trans body that has historically become a colony of medical and psychoanalytic discourse in the regime of sexual difference and its disciplinary, media and market institutions. trans bodies, preciado explains, are natural resources to feed the heteropatriarchal system, at the cost of extraction, exploitation and annihilation. it is then an eminently political challenge to construct a new epistemology, an epistemology of transition, that can offer itself as a historical alternative to the equally historical epistemology of sexual difference, whose historicity precisely is denied by common sense, dominant discourse as well as hegemonic and academic psychoanalysis and medicine. recognizing the historicity of the regime of sexual difference and the epistemology related to it, and demystifying the leap from the descriptive claims of the two natural sexes to the normative claims of heterobinarism, is necessary to found a new epistemology. in the meantime, it is a matter of tracing back to historicity and the cultural dimension all the lexical, cognitive, practical and elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 61 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessia franco political paraphernalia that comes with the regime of sexual difference, in order to finally recognize its surmountability. preciado, in the paris report, predicts that it may take “ten or twenty years” for a new epistemological paradigm “of the living body” to be delineated thanks to the work and activism of the anti-racist, transfeminist and queer movements. this would be a great collective work of experimentation and innovation – of relational and love practices, of family and filiation bonds, of gender identification, of sexuality. in such a process of collective critical and creative production, psychoanalysis, too, is called upon to play a role: that of initiating a process, even a difficult one, of depatriarchalization, de-heterosexualization and decolonization of itself, as discourse, narrative, institution and clinical practice. initiating such a process would mean ceasing to legitimize the necropolitical violence of heteropatriarchal normalization and the fanatical regime of sexual difference: this is an urgent task with which preciado explicitly invites the academy to confront. references butler, j. (2006). gender trouble. routledge. de beauvoir, s. (1953). the second sex. jonathan cape. evans, e. (2018). “wittig and davis, woolf and solanas […] simmer within me”: reading feminist archives in the queer writing of paul b. preciado. paragraph 41(3), 285-300. doi: 10.3366/para.2018.0272. hester, h. (2018). xenofeminism. polity press. martins parente, a., & silveira, l. (2020). paul b. preciado e sua epistemologia mutante. cult, 1-6. https://revistacult.uol.com.br/home/paul-b-preciado-psicanalise/ mbembe, a. (2016). necropolitica. ombre corte. preciado, p. b. (n.d. link). la invención del género, o el tecnocordero que devora a los lobos – biopolítica del género. [28.03.2022]. https://www.bibliotecafragmentada.org/wp-content/ uploads/2019/05/365213634-preciado-b-la-invencion-del-genero-oel-tecnocordero-que-devora-a-los-lobos-1.pdf preciado, p. b. (2020a). testo yonqui. sexo, drogas y biopolítica. anagrama. preciado, p. b. (2020b). an apartment on uranus. fitzcarraldo editions. preciado, p. b. (2020c). yo soy el monstruo que os habla. informe para una academia de psicoanalistas. anagrama. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 62 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference riassunto il presente articolo intende illustrare il pensiero di paul b. preciado in merito alla epistemologia della transizione, che dovrebbe subentrare all’attuale regime epistemologico della differenza sessuale basata sull’eterobinarismo. a partire in particolare dalla relazione tenuta da preciado a parigi nel 2019, si intende mettere a fuoco gli assi portanti del pensiero di preciado sul tema: innanzitutto la necessità della denaturalizzazione del genere rispetto al sesso biologico; la denuncia della normalizzazione e medicalizzazione subite dai corpi trans o intersessuali, “devianti” rispetto all’eterobinarismo; l’etnocentrismo e il potere necropolitico delle istituzioni mediche e disciplinari nei confronti dei “devianti” e “mostruosi”; il concetto di “transizione” elaborato da preciado, quale decolonizzazione rispetto all’epistemologia e alle istituzioni disciplinari dell’attuale regime della differenza sessuale. copyright (©) 2022 alessia franco editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: franco, a. (2022). for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 51-63. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-fran elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 63 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-fran https://www.ledonline.it/elementa sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey ricœur, gift and poetics 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 81 ricœur, gift and poetics annalisa caputo università degli studi di bari “aldo moro” (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-capa annalisa.caputo@uniba.it abstract in ricœur’s last works, we can find what he calls a poetics of love. choosing the “dialectic” path of a comparison between love and justice, ricœur claims that justice lies in the rule of equivalence (give to each his own); the disorientation of love, instead, suspends the return, the equivalence, the exchange. love does not say: “do ut des”, but rather (if we can transform the expression) it says “do ut dem”, to offer without expecting anything in return: this is what ricœur calls a “first gift”. however, it is an expectation that is always open to the possibility of a “surprise”: the surprise of a “second first gift” able to fulfill the gratuity of the original act of donation. this essay questions this possibility of “mutual gift”. keywords: gratuity; justice; love; ricœur; surprise. 1. preliminary remarks in ricœur’s last works, we can find what he calls a poetics of agape or even more simply a poetics of love (ricœur, 1996, pp. 23-40). ricœur is aware of the risks underlying the decision to use this term (love), but also conscious of the fact that poetry does not have others, more appropriate to express the tension of his desire. “talking about love may be too easy, or rather too difficult. how can we avoid simply praising it or falling into sentimental platitudes?” (ricœur, 1996, p. 23). how not to fall into exaltation or emotional banality? how to talk about the poetry of love, without, in so doing, writing a poetry, becoming a poet? ricœur chooses the “dialectic” path of a comparison between love and justice: “here by dialectic i mean, on the one hand, the acknowledgment of the initial disproportionality between our two terms elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-capa mailto:annalisa.caputo@uniba.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa annalisa caputo 82 and, on the other hand, the search for practical mediations between them – mediations, let us quickly say, that are always fragile and provisory” (p. 23). of this dialectic (caputo, 2008) we only want to consider the crux: what does it mean to say that love is poetry (caputo, 2013, pp. 231-256)? 2. the hyper-ethical language of love emphasizing the link between love and poetry means, above all, remembering that love speaks, but it speaks a language that is different from the ordinary language of everyday life, logic and prose. the poetry of love is primarily a poetry of “praise” 1. from the uniform grey of everyday objects, from the anonymity of the everything, in which everyone is equal to everyone else, the “poet” (metaphorically speaking), i.e. the lover sees a gaze emerge that says: love me! and of this appeal – so different from the imperative, but also from normal description of what it is – he decides to make poetry. an uncanny use of the imperative form (hall, 2007), that can be understood – in its “scandalous” role – only starting from the link that precedes it. in a way, it is not the beloved who says love me!, nor his/her lover, but love itself. the commandment to love is love itself, commending itself, as though the genitive in the “commandment of love” were subjective and objective at the same time. (ricœur, 1996, p. 27) love can not be commanded. it is recommended. “allow yourself to feel loved!”. in fact, the language of love is able to awaken the primeval beauty in things and in others. his speaking is a new creation that says: “let it be!”. it projects the self beyond itself. that is why an authentic “poetic” relationship can never be written by one person. praise attracts praise. poetry attracts poetry. the offering of oneself, the gift attracts the gift (wall, 2005, pp. 130-136). then, where is the difference between the lover and the “merchant” (this is the word used by ricœur: 2005)? it is again a question of language, of style. the poet “gives”, but his gift is not one of the market, it is not an exchange. it is the “hyperethical feeling” (ricœur, 1996, p. 33) of a broad economy of the gift, which has quite different forms of expression than the forms with which men justify their actions. it is not the norm of daily “prose”. it is the exception of the gesture that oversteps normal 1 in several passages ricœur connects this poetry of praise to the hymn. see, in particular, the hymn to the charity of paul of tarsus, 1 cor. 13. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricœur, gift and poetics 83 ity, to return it to its original momentum. in this sense, love is always illogical. its logic is “different”, “poetic”. in fact, it cannot be enclosed in grammatical, syntactical, or stylistic rules. we can try to explain a poem “logically”, but – even assuming that we can understand it – in schematizing it we reduce it, we remove its fingernails, we prevent it from having on us the impact that its linguistic and conceptual distortion wanted to have. this is the economy of the gift, in the poetics of love: “it develops a logic of superabundance that, at first glance at least, opposes itself to the logic of equivalence that governs everyday ethics” – writes ricœur in love and justice (ricœur, 1996, pp. 33-34) 2. in relation to this “logic of superabundance”, even more radically, in the course of recognition; i believe it is possible to consider parcours as a last phase of ricœur’s thinking, beyond those usually proposed by scholars (greisch, 2001; agìs villaverde, 2006). ricœur says that superabundance is not even a logic. it is an a-logic. and mind you: ricœur does not contrast the love-poetry only with the “logic” of violence or that of mercantilism, or liberal individualism, but more radically he also contrasts love with the “logic” of justice, which – even if it were a perfect prosody – would never reach the heights of the hymn of praise. in fact, even the best justice lies in the rule of equivalence. give to each his own is the classic formula that unites the just to the equal. and it is “logical” that it be so. it would be impossible to live in a world in which the equivalence of equality did not support social and legal constraints. the philosophy of ricœur is neither subversive, nor a-moral. it pushes morals to “give more”. in fact, man is not only a rational animal, nor even just a political animal, but – just for this reason – he is also a poet of the hyper-ethical. man not only needs to be recognized as an “each”, the same as all others (in social practices, judicial systems, governmental institutions, distribution of goods), but also, and even more fundamentally, he needs be recognized as the “beloved”, as a “you” different from all other selves (chosen for his uniqueness and singularity). in this sense, just as love can never supplant and eliminate the need for justice, the prose of justice can never level love’s poetic yearning (theobald, 1995; garapon, 2006; ponce de leão, 2006). the poetry is a gamble that raises man from the horizontal logic of reciprocity, from the quietist dimension of the equivalence, to the disorienting economy of superabundance. “to disorient without reorienting is, in kierkegaardian terms – ricœur points out – to suspend the ethical. in one sense, the commandment to love, 2 for ricœur, the “crazy” apex of this love is to love our enemies, as is proposed in the evangelical agape. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa annalisa caputo 84 as hyperethical, is a way of suspending the ethical […]” (ricœur, 1996, p. 37; emphasis added). the disorientation of love suspends the return, the equivalence, the exchange. “love” does not say: do ut des, but rather (if we can transform the expression) it says do ut dem. i give because i must give. “to offer without expecting anything in return”: this is a “first gift” (premier don). “une générosité […] sans égard pour l’obligation ainsi engendrée de donner en retour: générosité libérée des règles d’équivalence régissant les relations de justice” (ricœur, 2005, p. 337). the gap, the jump is from the logic of the market (including the fairest market) to the “sans prix” (hénaff, 2002), that is the “without-price” of poetry: in-utility, anti-market. here ricœur, inevitably – as a philosopher – can not but remember the pricelessness of philosophy, much akin in its in-utility to the anti-market of poetry (ricœur, 2005, pp. 339-341). there are, ricœur points out, things that can not be bought and sold. one of these is the poetic experience (and the artistic experience, in general). another of these is thought and its freedom, its ability to challenge, provoke, and criticize what exists. “le spectacle qu’offre l’histoire est celui d’une défaite croissante du sans prix, refoulé par les avances de la société marchande”. but there are oases of resistance in which the non-tradable “remains” in its specificity of “without price” (ricœur, 2005, pp. 343-344). love, returning to the poet, is without price. this “saves” the gift of the poet, distinguishing it from that of the merchant. in this case, “i give” is a surplus: an superabundance that, however, is not closed in on itself, but responds, in turn, to a previous overabundance and calls again, in a circle, for further overabundance. this is what protects the poetics of love from the risk of the detachment of superiority. to the masters of suspicion, who insinuate doubt (… this gift is not a gift, but poison because it crushes the other in a debt that can never be reciprocated and which harms his dignity; ricœur, 2000, p. 621. on this subject, distinguishes two phrases in ricœur’s writings from the 1960s: “masters of suspicion” and “hermeneutics of suspicion”; scott-bauman, 2009, p. 58), the poet responds with the fragility of his desire, a desire that ricœur, in a strong and original manner, called “optative”. 3. the optative of mutuality the poet is a man of the optative: “ce mode qui n’est ni descriptif ni normatif ” (ricœur, 2005, p. 354), but a desiderative mode. for the poet, elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricœur, gift and poetics 85 i want does not mean that it must be so. it means “i would like it to be so”: a tightrope between what it is and what i would like it to be. the poetic form of “love me!” is not a “command”. it is the “desire” that the other might experience the beauty of the priceless gift of self, and – in turn – become a poet of praise (not an insolvent debtor). ricœur writes: from the do ut des to the “i give so that (pour que) you give” (ricœur, 2005, p. 355). but this “so that”, this pour que can only be optative. perhaps, to be less ambiguous than the ricœurian expressions may seem, the poet should say: “i give … i would like for you to give, too”; “i gave you a gift … i would like for you to do the same”. even more radically, the lover should not even say love me!, but he should say, love!, where the emphasis is once again on “you” and not on “i”. in fact, the desire of the giver, if it is really superabundant, it is not even that you could love me, but that you can love. if the object of the love of the “you” becomes a third party (not me), this does not make the giving of the you less worthy, nor would the gratuity be less abundant, nor would the movement of mutual disclosure be less effective. although, in the poetic optative, hope remains, hidden, non-invasive: the hope that you can, with your poetry, respond to mine; that your superabundance may actually address my desire for you. in this sense, the possible reciprocity, is not, would not be exchange, but mutual recognition, mutuality (mutualité ). reciprocity, ricœur points out, “tourne au-dessus de nos têtes”; mutuality “circule entre nous” (ricœur, 2005, p. 355). in mutuality there is no “exchange” of gifts, understood as “something” that objectively passes from one to another and from another to one. there is no horizontality of the “right” reciprocity (on the same level). there is the asymmetry of a dual superabundance, because the interest-free gift each time falls from a gap in altitude, from the height of pricelessness (p. 366). marcel henaff (2004, pp. 326-337) defines “reciprocity” as the way in which ricœur breaks the cartesian circle of egology. “la générosité du don suscite non pas une restitution, qui, au sens propre, annulerait le premier don, mais quelque chose comme la réponse à une offre. à la limite, il faut tenir le premier don pour le modèle du second don, et penser, si l’on peut dire, le second don comme une sorte de seconde premier don” (ricœur, 2005, p. 350). it is a fragile mutuality, as fragile as the identities on which it is based, and as “fragile” as the poetic thread that supports it. for this reason, every authentic gift is a “risk”. one assumes the risk of being rejected, of not being recognized, not being accepted, appreciated. you accept the possibility of misunderstanding and ingratitude. for this reason, every authentic gift is an expectation: “attente, qui peut être indéelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa annalisa caputo 86 finiment différée, voire perdue de vue et franchement oubliée”. however, it is an expectation that is always open to the possibility of a “surprise”: the surprise of this “second first gift” able to fulfill the gratuity of the original act of donation (ricœur, 2005, p. 351). for this reason, every authentic gift is “un espace d’espérance”, “une onde d’irradiation et d’irrigation qui, de façon secrète et détourneée, contribue à l’avancée de l’histoire vers des états de paix”: is the hidden counter-current in the history of violence. for this reason, each authentic gift “est […] ce qu’est par ailleurs l’hymne au plan verbal” (p. 354), it is the poetry of the optative: gratuity that evokes gratitude and gratitude that evokes new gratuity (olivier abel speaks of a “reconnassance inquiete”: abel, 2004, pp. 45-57). it is (kemp, 2006; villela-petit, 2007) reconnaissance! the french language is one of those where “gratitude” can also be said with the word “recognition”. there is no construction of identity if “i” am not recognized as such, if “i” am not watched and loved in my uniqueness. however, there is no real recognition that does not provoke gratitude in “me”, for being freely known, recognized, and watched and loved. recognition arouses gratitude and, as men who are recognized and grateful, we are capable – in turn – of gratuity. this is the paradoxical aspect of the phenomenology of the gift, which does not – as you might think – move from gratuity to gratitude, but from gratitude to gratuity. that means, basically, that no one is ever an absolute “first” giver, but every act of love is always a response, always a “second first gift”. we might ask, then, how is it possible to create (or that it be created, originally) a gift of response, if it is true that there is no first, as the initial giver. here, the response of the last ricœur bifurcates in two directions. the first direction leads to what we might call the poetics of a philosophy without an absolute. the second direction leads to what we might call the poetics of a theology of the overabundance of the absolute. maybe we should say: in the question of the “gift”, in some way, ricœur crosses his two research directions: the philosophical and exegetical/theological. it is no coincidence that the end of ricœur’s intellectual autobiography, recalling precisely this “challenge” of meeting/convergence between a “philosophy without absolutes” and “biblical faith”, says: “le petit livre bilingue liebe und gerechtigkeit. amour et justice (1990) indique la direction à suivre pour relever ce défi” (ricœur, 1995, p. 82). this second leaves its traces in what ricœur himself calls “exercises of biblical exegesis” or of “apprentice theologian”, where genesis is reinterpreted as the original donation of existence (lacocque & ricœur, 1998, pp. 57-101); the commandment to love our enemies as the apex of the poetics of love, in agape; the law and justification as a gift of freedom and elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricœur, gift and poetics 87 liberation; eschatology as the possibility of awakening the unfulfilled promises of history. in this way, the god of hope and that of creation are, at the two ends of the economy of the gift, the same god (ricœur, 1996, p. 32), but the poetry of this god is never ultimately expressible in human prose. it is barely graspable by the stutterings of exegesis and theology. absolutely unthinkable for, and in, the fragile links of philosophical research 3. in this sense, in a manner consistent with the existential premises of his hermeneutic phenomenology, that of ricœur is the poetry of a philosophy without an absolute. and the question about the first giver remains unanswered, or better, with a response suspended in the epoché 4. it is necessary to feel loved, so as to feel recognized and be grateful. but this “primality” of love does not necessarily have to be linked to a transcendent origin. that there is something else at the origin of our life is a phenomenological datum. that i haven’t created myself is a phenomenological datum. that man is not a self-centered and self-based subject, but the recipient of a gift, an inestimable object of transmission (“inestimabile objet de la transmission”: ricœur, 2005, p. 288) is a phenomenological datum. that the self is the result of an overabundant lineage of love, is the gift of the transmission of life (given by parents, indicated on the family tree, rooted in the history of our ancestors …) is a phenomenological datum. beyond these phenomenological data, begins the enigma of origin, which is the enigma of one’s birth and life. it is the miracle of birth (h. arendt), which in its incomprehensibility and unspeakability, makes each man “priceless”, worthy of praise: possible poetry poetry of the possible (vanhoozer, 1990; treanor & venema, 2010; verheyden & hettema, 2011). the miracle of gratuity that – although it can never cross the drift of history – offers in the gift the space for a “suspension”: “clearing” (ricœur, 2005, p. 355; lamouche, 2008, pp. 76-87) in which the “forest” of the “endless struggle for recognition” thins out and becomes a place of reconnaissance (henriques, 2005, p. 250; ricœur, 2005, p. 274). will there ever be a poet and a poetics able to correspond to this enigma of the origins? the fragile word of the philosopher stops on this question. which is also a threshold of astonishment. thaumazein … that is surprised by its own existence and its 3 it is the famous end of paul ricœur soi-même comme un autre: “sur cette aporie de l’autre, le discours philosophique s’arrête” (ricœur, 1990, p. 409). 4 it should be noted that the poetics of the last ricœur are not necessarily related to the theological-transcendent dimension (as in philosophie de la volonté ), but it becomes more ethical-existential. for this reason, we do not totally agree with a number of scholars who, in a latent manner, risk turning the terms “poetic” and “transcendence” into synonyms (nkeramihigo, 1984; steven, 1991; jervolino, 1995; thomasset, 1996). elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa annalisa caputo 88 possibility to be, even without knowing how or why. beyond every how or why: “without any meritoriousness: […] only being a human being” (s. kierkegaard; ricœur, 2000, p. 656). the philosophy of the last ricœur, with kierkegaard, defiantly continues to think and to invite us to think that “it’s great to be men”. the end of la memoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, links this kierkegaardian praise of existence to the expression of the song of songs: “l’amour est aussi fort que la mort”. references abel, o. (2004). fragilité de l’approbation. foi et vie, 5(103): ricœur ou le pari de l’universel, 45-57. agìs villaverde, m. (2006). paul ricœur en perspective. evolución y etapas de su pensamiento. ágora – papeles de filosofía, 25(2): ricœur, 25-44. caputo, a. (2008). io e tu. una dialettica fragile e spezzata: percorsi con paul ricœur. bari: stilo. caputo, a. (2013). a second copernican revolution: phenomenology of the mutuality and poetics of the gift in the last ricœur. studia phaenomenologica, 13: proper use of phenomenology. paul ricœur centenary, 231-256. garapon, a. (2006). justice et reconnaissance. esprit, 323(3/4), 227-244. greisch, j. (2001). paul ricœur. l’itinérance du sens. grenoble: millon. hall, d. w. (2007). paul ricœur and the poetic imperative: the creative tension between love and justice. albany, ny: suny press. hénaff, m. (2002). le prix de la vérité. le don, l’argent, la philosophie. paris: seuil. hénaff, m. (2004). remarques sur la règle d’or. ricœur et la question de la réciprocité. dans m. revaut d’allonnes & f. azouvi (éds.), paul ricœur (pp. 326-337). paris: l’herne. henriques, f. (2005). a alteridade e o tràgico na filosofia de paul ricœur. en m. agìs villaverde (ed.), herméneutica y responsabilidad. homenaije a paul ricœur. santiago de compostela: santiago de campostela university press. jervolino, d. (1995). paul ricœur. l’amore difficile. roma: studium. kemp, p. (2006). reconnaissance à ricœur ricœur et la reconnaissance. dans o. abel & j. a. barash (éds.), hommage à paul ricœur (pp. 63-74). paris: unesco. lacocque, a., & ricœur, p. (1998). penser la bible. paris: seuil. lamouche, f. (2008). paul ricœur et les clairières de la reconnaissance. esprit, 7, 76-87. nkeramihigo, t. (1984). l’homme et la transcendance selon paul ricœur. essai de poétique dans la philosophie de paul ricœur. paris namur: culture et vérité. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa ricœur, gift and poetics 89 ponce de leão, p. (2006). de l’universal au concret. justice et éthique dans l’œuvre de paul ricœur. dans j. porée & g. vincent (éds.), répliquer au mal. symbole et justice dans l’œuvre de paul ricœur. rennes: rennes university press. ricœur, p. (1990). soi-même comme un autre. paris: seuil. ricœur, p. (1995). réflexion faite. paris: esprit. ricœur, p. (1996). love and justice. in p. ricœur, hermeneutic of action (pp. 23-40). london: sage. ricœur, p. (2000). la mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli. paris: seuil. ricœur, p. (2004). parcours de la reconnaissance. trois études. paris: stock. ricœur, p. (2005). the course of recognition. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. scott-bauman, a. (2009). ricœur and the hermeneutics of suspicion. london new york: continuum. steven, b. (1991). l’apprentissage des signes. lecture de paul ricœur. dodrecht boston london: kluwer. theobald, c. (1995). la règle d’or chez paul ricœur. une interrogation théologique. recherches de science religieuse, 83(1), 43-59. thomasset, a. (1996). paul ricœur. une poétique de la morale. louvain: peeters leuven university press. treanor, b., & venema, h. i. (eds.). (2010). a passion for the possible: thinking with paul ricœur. fordham, ny: fordham university press. vanhoozer, k. j. (1990). biblical narrative in the philosophy of paul ricœur: a study in hermenutics and theology. cambridge: cambridge university press. verheyden, j., & hettema, t. l. (eds.). (2011). paul ricœur: poetics and religion. louvain: peeters. villela-petit, m. (2007). três estudos de paul ricœur como etaps de uma filosofia do reconhecimento. multitextos ctch (centro de teologia e ciências humanas), 5(1): une aproximação a paul ricœur, 47-59. wall, j. (2005). moral creativity: paul ricœur and the poetics of possibility. oxford: oxford university press. riassunto nelle ultime opere di ricœur, possiamo trovare quella che lui chiama una poetica dell’amo re. scegliendo la strada “dialettica” di un confronto tra amore e giustizia, ricœur sostiene che la giustizia risiede nella regola dell’equivalenza (dare a ciascuno il suo); il disorientamento dell’amore, invece, sospende il ritorno, l’equivalenza, lo scambio. l’amo re non dice: “do ut des”, ma piuttosto (se possiamo trasformare l’espressione) dice “do ut dem”, offrire senza aspettarsi nulla in cambio: questo è ciò che ricœur chiama “primo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa annalisa caputo 90 dono”. tuttavia, si tratta di un’aspettativa sempre aperta alla possibilità di una “sorpresa”: la sorpresa di un “secondo primo dono” in grado di soddisfare la gratuità dell’atto di donazione originale. questo saggio si interroga su questa possibilità di “dono reciproco”. copyright (©) 2023 annalisa caputo editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: caputo, a. (2023). ricœur, gift and poetics. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 81-90. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa2023-0102-capa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-capa https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-capa https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 181 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 1 giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio learning science hub, università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-nape guendalina.peconio@unifg.it giuliana.nardacchione@unifg.it abstract this paper aims to investigate the theoretical references that the literature offers with respect to the principle of scaffolding and to the methodology of peer tutoring from an inclusive perspective. the principle of scaffolding, in fact, has its roots in the first definitions by vygotskij (1978a) who defines it as the social support provided to the student during the completion of a learning task to solve a problem or achieve a goal. subsequently, this principle has been declined in an inclusive perspective with respect to classroom management and with respect to new transmedia learning environments. the reference literature was reviewed to highlight the learning outcomes related to the principle of cognitive, metacognitive and emotional scaffolding. in addition, from the point of view of classroom management from an inclusive perspective, a declination that is effective refers to peer tutoring. this methodology aims to promote mutual interactions mediated by peers in order to optimize individual functioning and promote the holistic development of the parties involved. therefore, the peer tutoring methodology was highlighted with reference to both the theoretical and practical components of the studies investigated. keywords: metacognitive scaffolding; peer tutoring; peer tutoring higher education; scaffolding. 1 for the purposes of academic recognition, contributions are attributed as follows: paragraph 1, 2 and 3 to guendalina peconio; paragraph 4 and 5 to giuliana nardacchione; and the introduction and the conclusion is the result of a shared work. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-nape giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 182 introduction scaffolding supports the learning of individuals and, specifically, students in the early stages; reducing effort and providing opportunities for responsibility, in individuals, in performing a task automatically (slavin, 2019). this principle is, therefore, useful, to improve cognitive effects in learning; another key aspect refers to the ability of self-regulation that affects this improvement (shirmohammadi & salehi, 2017). shelfolding can be promoted through direct mediation in the dialogue between student and teacher; in order to promote this approach however, it is necessary for teachers to design learning activities and use support materials that place students in their zone of proximal development (taber, 2018). in this sense, the social support that is provided to the student while performing a task has been explored, not only in face-to-face interaction, but also computationally, during information and communication technology (ict) mediated learning in order to better understand how to support students in a new technology mediated environment (alexander, bresciani, & eppler, 2015). in fact, the concept of scaffolding has been applied in the design of computational scenarios and is a steadily growing strand of research. as a result, hypermedia and web-based learning environments that foster learning and self-regulatory processes are innumerable (zhang & quintana, 2012). it is necessary to examine the resources of information and communication technologies (icts), which have in their genetic makeup the potential to accommodate different languages, encourage social relationships and foster the elaboration of knowledge and knowledge, in a contextual manner (limone, 2021). peer interaction in the learning process can promote the development of positive behaviors, self-confidence, and social-relational skills, all of which have a significant impact on the teacher’s actions toward students and among students themselves (thurston et al., 2012). such processes of exchange and sharing require the activation of dynamics of social interdependence capable of promoting the assimilation of learning and the accommodation of new ideas, leading to the development of other cognitive understandings as a result of post-interactive metacognitive reflection (casey & fernandez-rio, 2019). the principle of co-construction of meaning, which is related to learning in collaborative settings, is in line with vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, which focuses on the assumption that action is socially mediated and cannot be separated from the environment in which it is performed (vygotsky, 1978b). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 183 1. scaffolding: implications for learning processes the principle of scaffolding refers to the support that an adult can provide to a child in order to promote and meet the child’s learning goals (wu & pedersen, 2011). this concept was defined with reference to vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning and, in particular, based on the zone of proximal development. in learning contexts, it is well known that teachers should promote effective scaffolding that, alongside the structuring of valid learning activities, is able to support students. such scaffolding, in learning environments, also refers not only to cognitive aspects but also to metacognitive and emotional aspects. devescovi (2003), analyzing scaffolding, classifies the five steps that bruner, in turn, identifies as necessary for adults to promote scaffolding. specifically, the following points are referred to: 1. recruitment: attracting attention and interest to motivate him to get involved; 2. reducing degrees of freedom: simplify the task as much as possible by reducing it to the minimum necessary steps; 3. guidance and encouragement: keep motivation high so that they can reach the goal on their own; 4. indication of critical points: highlight the salient aspects of the task so that the individual is aware of the discrepancies between what they have produced and what they should produce in order to achieve the objective; 5. demonstration: elaborate on the various attempts that have been made to solve the problem; subsequently, the student will elaborate on the model proposed by the adult and refine their own. belland (2014) has, in addition, declined the three characteristics of scaffolding: • contingency: assessment of pupils’ abilities with reference to precise tasks, so that the teacher can promote scaffolding; • intersubjectivity: sharing of events, at a collective level, within which students can exchange ideas and experiment with problem-solving; • transfer of responsibility: responsibility is manifested through the support provided by scaffolding and is linked to the principle of independence in learning. in order to optimize the principle of scaffolding, it is good to deepen, in terms of knowledge, first of all, the skills and competencies of the student. this knowledge allows, in fact, to operate and implement strategies closely related to the development of the relative zone of proximal https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 184 development. moreover, such empowerment is promoted in a community context and aims to promote the development and consolidation of student autonomy. teachers aiming to scaffold learning must, therefore, design learning activities and support materials that will situate students in their zone of proximal development. park et al. (2020) point out different ways to reinforce in the learning context; one can, in fact, model and explain more complex procedures, simplify a task, prevent pupils from experiencing feelings of frustration, and provide students with functional examples of strategies. some strategies related to the scaffolding principle emerge from some studies in this regard: verawati (in rokhmat et al., 2017) highlights the decomposition of the main task into several tasks in order to increase problem-solving ability in pupils. wilson and devereux (2014) emphasized the importance of design in breaking down into subtasks, highlighting the need for these tasks to be sequenced and structured so that they can lead to the completion of the main task. it is, moreover, highlighted the need for appropriate scaffolding design in order to improve the consistency of student representation (maries, lin, & singh, 2017). in this regard, explanatory examples appear to be: the use of digital technologies (van de pol, volman, & beishuizen, 2010), questions posed by the teacher (meyer & turner, 2002), and learning curriculum materials (grossman & thompson, 2008). the use of learning protocols, prepared based on scaffolding strategies, increased students’ levels of knowledge of the strategies. in fact, lajoie (2005) defines scaffolding as an interaction between tools, guides, and strategies useful in supporting students in regulating learning. this refers to cognitive, emotional, metacognitive, and motivational processes (ter beek et al., 2019). specifically, when scaffolds support metacognitive processes the following tasks are favored: planning, monitoring, self-assessment, and control of cognitive processes (lópez-vargas, ibáñez-ibáñez, & racinesprada, 2017). in addition, molenaar (2010) states that metacognitive scaffolds aim to promote the management and regulation of cognitive processes; specifically, this provides support in: • planning activities to achieve learning goals; • monitoring progress on learning activities; • evaluate the results in order to modify, if necessary, the task planning and adjust the related learning strategies. this has also been confirmed by hederich-martinez, lópez-vargas and camargo-uribe (2016), the authors highlight that these processes https://www.ledonline.it/elementa peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 185 allow students to make decisions and implement more effective and functional strategies to achieve the desired learning. another component, closely, intertwined with the principle of scaffolding is the emotional component. schukajlow and rakoczy (2016) point out that “emotions for outcomes are powerful variables that can be influenced in instructional settings and in turn affect motivation and performance”. emotions can, in fact, promote or hinder learning processes. studies highlight, in fact, the implication of the emotional component, in learning processes, already in the early stages of development: research in this direction has found that good emotional regulation, in children, is correlated with good school performance (djambazova-popordanoska, 2016). in addition, emotional competence promotes the manifestation of prosocial behaviors, which, in turn, correlate with academic success (trentacosta & izzard, 2007). the knowledge and in-depth study of this component helps to plan educational curricula that take into account the importance that emotional scaffolding has in promoting a positive climate in the classroom context; in managing students’ arousal levels; and in keeping students’ interest active and high (huertas-bustos, lópez-vargas, & sanabria-rodríguez, 2018). some declinations of emotional scaffolding relate to variables such as social context and friendship relationships (reindle, tulis, & dresel, 2018), other approaches focus more on academic emotions such as: boredom, anxiety, enjoyment, interest and correlate these emotions with academic achievement and pre-determined goals (pekrun et al., 2002). 2. scaffolding and metacognitive strategies in digital learning environments it has previously been highlighted that scaffolding is an effective instructional strategy because it supports students’ engagement with learning and, as a result, improves their achievement (belland et al., 2017). the research first focused on the principle of scaffolding as an instructional strategy in traditional learning contexts, subsequently, it placed a focus on digital learning environments. in fact, scaffolding has been applied in the design of hypermedia and transmedia learning environments: in order to foster learning and selfregulation processes (zhang & quintana, 2012). in particular, some studies have investigated the possible associations between students’ metacognition and relative cognitive styles. this comparison has been made taking into account the development and https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 186 enhancement performed by metacognitive scaffolding in computational environments (doo, bonk, & heo, 2020). these scenarios aim to promote cognitive skill enhancement as a response to individual student differences and improved learning outcomes (huertas et al., 2017). it is also interesting to explore the potential of incorporating various types of computational scaffolding during information and communication technology (ict) mediated learning to assess and manage the difficulties students face when adjusting their cognition during learning processes (hederich-martinez, lópez-vargas, & camargo-uribe, 2016). the meta-analysis conducted by doo et al. (2020) shows that scaffolding in a digital learning environment has a large and statistically significant effect with respect to learning goals. in addition, the analysis about the metacognitive, affective, and cognitive domain showed that the metacognitive domain produces a larger effect, thus, metacognitive scaffolding appears to be more effective than the other types of scaffolding. the study shows that scaffolding is, in addition, provided by digital tools; which are found to be highly functional. an example of exclusively digital scaffolding is jill watson: the first artificially intelligent teaching assistant (maderer, 2017). jill was highly valued during the course because she was perceived by students as kind and timely in providing answers; at the end of the semester, students discovered that jill was a chatbot invented by their professor. this event provides an example of how scaffolding, in higher education, can promote the facilitation of learning and teaching, using artificial intelligence as a valuable support. engaging students in peer feedback, via digital tools, helps students reflect on their own opinions, peer opinions, and build meaningful knowledge (fu & hwang, 2018). the metacognitive model is being studied in the field of ict applied to learning and education; in this perspective, it emerges that students with high metacognitive abilities show better learning outcomes and attitudes (moos & azevedo, 2008). in addition, strategies designed through metacognitive scaffolding can effectively support students with deficits in metacognitive skills and thus promote their effective learning (kim & hannafin, 2011). however, such perspectives are little examined in the literature in higher education. indeed, brown (2020) points out that student populations are increasingly differentiated, implying the need for personalization of learning. by increasing online teaching, in higher education, the need for research on ad hoc scaffolding focused, exclusively, on online teaching in higher education increases accordingly. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 187 3. inclusive scaffolding inclusive education is a process that provides learning opportunities for all students and is, even today, a major challenge for the education system (baldiris et al., 2016). one of the strategies on which inclusive education is based is the principle of scaffolding, this concept has been declined previously and refers to the support that is provided to individuals during the early stages of learning. the purpose is to reduce effort and provide an opportunity for accountability where individuals are unable to operate independently (slavin, 2019). in this sense, scaffolding assumes a key role, in academic settings, for students with learning disabilities; indeed, this strategy improves the aforementioned outcomes and there are several studies to support it (khodeir, wanas, & elazhary, 2018). in one study, widajati et al. (2019) investigate the learning outcomes of students with intellectual disabilities; the study involves two groups of students compared: in one group, students are supported by the scaffold and audio motion visual multimedia; in the other group, other students are supported by the same tool but not by the scaffold. it was found that students also supported by the scaffold achieve better learning outcomes than the unsupported group. thus, in the construction of knowledge, students with difficulties are facilitated by the support and guidance of more experienced students in achieving increasingly optimal results (ghazi, amsyaruddin, & irdamurni, 2018). zulfiana (2020) elaborates on the collaborative contextual method of scaffolding as a method aimed at providing support, by inclusive teachers, to students with special educational needs. this research refers to the analysis of the scaffolding process in this context: the study shows that classroom management, from an inclusive perspective, depends on various factors such as teachers’ expertise, school facilities, and individual characteristics of each student. in addition, the research shows that teachers’ scaffolding encourages students to achieve goals, in different forms, such as repetition, demonstration or providing special hours to enrich the material. the importance of teacher competence in managing the inclusive classroom is therefore highlighted: teachers have an indispensable role in providing all students with the same learning opportunities. in this regard, it is necessary that teachers have the appropriate training to ensure the use of different supportive approaches for all students with or without special educational needs. it is appropriate, in these dynamics, to integrate a variety of methodologies to increase the possibility of valuing the individual characteristics of students and also enhance the metacognitive sphere, that is, the aspects in https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 188 reference to knowing how to be and knowing how to learn through awareness about what one is doing and why one is doing it (melero rodríguez, caon, & brichese, 2019). one approach to promote the development of learning, social, and metacognition skills is peer tutoring. this methodology involves the heterogeneous collaboration of peers to achieve a learning goal and enhance the cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional spheres. 4. inclusive dynamics of peer tutoring within vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of human learning, social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition and the refinement of social-relational skills. each function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, at the social level and, later, at the individual level; first between people in an interpsychological dynamic and, later, within the child itself in an intrapsychological dynamic. vygotsky’s cognitive theory has significantly influenced the theoretical and practical dimensions of education worldwide: knowledge and understanding are dynamically created by the person receiving external information (instead of inactively absorbing it) within relational contexts and co-construction of meanings (vygotsky, 1978b). theoretical perspectives such as vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (vygotsky, 1978a), lave and wenger’s situated learning (lave & wenger, 2005), and kelley’s (1968) social interdependence theory recognize that peer interactions awaken students’ potential, clarify their position relative to classmates, and help them create community. social interdependence theory integrates elements of individual and group performance, considering: • the structuring of common goals; • the establishment of positive interdependence and accountability among the parties involved in the teaching-learning process; • the metacognitive reflection on performance in terms of learning gains. the aforementioned theoretical foundations have prompted research to analyze and explore the social-relational dimension in formal settings. studies conducted have highlighted the positive effect of studentstudent interaction on increasing motivation and learning within inclusive classrooms that are able to support the holistic development of students with a special educational needs (topping et al., 2012). an “inclusive classroom” is defined as a type of context in which students with special educational needs (e.g., students with visual impairhttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 189 ments, hearing disabilities, physical disabilities, as well as students who are slow in learning or even gifted) are co-present, who constructively and synergistically confront and mix with neurotypical students to learn together in collaborative learning dynamics (casey & fernandez-rio, 2019). in this context, peer tutoring is classified as a type of cooperative learning in which students become learning partners and the teacher acts as a facilitator (miquel & duran, 2017). this methodology fits within a conceptual framework that incorporates teacher-imparted instruction within peer-mediated reciprocal interactions, the ultimate goal of which involves optimizing personal functioning and holistic development of the parties involved. in this way, each student is encouraged to respect and treat their classmates as worthy neighbors (weiss, muckenthaler, & kiel, 2020). this gives them the opportunity to create a space that can break through any architectural barriers and prejudices (okilwa & shelby, 2010). the interaction and sharing of information among the students generate an exchange of knowledge and effective strategies for problem solving and even positive attitudes (falchikov, 2001); it promotes an active involvement of the students who work together within a space of sharing and negotiation of meanings in which one of the students assumes the role of tutor and the other the role of tutee. these two figures confront each other in a sort of “cognitive challenge” and enact a post-interactive restructuring of the intervention bestowed by the tutor (thurston et al., 2012). both the tutor and the tutee must try to perform their roles as effectively as possible. this creates a social interdependence between the parties: the individual successes of the tutor and tutee are linked by common goals and gains and mutual interdependence. without tutors and tutees performing their tasks according to prescribed patterns for interaction, neither can benefit from the interaction itself: tutors help tutees with special educational needs structure their knowledge within their zone of proximal development to enhance their comprehension skills and cognitive development, and simultaneously, tutors develop a range of cross-cutting skills as a result of the tutoring experience (topping et al., 2011). in this regard, several studies have shown that peer tutoring can be a particularly beneficial tool for students in areas of high social disadvantage and those with special educational needs. in fact, peer tutoring can contribute to the inclusion of the student with special educational needs and promote the development of his or her ability to respond to the activities proposed in the classroom, promoting his or her effective and concrete participation resulting in academic and social improvements (casey & fernandez-rio, 2019). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 190 recent research conducted in nine schools in indonesia and specifically in the regency of east sumba found that peer tutoring has a significant impact not only on the development of purely academic skills, but also and more importantly on the formation and character change of students and indirectly of the teacher, who becomes more capable and flexible in organizing and managing inclusive learning in a more functional way (manubey, batlolona, & leasa, 2021). teaching character to students is as important as teaching academic knowledge and skills. this assumption prompted the aforementioned research in activating inclusive learning implementation plans for character building based on peer tutoring. analysis of the data revealed an increase in patience, trust, and mutual respect: students involved in the research became more friendly, respectful, patient, helpful, and responsible towards students with special educational needs (slavin, 2015). speaking of special educational needs, an interesting, 2004 research study at the open university in israel offered peer tutoring for students with specific learning disorders in higher education settings (vogel, fresko, & wertheim, 2007). students with specific learning disorders face a variety of difficulties during their school and college journey. a summary of the difficulties encountered (skinner & lindstrom, 2003) includes: • deficits in study skills, such as preparation, note-taking, and listening comprehension; • problems with organizational skills; • difficulties with social responsiveness; • deficits in specific academic areas (reading, writing, numeracy, text comprehension); • low self-esteem. the explicit purpose of this peer tutoring project included providing concrete help for students with a learning disorder and, in addition, sought to understand the tutoring process from the perspective of both tutors and tutees in the following areas: • student needs; • focus of tutoring activities; • difficulty of tutoring activities; • similar study experiences; • satisfaction with the project. students with learning disorder reported memory problems and difficulty with sustained concentration. however, they also reported greater proficiency in using adaptive techniques and compensatory strategies that were more effective and functional than those used prior to the https://www.ledonline.it/elementa peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 191 university period and following the tutoring experience (blake & rust, 2002). concurrently, the results of additional studies show that peer tutoring not only provides good social interaction outcomes through acceptance and respect for “differences”, but also appears to be a more effective teachinglearning practice than conventional teaching methods because it fosters greater student participation and engagement (mehwish & aalyia, 2015; thurston, cockerill, & chiang, 2021). 5. online peer tutoring in higher education given the obvious potential for student-student interactions in face-to-face classrooms, the lack of student-student interaction in online modes may be a legitimate concern for faculty and collegiate administrators. however, a growing body of recent research has focused on positive interactions in fully online and blended courses, with important implications in distance education (brown, 2001; meyer, 2004), including, for example, the presence of positive correlations between students’ social behavior and persistence in college. most studies of online interactions mediated by the peer tutoring methodology analyze asynchronous and synchronous communicative dynamics; they are capable of triggering fruitful dialogue among students in distance learning courses (hou & wu, 2011) and building a community of tutors and tutees across geographic barriers (jegede, 2002). as an example, based on the assumption that educational technology is a powerful tool that can help manage, organize, and disseminate knowledge while empowering students in the learning process, a 2013 study designed a web-based tutoring system called opal (online peerassisted learning), whose goal was to coordinate effective dyadic peer tutoring for large courses. specifically, such a tutoring system was piloted in an undergraduate blended organic chemistry course of 250 students in the department of chemistry at the university of illinois (evans & moore, 2013). from a research perspective, the focus was on evaluating the distance interaction between students and how that relationship translated into significant learning gains and improved problem-solving skills. research findings indicated that online peer tutoring had a positive effect on student-student interaction and student learning with respect to digital problem solving (bonk, wisher, & lee, 2004). over the past decade, a growing number of empirical studies have been published that consider the task and role of facilitators and/or mediahttps://www.ledonline.it/elementa giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 192 tors in the context of computer supported collaborative learning (cscl) (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2000; salmon, 2000; lazonder, wilhelm, & ootes, 2003; bonk, wisher, & lee, 2004; rickard, 2004). in a 2008 study, peer tutors took on the role of mediator in a cscl environment. in the aforementioned study, peer tutoring was implemented in a higher education setting in which students enrolled in the department of education at ghen university in belgium acted as online tutors to support freshmen in the asynchronous discussion of authentic problem solving (de smet, van keer, & valckle, 2008). the present study aimed to obtain information about tutors’ behavior in asynchronous discussion groups. tutors’ interventions were studied by means of an analysis scheme based on salmon’s e-moderation model (salmon, 2000). in general, this model provides for the figure of a specialized tutor, called “e-tutor” or “e-moderator”, who has a fundamental role in the learning process, within which technology is placed as the most functional means to achieve certain training objectives. the tutor must assume a capacity of guidance and moderation and can present the following profiles or subtypes: “motivator”, “informer”, “knowledge builder” or “facilitator”. the e-moderator, then, performs technical support and moderation activities that salmon traces through the five phases of his learning/ teaching model (fig. 1): 1. access and motivation: the tutor set up the environment, facilitates access, welcomes, encourages, and reassures; systematically monitors and controls the learning process; and provides emotional support to the tutee. 2. online socialization: parties involved define their online identities to initiate a process of socialization and interaction. the tutor facilitates relationships, encourages participation, and presides over communication. 3. information exchange: the tutor provides and receives information, develops strategies to manage information flow, suggests strategies for guidance, and stimulates constructive exchange of new information through discussion. 4. knowledge construction: the tutor facilitates the process of knowledge development, orients the reflections and discussions, solicits the participation of the trainees, does not provide solutions, but helps to broaden their own and others’ point of view by appreciating different perspectives in order to co-construct knowledge. 5. development: the tutor refines the skills of argumentation and moderation, encourages metacognitive reflection on the learning process and the development of critical thinking. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 193 figure 1. – five-step model for e-moderating from salmon (2000). this model aims for a guided exchange activity that, in the fifth phase, results in self-regulated contributions from students. throughout the various stages of the model, interactions developed during the conducted study that promoted the development of higherorder cognition, which allowed students to develop as independent thinkers during online discussions (falchikov, 2001). conclusions in the present article, some studies have been reviewed in order to better define the principle of scaffolding and the methodology of peer tutoring as a promotion of learning support in educational and academic dynamics. it has emerged that the principle of scaffolding is an approach that, even today, has strong scientific implications. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 194 in fact, although its roots in its definition in vygotsky (1978b) is, today, a theoretical cornerstone that is declined through the new learning environments. in particular, it has emerged how scaffolding is fundamental in the design and promotion of metacognitive skills in students who experience instruction in computational scenarios (hederich-martinez, lópez-vargas, & camargo-uribe, 2016). moreover, this principle also assumes a key role in the management of the classroom and, in particular, the inclusion of all students: an important declination is, in fact, assumed by peer tutoring. the additional values and benefits of social interaction promoted by peer tutoring practices in education are also evident in the university context (hrastinski, 2008). from the analysis of the aforementioned studies, there is a need for future research to investigate in more detail the distinct and mixed effects of contextual circumstances on tutor performance in inclusive higher education settings and to better understand the impact of inter-individual differences on the behavior enacted by tutors and tutees. in addition, it may be of interest to examine the relationship between the behavior exhibited during tutoring and the quality of tutors’ contributions in synchronous and asynchronous online discussion groups (falchikov, 2001). it is necessary to implement a profound redefinition of methodological proposals, curricular frameworks and educational objectives within a transmedia educational system. the conscious acquisition of digital languages and tools can, therefore, represent a real opportunity to promote educational innovation and a transformation of cultural paradigms (limone, 2021). references alexander, e., bresciani, s., & eppler, m. j. 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(2011). integrating computerand teacher-based scaffolds in science inquiry. computers & education, 57(4), 2352-2363. zhang, m., & quintana, c. (2012). scaffolding strategies for supporting middle school students’ online inquiry processes. computers & education, 58(1), 181-196. zulfiana, u., & suen, m. w. (2020). an analysis of a scaffolding collaborative contextualmethod of inclusive teacher toward the students with special needs in elementary school. in 5th asean conference on psychology, counselling, and humanities – acpch, 2019 (pp. 153-159). atlantis press. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 200 riassunto il presente lavoro mira ad indagare i riferimenti teorici che la letteratura offre rispetto al principio di scaffolding e alla metodologia del peer tutoring declinati in ottica inclusiva. il principio di scaffolding affonda, infatti, le sue radici alle prime definizioni ad opera di vygotskij (1978a) che va a definire lo stesso come il supporto sociale fornito allo studente durante il completamento di un compito di apprendimento per risolvere un problema o per raggiungere un obiettivo. successivamente, tale principio è stato declinato in ottica inclusiva rispetto alla gestione della classe e rispetto ai nuovi ambienti di apprendimento transmediali. una declinazione che risulta essere efficace fa riferimento al peer tutoring. tale metodologia mira a promuovere le interazioni reciproche mediate dai pari al fine di ottimizzare il funzionamento individuale e promuovere lo sviluppo olistico delle parti coinvolte. copyright (©) 2021 giuliana nardacchione, guendalina peconio editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: nardacchione, g., & peconio, g. (2021). peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 181-200. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-nape https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-nape elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 2 (2022) 1-2 transitions edited by tommaso sgarro first section tommaso sgarro editorial i – transitions: new and different perspectives 9 tommaso sgarro the human “historicity” as a permanent transition 13 in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría luis roca jusmet françois jullien: the double transit of human life 27 jordi riba miralles the event, beyond the permanent crisis 37 alessia franco for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, 51 psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section tommaso sgarro editorial ii – governing transitions 67 pierpaolo limone maria grazia simone becoming support teachers at the university of foggia 71 during the pandemic. an exploratory survey francesca finestrone music: for a sustainable community and the promotion 85 of well-being gennaro balzano vito balzano educating for transition in work contexts 101 giuseppina maria patrizia surace the future we want: the transition to adulthood 111 of unaccompanied minors elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors giuseppina maria patrizia surace università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-sura patriziasurace@libero.it abstract the “threefold” transition from adolescence to adulthood of unaccompanied boys and girls hides an infinite number of personal stories, expectations, sufferings and hopes. these are fundamental elements that must be acknowledged, listened to and valued, along a process of integration that, in its deep meaning, also includes that of the “integrity” of the self. the excursus on legal protection and institutional interventions to protect “young” migrants is accompanied by a broader reflection on interculturality for a pedagogy of encounter. keywords: education; interculturality; pedagogy of encounter; transition; unaccompanied minors. 1. background the passage, transitio, from adolescence to adulthood, translates in the case of unaccompanied boys and girls into a “triple transition”: from adolescence to adulthood like any human being; as a result of migration with the consequent detachment from the context of origin and the need to build a new life in a different cultural and social environment; as a consequence of overcoming the traumas experienced before, during or after the journey (unicef & mdm, 2018), with the possible activation of resilience factors that generate individual well-being. more generally, the theme of adolescent children follows that of the guarantees and rights they enjoy until they come of age and the set of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 111 https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-sura mailto:patriziasurace@libero.it giuseppina maria patrizia surace opportunities that the system is able to guarantee in this transitional phase. concomitantly, the theme of the transition to adulthood focuses on the complex process of transformation/change that concerns the body and the development of sexuality, psychological maturation, with the evolution of the areas responsible for regulating emotions and impulses, as well as the consolidation of the neural structure of the brain related to the growth of adult reasoning capacity (unicef, 2017). in relation to the social integration of unaccompanied minors, the protection profiles have been outlined in the course of a legislative evolution centred on the vulnerability of minors and on the necessary specific forms of protection characterised by protective and promotional measures aimed at guaranteeing their full dignity in coherence with the inspiring principles of our constitutional system and with the supranational rules placed to safeguard the rights of the person (parrinello, 2020). the affirmation of the general principle of safeguarding the unaccompanied minor as an evolving person, with the consequent recognition of the rights due to the subject in formation 1, is derived from the very definition offered by law no. 47/2017: the minor who is not a citizen of italy or the european union and who is for any reason in the territory of the state or who is otherwise subject to italian jurisdiction, without the assistance and representation of his and her parents or other adults legally responsible for him and her under the laws in force in the italian legal system. 2 1 the ratification of the 1996 strasbourg european convention on the exercise of children’s rights (law no. 77/2003), which renders effective the recognition of the rights of the child already operated by the 1989 un convention of new york, implies the full consideration of the growing autonomy of the child linked to the development of his or her personality in judicial and administrative practice. with regard to the fundamental principles of the rights of children and adolescents recognised by the new york convention, they can be summarised as follows: non-discrimination (art. 2); best interests (art. 3); right to life; survival and development of the child and adolescent (art. 6); listening to the views of the child (art. 12). 2 even before the law under comment, known as the zampa law, the notion of “unaccompanied minor” was first defined in a resolution of the council of the european union of 26 june 1997 (97/c221/03), on unaccompanied minors who are nationals of third countries (“third-country nationals below the age of 18 years who arrive on the territory of the member states unaccompanied by an adult responsible for them by law or custom and until such time as an adult responsible for them actually takes custody of them”) and, subsequently, outlined in prime ministerial decree no. 535 of 9 december 1999, art. 1, para.  535, c. 2 (regulations concerning the duties of the committee for foreign minors, pursuant to art. 33, paras. 2 and 2-bis, of legislative decree no. 286 of 25 july 1998), by which it was established that “unaccompanied foreign minor present in the territory of the state”, hereinafter referred to as “unaccompanied minor present in the elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 112 the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors the current system for the reception of unaccompanied minors, enriched by novella 47/2017 and by the national integration plan for holders of international protection (of october 2017), provides for the collaboration of various territorial actors: the local social and health services, the juvenile court, the tutelary judge at the ordinary court, the police headquarters, public educational agencies, schools of all levels, including the provincial centres for adult education. family foster care is favoured, through the actions of the local authorities, as a substitute for placement in a care structure, with specific awareness-raising actions addressed to citizens on the issue of foster care. with reference to the reception of minors, the novella also amended art. 19 of legislative decree no. 142/2005, establishing a multi-level system that establishes governmental first reception facilities  3, siproimi  4 second reception facilities and reception facilities in agreement with the municipality where the minor is located. of course, behind this regulatory system lie an infinite number of personal stories, expectations, sufferings and hopes. these are fundamental territory of the state”, means “a minor who does not have italian citizenship or citizenship of other states of the european union who, not having applied for asylum, is for any reason in the territory of the state without the assistance and representation of his parents or other adults legally responsible for him according to the laws in force in the italian legal system”. next, art. 1, c. 1 (par. l) of directive no. 2011/95/eu of 13 december 2011 on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted, which defined an “unaccompanied minor” as a minor who arrives on the territory of the member state unaccompanied by an adult responsible for him/her under the law or practice of the member state concerned, and until he/she is effectively taken into the care of such an adult. art. 2, c. 1 (par. e) of legislative decree no. 142 of 18 august 2015 (transposing european directives no. 2013/33/eu on the reception of applicants for international protection, and no. 2013/32/eu on related procedures) defined as “a foreigner under the age of eighteen years, who is, for whatever reason, in the national territory, without legal assistance and representation”. 3 they are facilities specifically intended for minors and established by decree of the minister of the interior, after consulting the unified conference. they are managed by the same ministry, also in agreement with local authorities. in the first reception facilities, minors are received for the time strictly necessary to identify them, to ascertain their age and to provide them with information on their rights, including the right to apply for international protection. msm may remain in first reception facilities for a maximum period of 30 days and are guaranteed an interview with a developmental psychologist, accompanied if necessary by an intercultural mediator. 4 these are facilities for the reception of msnas and holders of international protection. upon reaching the age of 18, minors who have applied for international protection remain in the facility until the application is finalised. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 113 giuseppina maria patrizia surace elements that must be recognised, listened to and valued, along a process of integration that, in its deepest meaning, also includes that of the “integrity” of the self. the latter presupposes the possibility of a recomposition of each individual boy’s or girl’s history, language, and sense of belonging, in a dynamic path of change and confrontation, which starts from each of them, recognising their origins and guaranteeing their full personal identity, without having to deny parts of it in order to be accepted and welcomed (catarci & macinai, 2015). if, however, the process of integration 5, in its legal qualification 6, has been variously understood as an instrument of adaptation and adjustment with substantial acceptance of the host national culture, in the course of time and of migration policy choices there has been a shift to a perspective of social inclusion 7, which is even more necessary with regard to unaccompanied minors. indeed, the general supranational principle of the best interests of the child, proclaimed in art. 3 of the convention on the rights of the child (approved by the united nations general assembly on 20 november 1989 5 for a sociological reading of the different socio-cultural integration models, please refer to the vast specialist literature. in particular, in relation to the assimilation, cultural exchange and pluralist model, see, among others, cesareo, 1998, p. 16. in favour of a functionalist model, albeit starting from assimilation and cultural exchange, rossi, 2011, 15 ff. 6 consider, for example, art. 4-bis, para. 1, of the programme report that accompanied legislative decree no. 286/1998 (the so-called consolidated act on immigration), which states that integration is to be understood as that process aimed at promoting the coexistence of italian and foreign citizens, in respect of the values enshrined in the fundamental charter, with the mutual commitment to participate in the economic, social and cultural life of society. the eu council document 14615/04 and the european agenda for the integration of third-country nationals – com (2011) 455 – also point in the same direction. the european commission itself – communication from the commission to the council, the european parliament, the european economic and social committee and the committee of the regions on immigration, integration and employment of 3 june 2003, com (2003) – defines integration as a two-way process based on the presence of mutual rights and, consequently, obligations for legally resident third-country nationals and the host society that offers full participation to the migrant. similarly, the european parliament resolution on strategies and means for the integration of immigrants in the european union 2006/2056 (ini) qualifies integration as a two-way process that presupposes the willingness and responsibility of immigrants to integrate into the host society and, on the other hand, of eu citizens to accept and integrate migrants. 7 in its broadest sense, it represents a process of improving the conditions for participation in society, particularly for vulnerable persons such as immigrant children, through the enhancement of opportunities, access to resources and respect for rights. in implementation of art. 3 of the treaty on the european union, and art. 9 of the treaty on the functioning of the european union, childcare and child support is promoted. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 114 the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors in new york and ratified by italy with law no. 176 of 27 may 1991) 8, now recognised as an axiom of relevance to the child’s rights, is now recognised as an essential element in the integration of unaccompanied minors. the convention on the rights of the child, now recognised as an axiom of internal constitutional relevance 9, guarantees the fullest possible protection for the concrete affective and educational needs of all the minors involved in the judicial cases submitted to the judge of merit 10. in the framework of the protection of migrant minors, the child’s right to an education emphasises a biunivocal inter-national passage: on the one hand, the individual child is understood as a unique and unrepeatable person in terms of his or her existential, family, cultural and social life; on the other hand, this uniqueness must be promoted through education, which is an essential instrument of freedom and a source of equal opportunities for the fulfilment of the affective and pedagogical needs that are prodromal to the harmonious psychological, physical and relational development of the child 11. 8 thus, verbatim: “in all decisions relating to children, whether taken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the child’s best interests must be a primary consideration”. this provision has also been reaffirmed by other legislation and jurisprudence at the international level, to the point of becoming a general principle now consolidated within the legal system of numerous states (see, most recently, the council of europe guidelines on child-friendly justice adopted on 17.11.2010, para. 3, lit. b). 9 the principle in question is framed as a true general clause that, in the light of arts. 2 and 31 of the constitution, constitutes a parameter for assessing the constitutionality of laws (cf. nos. 425/2005 and 341/1990). the legislator also reiterates its value at the regulatory level: art. 317-bis of the civil code, in fact, establishes that the judge, in settling questions concerning the exercise of parental authority over children, must have as his sole reference the exclusive interest of the child; similarly, art. 155 of the civil code, as amended by law no. 54/2006, provides that the judge who pronounces the personal separation of spouses shall adopt measures relating to the offspring with exclusive reference to the moral and material interests of the child. 10 cass. civ., sec. i, 16.02.2002, no. 2303. more recently, an important pronouncement emphasised how the recent regulatory interventions on filiation (art. 315-bis of the civil code; law no. 219/2012, art. 2, para. 1) place the listening of the child, as also highlighted by the new sedes materiae, among the fundamental and general rules through which, as the recognition of the listening itself as an absolute right of the child is realised, its superior interest is pursued, corresponding to its harmonious psychic, physical and relational development, to be pursued also through the immediate perception of its opinions on the choices that concern it, thus allowing the participation of the child itself in the judgment, as a “party in a substantial sense” (cass. civ., sec. i, 05.03.2014, no. 5237 in the same sense cass., sec. u, no. 22238 of 2009). 11 to the broad and now unambiguous normative definition of unaccompanied minors contained in law no. 47/2017, new and more vigorous safeguard instruments have elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 115 giuseppina maria patrizia surace for our purposes and beyond the multiple protection profiles, art. 13 of the aforementioned law allows each child, regardless of legal status, to be able to benefit from being entrusted to the social services even beyond the age of 18 and up to the age of 21, if the juvenile court deems that the person needs prolonged support for an adequate path of social integration 12. this applies, a fortiori, to victims of trafficking for whom a specific assistance programme is reserved to ensure adequate reception conditions and psychological, social, health and legal assistance, providing solutions even beyond the age of majority 13. in concrete terms, we grasp the sociopolitical and pedagogical aspects. 2. the crossroads: transition and migration project some data will give us a real picture of the juvenile migration phenomenon and the relevance of the adolescent group present. according to the report of the ministry of labour and social policies, 11,227 boys and 315 girls were present in italy as of january 2022, for a total of 11,542, equal to 97.3% boys and 2.7% girls. the total number of unaccompanied minors is broken down by age group as follows: 7,461 (64.6%) aged 17 years; 2,583 (22.4%) aged 16 years; 909 (7.9%) aged 15 years; 559 (4.8%) aged 7-14 years; 30 (0.3%) up to 6 years. the region receiving the largest number of children is sicily, with 3,200 (27.7%), followed by calabria, with 1,278 (11.1%) and lombardy been added. thus, the absolute prohibition of refoulement; the uniformity of identification and age verification procedures; the provision of first assistance and reception facilities dedicated to minors; the establishment of a national information system; greater protections for the right to education and health; the right to legal assistance and to be heard in administrative and judicial proceedings; continuous and prolonged support for minors in particularly vulnerable conditions (such as victims of trafficking and exploitation); the establishment of the list of voluntary guardians. in particular, procedures must be followed to guarantee the right of msm to participate and be heard in proceedings concerning them with the support of an intercultural mediator. of significant importance is art. 9 of law no. 47/2017, which provided for the compilation of the social file, drawn up by the reception facility staff also on the basis of the first interview, subsequently transmitted to the social services of the destination municipality and to the public prosecutor’s office at the juvenile court. 12 in a circular of the ministry of the interior department for civil liberties and immigration, dated 03.01.2019. the ministry of the interior clarified that msnas who are granted the possibility of continuing the reception and integration process beyond the age of majority remain within the siproimi system. 13 see art. 17 of law no. 47/2017. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 116 the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors with 1,221 (10.6%). in january 2022, 1,212 minors left the specific protection circuit on reaching the age of majority. the issue of the transition to adulthood and its undeniable complexity is significant when it comes to the reception of unaccompanied adolescents. if, therefore, it encompasses the passage from the level of cognitive development and emotional experiences – typical of childhood  – to a level marked by fully developed cognitive abilities, more balanced emotions and adulthood, according to a progression of endogenous factors common to all adolescents (body, brain) 14, on the other hand the contexts experienced by the young migrant and structural factors of a socio-political and economic nature are equally important and interacting on the transitio. in fact, conditions such as poverty, war and persecution, condition individual development, shape life choices and the related path, becoming crucial, for example, to find a job at a very young age or to move away from the land of origin in search of safe places. if one adds to this the dramatic nature of the journey, being alone in caring for oneself or dealing with the many traumas that the journey brings, one understands how the migration of unaccompanied minors, like severe adversities (extreme poverty, domestic violence, loss of parents, catastrophic events) will also produce early transition and adultised behaviour (paho, 2005). in the specific case, unaccompanied minors will experience the journey as a sort of rite of passage (unicef & mdm, 2018), their migratory project, sometimes forced by the family, will constitute an integral part of identity construction (terres des hommes, 2017) with the risk of the double loss of belonging (of the context of origin and that of destination). the picture thus represented depicts the substantial “artificiality of a distinction between ‘minors’ and ‘adults’” (unicef et al., 2019, p. 39) since it does not take into account the processual nature of becoming an adult, the cultural and social differences that affect this process, the vulnerabilities specific to adolescent migrants or experiences that “impose” adult responsibilities, behaviours and roles. added to this are the considerable difficulties in being considered (and being able to consider themselves) fully adult due to insufficient knowledge of the new arrival context and an anomalous condition of “quasi-adult”, after the age of eighteen, which makes these young people abstractly independent and responsible for their actions, but concretely fragile. acknowledging their being ‘young’, regardless of whether they are minors or adults, means understanding the three 14 the model referred to is the one developed by the pan-american health organisation: paho, 2005. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 117 giuseppina maria patrizia surace fold transition they go through 15 by fully understanding their evolutionary needs with a view to their empowerment – as reiterated by the un in its youth strategy 2030 16. well, starting from the expectations of these boys and girls, from their desires with respect to the imagined future, contributes to the construction of their existential and identity trajectory. improving one’s life, studying or working, fleeing violence or early marriages, reuniting with family members in europe, building one’s own family (unicef et al., 2019), constitute the prevailing desires, but the effectiveness of the transition paths to adulthood of unaccompanied minors depends on personal “characterising” factors (origin, age, gender) and external factors (legal status, school or vocational training insertion, relations with the family of origin or with the peer group, significant relations with reference adults 17). for many of these “young people”, traumas and psychological discomforts may compromise a full transition to autonomy 18, but sometimes good practices of prolonged reception and social integration allow existential discomforts to be overcome and identity affirmation to be achieved in the territories of residence. the importance of listening to and participating with adolescents, especially if unaccompanied, is at the heart of the un committee on the rights of the child’s concluding observations addressed to italy in 2019. in them, a universalist perspective is adopted in which differences and diversity are recognised and enhanced by the opportunity to be taken on in 15 some of the key areas in which this transition takes place are: the legal status granted to the child; the possibility of accessing educational and training opportunities; the possibility of accessing the labour market; the possibility of achieving housing autonomy and the possibility of establishing or maintaining formal and informal relationships. 16 https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/18-00080_ un-youth-strategy_web.pdf. 17 the first relationships of trust are established with the educators of the reception facilities, who contribute to defining a positive model of support and accompaniment to adulthood. educators often represent effective reference points in the lives of minors, even after they come of age, and are considered pseudo-parental figures. building positive bonds with reference adults helps to alleviate the confusion linked to the condition of unaccompanied minors and to rebuild the propensity for sociality, redefining a positive connotation to adult figures. for further discussion, unicef et al., 2019. 18 the report by unicef et al. (2019) recalls how the vulnerability of these boys and girls is certainly linked to their individual stories and derives, for example, from the experiences of torture, sexual violence and exploitation experienced in libya and during the perilous journey along the mediterranean route, or from the anger and disappointment at having been induced by their parents to leave for italy, or pushed by deception, as often happens to trafficked girls. the violence suffered before leaving, during the journey and even in italy in some cases, leaves serious consequences on the psycho-physical health of the boys and girls. some of the interviews reveal a total lack of trust in themselves and others. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 118 the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors a shared context capable of countering any risk of exclusion. it also reiterates the opportunity to introduce an all-encompassing legislative measure that establishes the right of minors to be heard, even beyond the judicial context, and to institutionalise the juvenile councils 19 in the form of a permanent appointment, in order to facilitate their effective involvement also in national legislative processes with respect to the issues that concern them. of course, the right to be heard and to participate 20 must necessarily be integrated with other fundamental principles, including the best interests of the child and non-discrimination (o.n.i.a., 2021). in the same sense, and specifically in the european sphere, the commitment to make children’s rights a concrete reality has been emphasised in the current council of europe strategy for the rights of the child (2016-2021) 21, which has identified the areas in which action should be taken to improve the condition of children to ensure: equal opportunities; participation for all children; combating violence perpetrated against children; ensuring child-friendly justice for all children; guaranteeing children’s rights in the digital environment. another point of reference is the european guarantee system for vulnerable children, european child guarantee – com (2021) 1377, which supports the italian government in ensuring that children and adoles 19 among the good practices of inclusive participation, in particular, mention should be made of the consulta desired by the guarantor authority for childhood and adolescence – in its function of promoting integrated actions aimed at ensuring that children and adolescents are listened to and included in decision-making processes, in all the spheres in which they find themselves (in the family, at school, in the courts, as well as in the communities that receive minors) – with which it has also been able to give a voice to unaccompanied foreign minors (msna). 20 in 2018, unicef and agia signed a two-year memorandum of understanding to promote the listening and participation of children and adolescents; to foster their authentic participation in the activities promoted by unicef and agia; and to promote and implement information activities on the rights enshrined in the un convention with regard to msnas. the online platform u-report on the move made it possible to investigate young migrants and refugees’ knowledge of their rights as minors and to foster the exchange of information on the protection of human rights. the protocol was renewed in may 2021, envisaging joint initiatives to ensure the full effectiveness of the rights of children and adolescents living in italy, with particular reference to the most vulnerable, such as migrants and refugees, as well as to guarantee their participation in the processes that concern them, also thanks to the online platform u-report italia, aimed at involving adolescents and young people in italy (14-30 years old). 21 council of europe (2016); council of europe strategy for the rights of the child (2016-2021). also available at: https://edoc.coe.int/en/children-s-rights/7207-councilof-europe-strategy-for-the-rights-of-the-child-2016-2021.html. adopted in 2016 and implemented in subsequent years. the two implementation reports of the strategy were published in october 2017 and may 2020, respectively. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 119 giuseppina maria patrizia surace cents in italy have access to care, protection, shelter and decent housing, through a detailed analysis of policies and measures related to child poverty and social inequalities, the production of a specific action plan, as well as the testing and evaluation of operational models for some of the most vulnerable groups. in fact, in the european panorama, italian children and adolescents are among those most at risk of poverty and social exclusion: 30.6% against an eu average of 23.4%. children coming from a migratory background are particularly exposed to the risk of poverty or social exclusion and lack of access to basic services in all five areas covered by the child guarantee (health, education, childcare, housing and nutrition) 22. the principles highlighted so far are transfused in the fifth national plan for childhood and adolescence, which promotes the rights of children and adolescents through a participative 23, cooperative and solidarity-based approach. it was developed around three key words: formal and non-formal education, as an essential tool to guarantee well-being, psychological and physical, and development, right from birth, in synergy between public and private; equity as a principle to fight absolute poverty, foster social inclusion and guarantee equal access to technology, as well as a strategy to involve, develop and protect conscious and active young citizens; empowerment for the management of social and health systems with respect to conditions of vulnerability and for the planning and evaluation of public policies in the sector. actions concerning policies for equity include ensuring full implementation of the legislation on the reception of msna (law no. 47/2017) by monitoring its implementation, strengthening the system of voluntary protection and promoting family-based reception, accompanying them even after they come of age and adopting legislative measures to improve the determination of statelessness. in the field of education policies, among others, the school context is emphasised as a place of health promotion, based on a broader value of the school institution, including policies for a healthy school, in relation to the physical and social environment of schools and links with the entire educational community. the available data show 22 in italy, the experimentation phase of the child guarantee is being implemented under the coordination of a national steering committee composed of the ministry of labour and social policies (dg lotta alla povertà e programmazione sociale and dg immigrazione e olitiche di integrazione), the department for family policies under the presidency of the council of ministers, unicef and the italian committee for unicef. the pilot started in july 2020 and will end in march 2023. 23 dipofam and istituto degli innocenti (2021), rights, priorities for action and the pandemic: the views of girls and boys. available at: https://famiglia.governo.it/media/2349/ rapporto-artecipazione-onia.pdf. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 120 the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors that it is essential to increase the focus on prevention and intervention policies in the area of mental health. the pandemic has also accelerated the process of awareness and change: in a well-known research study 24, it emerged that during the covid-19 emergency, adolescents demonstrated an enormous capacity for resilience and adaptation to the changes and new demands dictated by the measures to contain the epidemic, and that is why adolescents are calling for a return to a ‘new’ normality that takes into account their needs, their thinking, and their vision of the future. to the leaders we want to say: we are confident that you are working to build a better, fairer and more sustainable future! but we ask you, please, not to exclude us from decision-making processes and not to leave us behind! we are the future of every society, the actors of the present and we want our voices to be heard. right now. (unicef, 2020, p. 85) in terms of empowerment policies, it is emphasised that children, boys and girls are equal partners with adults. their involvement enables them to gain a different, often divergent point of view on facts, which contributes to the evolution of society’s thinking. participation is thus not only a right that the world of adults must recognise for children and young people, but must increasingly become a daily practice, a consolidated action, a constraint in the planning of governance. as far as good practices are concerned, beyond a few experiences in identified geographical areas (unicef et al., 2019), the one implemented by the juvenile court of reggio calabria with the freed by football project can be considered good practice, in implementation of art.  13, c.  2, of law no. 47/2017 on the administrative continuation of the social integration pathway until the age of 21. together with a number of institutions and unicef, minors coming from contexts of socio-familiar deprivation (unaccompanied foreign minors, marginalised minors or, in general, victims of educational poverty) were offered to play football for free in a much broader circuit of socio-pedagogical inclusion. in this experimental path, beyond the ‘legal origin’ of each boy, the young people participated, 24 beginning in may 2020, unicef, in collaboration with other national and local partners, conducted a focus group with adolescents aged 15 to 19 years resident throughout the country, both italian and non-italian, representing different realities with the aim of outlining, through a participatory process, the impact of the pandemic on young people and proposals for a post-covid-19 future. the result was the first survey on the pandemic with questions drawn up directly by the adolescents and administered in june to their peers through the dissemination on social networks of the programme partners: agevolando, arciragazzi, care leavers network, caritas italiana, cnca, scuola zoo, united world college (uwc), u-report, ja italia, younicef. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 121 giuseppina maria patrizia surace in parallel with the game, in an educational path centred on the culture of fair play, of respect for the rules for proper inclusion in civil society, starting precisely from football practice. concrete life opportunities also passed through the possibility of undertaking or continuing studies (or entering the world of work) thanks to the granting of scholarships and work bursaries provided for the most deserving (surace, 2021). as already found in the regions under research, also for the young people of interest of the specialised court in reggio calabria the scholarship or, mainly, the work scholarship, were instruments of economic support and work placement in “protected” conditions, offering at the same time a qualified experience and greater awareness of the italian regulatory context in view of more stable work relations, also through apprenticeship contracts. to date, these young people, who are now of age, have gained housing and working autonomy by maintaining a relationship of trust with educators, guardians and operators who have remained reference persons in their growth path. 3. interculture, dialogue and reciprocity i travelled to cultivate myself and grew up too fast, finding myself a teenager on the road to maturity. today, i always travel the same roads, those of the awareness of the joy of belonging to a people. proud to be african. (diabate & visitilli, 2019, pp. 27-28) this is the story of kader, once an unaccompanied minor. this is the “age of rights”, to use bobbio’s words (2005), the historical era of the recognition of human rights that, today more than ever, can defend us from dehumanising fundamentalist drifts. to ensure, however, the concretisation of concepts such as citizenship and democratic coexistence, within the broader framework of inclusive migration policies, it is necessary to move from multiculturality to interculturality, that is, to proceed “from multicultural coexistence to cultural coexistence” (elia, 2017, p. 11), promoting the transformation of the foreigner, even more so if he or she is a minor or an adult “young person”, into a citizen of the host country through the sharing of rights, cultures and values. in the time of globalisation, not only economic, but also cultural, linguistic and social, diversity becomes a resource, an opportunity for equal confrontation, respect for the identity to which each person belongs. the pedagogical specificity of interculturality, which “expressly rejects the static nature and hierarchisation of cultures” (portera, 2014, p. 124), unfolds in the dialogue between people who refer to different cultural and value systems, favouring learning processes capable of enabling knowledge of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 122 the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors other cultures through openness, availability and understanding of differences, read according to a dynamic concept of culture that emphasises its value, relational, socio-environmental and communication characteristics. intercultural education, as an expression of the exercise of solidarity, becomes, especially in the school context, the promotion of listening to differences and proactive participation in the educating community. the intentional objective of dialogue and cultural confrontation requires, as a precondition, a relational symmetry and thus the possibility of expressing individual subjectivity (starting from the needs, needs, interests and rights) in a condition of equality (between migrants and non-migrants) according to a cultural pluralism in which diversity and reciprocity are common values that respond to the aims of social justice and equal opportunities, regardless of the history and origins of each (fiorucci, 2019). in other words, the subject experiences difference as a resource, overcoming stereotypes and prejudices about otherness, in favour of the constitutive i-other relationship, far from the binary or dichotomous logic of identity/difference, in order to become “multiple” through the transformative power of the relationship (gallelli, 2016, p. 153). intercultural strategies avoid separating individuals into autonomous and impermeable cultural worlds, promoting instead confrontation, dialogue and even mutual transformation, in order to make coexistence possible and address, with the tools of pedagogy, the conflicts that may arise. (fiorucci et al., 2017, p. 618) in the same way, borrowing freire’s anthropological-ethical vision of educational action (freire, 1971) and his teleological horizon towards a path of humanising restitution that offers children a “being more”, we can affirm that the role of dialogue-listening to diversity, as a confrontation and horizon of self-consciousness and awareness of others, always implies an educational commitment capable of “‘dilating’ the boundaries of the world, grasping its ethnic plurality, of ‘enlarging’ the social reality of the human being and orienting it towards the acquisition of cultural ‘greatness’, which is indispensable for accepting the formative value of cooperation for the creation of a planetary citizenship, halfway between individual freedom and solidaristic sociality” (annacontini & de serio, 2019, p. iii). an intercultural pedagogy, therefore, which is a pedagogy of encounter, which “confronts a co-presence of culturalities always in the process of becoming” in which, that is, the aspect “of the plural, of the many others and of the between worlds” is present as an element that characterises each individual and the communities to which he or she belongs (cima, 2017, p. 129). proposing to growing children, especially if they are elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 123 giuseppina maria patrizia surace unaccompanied adolescents or young adults, positive welcoming experiences, in the fullness of the word that is “medicine” (dolci, 1974, p. 182), means “training the heart and recognising in life what counts to build personal and common existence” (mortati, 2019, p. 171). although this vision may appear utopian or illusory in the era of hate education (tramma & brambilla, 2019, p. 95) of the “liquid post-modernity” (bauman, 2003), it is certain that the construction of an intercultural educational pathway, in a projectual perspective of growth and social integration, is a precise task of a historicized and critical pedagogy that knows how to analyse the migration phenomenon, even more so towards unaccompanied adolescents or “young people”, with “a proactive utopia”, that is, able to look beyond, to the future, and to look before, anticipating situations and planning appropriate actions (schiedi, 2017, p. 25). what is envisaged is therefore a “dialectic of identity” (cambi, 2002, p. 11), between the social and the individual, the singular and the plural, which is an “inhabiting” of the encounter space, known and shared, as the means and end of interculturalism in which “the encounter and welcome of all, solidarity and fraternity are elements that make our civilisation truly human” 25. references annacontini, g., & de serio, b. 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(2022). the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 2(1-2), 111-126. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-sura elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 126 https://terredeshommes.it/dnload/guidafaro-2017.pdf https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-sura _hlk98273750 elementa_2-2022-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey sommario.pdf first section editorial i transitions: new and different perspectives the human “historicity” as a permanent transition in the philosophy of ignacio ellacuría françois jullien: the double transit of human life the event, beyond the permanent crisis for an epistemology of transition: paul b. preciado, psychoanalysis and the regime of sexual difference second section editorial ii governing transitions becoming support teachers at the university of foggia during the pandemic * music: for a sustainable community and the promotion of well-being educating for transition in work contexts the future we want: the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied minors an exploratory survey digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 135 digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli università degli studi di foggia (italy) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-safa alessandro.desantis2@unifg.it stefania-fantinelli@unifg.it abstract since technology has been entering into human beings’ everyday life, individuals established a deep relationship with digital technology, thus an embodied link between people and digital instruments has been born. this is particularly evidenced by recent literature about screen time (duration of time spent by the individual in using electronic/digital media like television, smartphone, tablet or computer), it significantly influences different human beings’ dimensions: physical, psychological and neurological functions. impact of digital technology on human beings can be considered as a result of syntonic functioning in order to improve different people’s life areas (e.g., work, social or intimate relationship, learning), while the dystonic relationship is evidenced as a result of human addiction to digital technology. the present study aims to provide a cognitive and social psychology perspective on how screen time is changing our existences, defining digital technology as a gift which people should be aware of in terms of positive but even negative consequences in everyday life. keywords: adaptation; cognitive function; digital technology; digital well-being; embodiment; functioning; touch screen; well-being. 1. introduction the advent of digital technology has revolutionized communication, education, healthcare, entertainment, and various other facets of modern elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-safa mailto:alessandro.desantis2@unifg.it mailto:stefania-fantinelli@unifg.it https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli 136 life. digital devices have made the world more accessible, allowing us to connect with people globally, access a wealth of information instantaneously, and perform tasks with unprecedented efficiency. moreover, they have played a pivotal role in addressing societal challenges, such as bridging geographical distances and enabling remote work and education. digital technology represents the new frontier of human beings and the contribution given by smartphone use in people’s ordinary life is a matter of fact (dienlin & johannes, 2022). people in world which are actually own a smartphone are about 7.33 billion (statista, 2023) and confronting this approximal number with the world population (8 billion more or less) 1 is possible to affirm that the entire planet possesses a digital device such a smartphone, tablet etc. however, the excessive use of digital devices and the consequent increase in screen time have raised concerns about their impact on human well-being. studies have suggested potential negative effects, including digital addiction (apa, 2022), disrupted sleep patterns (parent et al., 2016), decreased physical activity (pérez-farinós et al., 2017), and adverse effects on mental health (wood & scott, 2016), especially among younger generations. thus, it is imperative to strike a balance between harnessing the benefits of technology and mitigating its potential drawbacks. now the point is, technological digital devices have undoubtedly enriched our lives in numerous ways, offering a plethora of opportunities and conveniences, representing what can be defined as a proper gift. nevertheless, critical consideration regarding screen time and its effects on human well-being remains a crucial need. is it possible to foster a mindful approach to screen time? in this way, technological digital devices would continue to serve as a valuable gift to humanity rather than a double-edged sword. we also may ask: why is it necessary to consider digital device usage in terms of screen time? what are specific human beings’ domains influenced by screen time? understanding the real consequences and role assumed by digital devices in people’s structural functioning, can it be useful to depict a mindful approach to screen time? to point out these questions, terminological premises are required. relevant discoveries in clinical neuroscience (o’regan & noë, 2001), philosophy (putnam, 1982), clinical psychology (riva et al., 2016) and phenomenological psychiatry (galimberti, 2006; de preester, 2010), are underlining the role assumed by our body in interaction with the world (arzy et al., 2006) of things and objects. in this sense, embodiment theory 1 https://www.census.gov/popclock/world elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.census.gov/popclock/world https://www.ledonline.it/elementa digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs 137 gets a fundamental assumption about the continuum established between the physical nature of human beings and his cognitive abilities to interact with the world (e.g., language) (fodor, 1983b). fodor (1983b) can be considered one of the main authors in the field of embodiment theory. jerry fodor’s book, the modularity of mind (1983b), presents an attempt to create a framework for a theory of the mind. fodor acknowledges that such a theory must view the mind as a physical entity, rather than simply a collection of cognitive functions that cannot be understood as structural and tangible properties of the mind. fodor’s modularity (1983b) can be regarded as a taxonomy of mental processes. to overcome the inherent limitations of psychological research, it is most advantageous to conceptualize the cognitive components of the mind as modular. these cognitive modules connect to the various outputs of sensory transduction and conduct various computations on them. the outcome of these computations implies that sensory outputs are transformed into a format that the remainder of the mind can process, thereby enhancing the comprehensibility of this type of input. the natural progression of the current theory is associated with a particular approach to cognitive psychology known as embodied cognition. lakoff and johnson (1987; 1999) have demonstrated how our entire spectrum of physical and emotional experiences can form the foundation of our embodied cognition. psychologists often assert that intricate cognitive processes like language and comprehension can be viewed as the outcomes of “interactions” among various reservoirs of cultural knowledge. they are in the process of developing a model that represents these interactive processes, utilizing formalisms such as production systems (anderson, 1983) and parallel distributed processing schemes. a new research approach has been developing in recent years, exemplified by social cognition (salvatore et al., 2018; salvatore et al., 2022). it is rooted in a theoretical model of the human mind based on human knowledge, which may be biologically organized as input systems (scarr, 1985). the relationship between the body and technology is particularly evident in the works of riva and colleagues (parsons, gaggioli, & riva, 2017). according to neuroscience (moseley et al., 2012; gallace et al., 2014), the body matrix represents the self in relation to space and plays a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of the body, both at the homeostatic and psychological levels. it supervises the cognitive and physiological resources necessary to protect the body and the space around it. research shows that the body matrix can be altered through the use of virtual reality technology (riva et al., 2016; parsons, gaggioli, & riva, 2017), leading to the emergence of a new research field called embodied medicine. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli 138 after this premise, it is reasonable to think that human-machine relation is a point of interest in literature and in our contemporary world. to better clarify the focus, when discussing digital technology, this contribution specifically addresses the issue of portable digital devices. aim of the present paper is to offer some thoughts and reflections, by the cognitive and social psychology perspective, on how screen time is changing our way to be in the world, underlining the fact that digital technology could be considered as a gift which people should be aware of in terms of positive but even negative consequences in everyday people functioning. 2. people functioning as a terminological fact in cognitive psychology, one of the most important things to evaluate is about how people do work, how they get in touch with the world, and what is their functioning in their different living areas. when psychologists use “function” as a term, it means any organism activity which is useful to preserve individual life and species conservation (galimberti, 2010). processes and behavior which are unfavorable are indicated as “dysfunction”. despite this general definition, the term “function” assumes a specific means in relation with the framework model which is considered for. in fact, “function” can be considered as a mathematical term to define correspondence between two variables, but it can even be applied to egopsychology in order to define the autonomous function of ego (hartmann, 1936). this kind of function can be better understood as simple and independent activity (e.g., to breath, to walk, to talk) which are emancipated by instinctive reflexes. these activities that can be considered a part of the autonomous function of ego are even known as habits and capacity, primarily linked to biological-instinctual links, which tend to function autonomously (allport, 1955). this epistemological background must not be considered as an abstracted notion. in fact, recent psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, still refer to people functioning in order to define a mental disease. a mental disorder (apa, 2022) is a syndrome characterized by a clinically significant alteration in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior, reflecting a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. mental disorders are usually associated with a significant level of distress or disability in social, occupational or other important areas. this definition contains an element of tautology (a mental disorder is what is “clinically significant”), elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs 139 a very difficult element to detect in the current state of knowledge (that there is a “dysfunction in the processes underlying mental functioning”) and a common element in a variety of mental health problems (causing significant distress or disability). in short, to summarize the concept of mental functioning, it is a theoretical structure characterized by different cognitive processes that allows people to interact with different life areas (e.g., occupational or other important areas). giving this brief overview of what functioning means from a cognitive perspective, it is possible to introduce other perspectives on people’s functioning and well-being taking account of digital technology influence. 3. embodied cognition: a new way of considering people presence in world embodied cognition (ec) is a research area that centers on cognitive science, incorporating bodily functions as a critical component of cognition (shapiro, 2007). ec posits that our perception of reality is influenced by the interactions among our mind, body, and environment. this relationship can be summed-up into self-other schemata, as an organizational meaning system at the highest level of abstraction (salvatore et al., 2023). these schemata, which help people to interpret world and so function and guarantee their presence in world, is based on the psychoanalytic view of the self as endowed with an inner world consisting of primitive and unconscious patterns of embodied meaning emerging from the generalization of the early relational experiences with caregivers (klein, 1967; bowlby, 1969; stern, 1999) and shaping the experience of the object (i.e., the global class of what is other-from-the-self ). this new concept contrasts with that of scientific literature that concerns reality shaped by our mind, because the mind manipulates the body through abstract symbols (e.g., modules) (fodor, 1983a; shapiro, 2007). ec cannot be considered as a predictive theory but it gives to new technological devices (e.g., virtual reality – vr) researchers an opportunity to revisit a neglected concept about how people consider to be in presence in a physical context. the literature provides evidence for two types of experimental support for ec: behavioral and neurological. • neurological evidence and findings are based on the assumption that objects and movements that activate the same neuronal systems are “linked” by the brain (keysers & gazzola, 2009). in this sense the cognielementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli 140 tive representation of the object is intrinsically linked to the way the subject uses its body to manipulate the object. they are not two separate symbols pieced together by the mind for action, but are bound together in the same schemata (rizzolatti & gentilicci, 1988). • the behavioral examples are more straightforward and demonstrate a clear link between either sensory perception and cognitive perception or motor action and cognitive perception (williams & bargh, 2008). in an unrelated study, finding shows that sitting upright influences how people are feeling pride in an achievement. a second study found that contraction of the forehead muscles influenced subjects’ perceptions of how hard they worked on a task (stepper & strack, 1993). there is also a demonstrated link between body movements and improved problemsolving performance (thomas & lleras, 2009). previous examples reveal the extent to which the body, mind, cognitive, and emotional states are all involved. in short, mental schemata of environmental objects via the way in which we manipulate them (rizzolatti & gentilucci, 1988) and encode our own bodily movements and perceive others’ movements using the same set of neurons (keysers & gazzola, 2009). behaviorally, our body positioning and use impacts our social observations (williams & bargh, 2008), feedback acceptance and task performance recall (stepper & strack, 1993), and improves performance on cognitive tasks (thomas & lleras, 2009). additionally, we now have a framework that can be used to guide psycho-physiological instrument-based research on presence in the world. for example, it may be possible to use functional near infrared spectroscopy (fnirs) and electroencephalography (eeg) (hirshfield et al., 2009) to measure users’ engagement, mental workload, and response inhibitions in virtual environments to see if the affordances are working as intended. psycho-social embodiment directly affects self-presence and social presence, and may serve as a moderating variable for physical presence. as has just been seen, the brain creates multiple multisensory simulations to predict: (a) upcoming sensory events both inside and outside the body, and (b) the best action to deal with the impending sensory events. moseley et al. (2012) suggested that simulations, such as avatar experience, are integrated with sensory data in the “body matrix” which is a superstructure multisensory representation of the body and physical space. specifically, the contents of the body matrix are defined by top-down predictive signals, integrating the multisensory (e.g., motor and visceromotor) simulations of causes and perceived sensory events. the different simulations are then ranked and included in the body matrix according to their relevance for the intentions of the self (selective attention). at the same elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs 141 time, the content and the priority of the different simulations are corrected by bottom-up prediction errors that signal mismatches between predicted and actual contents of sensory events (riva, 2017). based on the ideas of embodied cognition, we argued that afforded embodiment is an appropriate framework for exploring avatar functionality and presence (costa et al., 2013). 4. a psychosocial perspective on the relation human-digital device social exchange theory (set) is a foundational framework in social psychology (worchel et al., 1983) that deals with interpersonal interactions encompassing behavior, affection, products, and communication (homans, 1961; blau, 1968). set conceptualizes interpersonal interactions somewhat akin to economic exchanges: individuals choose to participate in these exchanges only if their anticipated “rewards” from them outweigh their “costs” or, at the very least, meet their expectations and surpass alternative investments (homans, 1961; kelley & thibaut, 1985). consequently, set regards interpersonal interaction as a rational process involving a series of cost-benefit analyses. this psychological perspective, rooted in the concept of reciprocity and cost-benefit analysis, posits that individuals engage in social interactions and relationships with the expectation of receiving rewards and minimizing costs. when applied to the realm of digital technology, it becomes evident that users often form relationships with their devices based on a similar set of principles. people invest time, attention, and personal data into their digital interactions with the expectation of receiving rewards such as information, entertainment, convenience, or social connection. however, there are also costs involved, including potential privacy concerns, time spent in front of screens, and the risk of addiction. by using the set, researchers can explore how these cost-benefit calculations shape the ways in which individuals interact with and rely on digital devices, shedding light on the evolving dynamics of this pivotal human-technology relationship in the modern digital age. an interesting kind of perspective on set theory has been developed by gefen and colleagues (1998). they interpreted set as a framework theory for technological acceptance model that suggests how the perceived usefulness (pu) of technological devices and the perceived ease of use (peou) of an information system (is) are major determinants of its use (gefen & keil, 1998). this study implies that a constructive social elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli 142 exchange may be a crucial factor affecting successful digital device implementation, and should, therefore, become an important extension of the technological acceptance model (tam). moreover, the tam overlooks the social exchange element of software development and how this social context influences users’ perceptions. another important psychosocial paradigm that is worth mentioning in order to better contextualize the relationship between human beings and digital devices is the use & gratification theory (u&g) (cantril, 1942). during the 1950s and 1960s researchers operationalized many social and psychological variables which were assumed to be precursors of different patterns of gratification due to consumption (wimmer & dominick, 1994). at the light of new technologies industry mass production, there has been an alteration to exposure patterns of many media consumers (finn, 1997). many researchers have applied u&g theory to a wide range of newly popularized media technologies (ruggero, 2014). in a study made by camilleri and colleagues (2021) finding shows that individuals’ perceived usefulness and ease of use of online streaming services were significant antecedents of their intentions to use the mentioned technologies. moreover, this study suggests that the research participants sought emotional gratifications from online streaming technologies, as they allowed them to distract themselves into a better mood and to relax in their leisure time. evidently, they were using them to satisfy their needs for information and entertainment. to conclude this psychosocial overview, it is essential to mention the computer as social actors paradigm. this paradigm argues that people react mindlessly to media agents and, therefore, communicate with them similarly to how they would interact with another human. this implies that human users have a pre-existing mental model of how they would communicate with another human in a similar situation (nass & moon, 2000). these mental models for interacting with others are referred to as social scripts (honeycutt & bryan, 2011; schank & abelson, 2013). at the light of presented evidence, it is possible to understand how digital technology is penetrating people’s ordinary lives. however, thanks to social psychology, the theoretical framework is able to explain the reciprocity between human and digital devices. digital technology is now identified as a gift made by the same human being’s existence and it is actually changing the way people’s presence in the world is considered. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs 143 5. consequences of screen time kind of consequences linked to screen time can be summed up into 4 possible consequences which are physical, neurological, psychological and social adverse consequences. here are some literature examples. • social and psychological consequences – the association between digital media and sleep duration and quality relates to infancy through adolescence (parent et al., 2016). novel findings suggest an inverse association between sleep duration and subsequent screen time. a longitudinal study of 4-8-year-olds found that short sleep time can promote a following-day fatigue, thus leading to more screen viewing sedentary behavior. depression represents a growing public health concern and is a prevalent disease among adolescents. findings have linked overall screen time to depression and suicidal behavior among adolescents (wood & scott, 2019). • physical consequences – the relation between screen time and obesity can be explained by reduced sleep and physical inactivity and by exposure to advertising which negatively affects youth’s dietary choices (chahal et al., 2013; mihrshahi et al., 2017). a survey among children aged 9-10 associated three hours screen time or more to obesity (nightingale et al., 2017). among types of digital media, bedroom tv viewing was more associated with obese children and adolescents (mihrshahi et al., 2017; pérez-farinós et al., 2017) and with forming a cardiometabolic risk (staiano et al., 2013). higher levels of sympathetic arousal were found in young adults (hsieh & hsiao, 2019) and among school-aged children with internet addictive behavior to smartphone use. considerable computer screen viewing can lead to eye fatigue, blurred vision, eye dryness, headaches, and discomfort. such symptoms can be a result of glare, poor lighting or improper viewing setting (akinbinu & mashalla, 2014). • neurological consequences – li et al. (2019) found a relation between depressive symptoms and overall screen time among children in the age range of 5-18 who were using digital media for over two hours per day. gaming related rewards were found to increase striatal dopamine release (weiss et al., 2011), resulting in an induced feeling of pleasure. as a result, the user is inclined to adopt a craving behavior aimed at experiencing repeating short-term pleasures (christensen, 2017). considering what has been mentioned above, it is now possible to define what wellbeing means for people who coexist with digital technology. well-being is a subcategory of mental health. mental health is generally considered to consist of two parts: negative and positive mental health. negative mental health includes subclinical negative mental health, such as elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli 144 stress or negative affect, and psychopathology, such as depression or schizophrenia. after explaining consequences of screen time on different dimensions of human beings it is possible to explain what implication digital technology has on well-being and if it is possible to consider the well-being taking account of digital device usage. positive mental health is a synonym for well-being; it comprises hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being. whereas hedonic wellbeing is affective, focusing on emotions, pleasure, or need satisfaction, eudaimonic well-being is cognitive, addressing meaning, self-esteem, or fulfillment. tring to apply this definition to digital usage, it is possible to find that google developed a new conceptual idea of what digital well-being means. digital well-being© is a google toolkit product created by many experts which recommends self-awareness and reflection as an essential step in creating a balance with technology (google, 2023). google teams created android’s digital well-being tools to give people greater insight into how they use their smartphones thanks to different features such as flip to “shhh”, “wind down”, and “app timers” which aim to help people maintain focus, disconnect, and be more mindful of their whole family’s tech habits (google, 2023). to conclude, in accordance with the objective of the present paper which aims to give reflections, by the cognitive and social psychology perspective, on how screen time is changing our way to be in the world, at the light of mentioned and analyzed literature in present work, the relation between human and technological devices is an indisputable fact at the point that this link must now be focused on embodiment framework theory. this embodied relation is particularly evident by the use of virtual reality (vr) technology which is able to modify people’s sense of presence in space and time. vr related to the embodiment framework makes considerable questions on how technology is deeply changing people’s way to interact with ourselves, others and, in general, the physical world. digital technology has got in touch with human beings’ adaptive functioning, giving people an opportunity to improve their everyday life. this opportunity must be considered as a gift, however, more research is needed to really understand the reciprocity established between human beings and digital technology. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs 145 references akinbinu, t. r., & mashalla, y. j. 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(1983). study guide to accompany understanding social psychology. homewood, il: dorsey press. sitografia google (2023). digital wellbeing. https://wellbeing.google statista (2023). forecast number of mobile users worldwide from 2020 to 2025. https://www.statista.com/statistics/218984/number-of-global-mobileusers-since-2010/ united states census bureau (2023). u.s. and world population clock. https://www.census.gov/popclock/world riassunto da quando la tecnologia è entrata nella vita quotidiana degli esseri umani, gli individui hanno stabilito un rapporto profondo con la tecnologia digitale, è nato così un legame incarnato tra persone e strumenti digitali. ciò è particolarmente evidenziato dalla recente letteratura sullo screen time (durata del tempo trascorso dall’individuo nell’utilizzo di media elettronici/digitali come televisori, smartphone, tablet o computer), che influenza in modo significativo diverse dimensioni dell’essere umano: funzioni fisiche, psicologiche e neurologiche. l’impatto della tecnologia digitale sugli esseri umani può essere considerato come il risultato di un funzionamento sintonico volto a migliorare diversi ambiti della vita delle persone (ad esempio, lavoro, relazioni sociali o intime, apprendimento), mentre la relazione distonica è evidenziata come risultato della dipendenza umana da tecnologia digitale. il presente studio si propone di fornire una prospettiva di psicologia cognitiva e sociale su come il tempo trascorso davanti allo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://wellbeing.google https://www.statista.com/statistics/218984/number-of-global-mobile-users-since-2010/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/218984/number-of-global-mobile-users-since-2010/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/world https://www.ledonline.it/elementa digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs 151 schermo sta cambiando le nostre esistenze, definendo la tecnologia digitale come un dono di cui le persone dovrebbero essere consapevoli in termini di conseguenze positive ma anche negative nella vita di tutti i giorni. copyright (©) 2023 alessandro de santis, stefania fantinelli editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: de santis, a., & fantinelli, s. (2023). digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 135-151. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/ elementa-2023-0102-safa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-safa https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-safa https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 1 (2021) 1-2 pierpaolo limone editorial 7 first section slavoj žižek the vagaries of the superego 13 ricardo espinoza lolas nature and pandemic 33 paolo ponzio mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: 47 notes on the self and the you daniela savino “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon 61 of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion francesca r. recchia luciani the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact 85 in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 5 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives second section martina rossi universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: 103 future perspectives marco ceccarelli a historical account on italian mechanism models 115 giusi antonia toto alessia scarinci cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, 135 technology, and the internet luigi traetta federica doronzo super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten 153 federica doronzo gianvito calabrese functioning of declarative memory: intersection 163 between neuropsychology and mathematics giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching 181 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 6 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 61 “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino università degli studi di bari (italy) doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-savi annadaniela.savino@uniba.it abstract the “interior space” (guardini, 1997) is inevitably influenced by the “external space”, which can be the mother, the inter-personal relationships, the local community with all its particular declinations (community of peers, scholastic, academic, working, etc.) or society in general; yet the educational relationship (kanitsa & mariani, 2017), in particular in the parental and religious sphere, has the main function of “forming” the pupil, as a child or adult, student, or faithful; in the same way, also the whole society in which one is immersed is understood as an “external environment” which continuously influences the formation of an individual. indeed, for the purposes of this analysis, is interesting to note what marcuse writes about the constitution of the “conceptual paradigm” of a society: he warns of the fact that when a society is imbued with a certain ideology, it seems that it is “inhabited” by a paradox; since “ideologies in particular tend to remain entangled in the dilemmas of the paradox, especially if their metaphysics is anti-metaphysics” (marcuse, 1999, p. 189). what intervenes as a matrix and “interferes” in the educational process, and so what constitutes the original source from which an education springs out and which, therefore, creates an “educational interference” (demetrio, 2020, p. 5), is undoubtedly multiple and multi factorial, not reducible to a single root. precisely for this reason, in this investigation, various paradigmatic educational sources will be taken in consideration, also crossing the global and digital (byung-chul han, 2015) dimensions typical of our age, since they act as a “stimulus” and so they are understood as “educating forces”. these “forces” appear to be marked, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-savi daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 62 each internally, by a paradoxical logic: they could be realized, indeed, not only as “educational forces” but also as “alienating forces”. it seems that we face a “power” then, which, taking the place of the authentic and beneficial “religious” or parental “care”, “sets” a new bond of attachment (bowlby, 1972, 1975, 1983), capable of emulating some significant aspects of care or relationship, infusing instead, discomfort, pain and, ultimately, alienation. the aim of this study is, therefore, to thoroughly investigate this “inner space of consciousness” (guardini, 2002, p. 41), when happens that it is “violated”, voluntarily or unconsciously, by those who invade it, giving to an individual, at the same time, identity and the alienation of the identity. keywords: attachment; educational relationship; identity; internal working models; paradigm; religious alienation. introduction what happens to your own identity when it begins to be assimilated to the identity of another, no longer coinciding with your own, original, authentic self? how could happen that you start thinking as “another” person thinks? without being the master of your own thoughts anymore? how could happen that you begin to desire in a different way than you did? john henry newman suggests a method for this study, a philosophical-phenomenological one on one hand, and a pedagogical purpose on the other hand; this method always takes in consideration the construct of “system”: speaking of identity, newman proposes a “philosophy of the person” and in the same way as he does, i want to analyze the phenomenon of “alienation” as it occurs in the context of religious communities; a community of this sort proposes a “lifestyle” in “communion”, that is, a community life governed by an “ideal” or “rules” that indicate or educate to a precise way of life and i carry out this investigation by tracing “every novelty of our conscience to what we already know, adapting and harmonizing it in a network of relationships” that newman calls “system”: in fact that philosophy, rather than a super-science with a defined epistemological status, deals with the relations among knowledge, constituting rather a “general attitude” of thought and a critical faculty that “acts and according to a spirit of unity, through comparing, adapting, connecting, arranging, classifying, synthesizing” (newman, 2016, p. 13) and in this way, this “architectural science recognizes the whole in every part” (newman, 2016, p. 13). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 63 by sharing and following this methodological approach, i believe i can, therefore, establish a connection and a parallelism between the two privileged “places” where education is put in action; places where, paradoxically, alienation can take the over the development of identity in an authentic sense: the family and the religious community. a common thread connects these spaces and calls the person who seems to be “trapped”: dysfunctional relationships in the family or in the religious community can cause the person to “lose” his identity by “replacing” it with that of the alienating parent or religious leader. the educational relationship (kanitsa & mariani, 2017), in particular in the parental and religious sphere, has the main function of “forming” the pupil, as a child or adult, student, or faithful; in the same way, also the whole society in which one is immersed, the community, is understood as an “external environment” which influences the formation of an individual, continuously: the “interior space” (guardini, 2002) of guardinian memory is inevitably influenced by the “external space”, be it the mother, inter-personal relationships, the local community with all its particular declinations (community of peers, scholastic, academic, working, etc.) or society in general. for the purposes of our analysis, in fact, it is interesting to note what marcuse writes about the constitution of the “conceptual paradigm” of a society: he warns of the fact that when a society is imbued with a certain ideology, it seems that it is “inhabited” by a paradox: since “ideologies in particular tend to remain entangled in the dilemmas of the paradox, especially if their metaphysics is antimetaphysics” (marcuse, 1999, p. 189). what intervenes as a matrix and “interferes” in the educational process, and so what constitutes the original source from which an education springs out and which, therefore, creates “educational interference” (demetrio, 2020, p. 5) by exerting an influence on man, is undoubtedly multiple and multi factorial, not reducible to a single root. precisely for this reason, in this investigation, various paradigmatic educational sources will be met, which, also crossing the global and digital dimensions typical of our age and of our society, act as a “stimulus”; they are “cause” of those aspects of human formation which, i believe, while presenting themselves as “educating forces” they could be also realized as “alienating forces”: they appear to be marked, each internally, by a paradoxical logic. the intent of this study is, therefore, to thoroughly investigate this “inner space of consciousness” (guardini, 2002, p. 41), when happens that it is “violated”, voluntarily or unconsciously, by those who invade it and by those who “grant” such an invasion. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 64 we face a “power” which, taking the place of the authentic and beneficial “religious” or parental “care”, “sets” a new bond of attachment (bowlby, 1972, 1975, 1983), capable of emulating some significant care or relationship, infusing in its stead, discomfort, pain and, ultimately, alienation. 1. “the ‘i’ of mind”: representation of the self, of the other and formation of the “vision of the world” in the theory of attachment craig childress (mazzola, 2016; montecchi, 2016) addressing the phenomenon of parental alienation, since it seems to us that it presents the same “method” that causes the alienation of the self in the religious sphere, refers to the theory of attachment: identity individual and personal is presented as a construct on which multidisciplinary studies (martini, 2020) continue to develop their research and interpretation. having said this, beyond any definition that can be followed according to the different disciplinary approaches, the fact that it is built “first of all” starting from the early relationship that each new born has with the main reference figure, called, in fact, “figure of attachment” (bowlby, 1972, 1975). this primary and original relationship, with one’s mother or caregiver, traces the initium not only of the feeling of the self but also of the archetypal structures through which relations with the other and in general the “feeling of the world” will be conceived and “framed” as what is called weltanshaaung. john bowlby’s theory of attachment together with the subsequent researches and evolutions it inspired, especially over the last thirty years, could intertwine some aspects which seem to be linked to the deweyan “philosophy of the mind” (filograsso & travaglini, 2004), in particular with regard to the structure and dynamics of the “internal working models”: they have a sort of “transcendental” character, therefore they have an “a priori” structure that needs to be solicited from outside in order to be activated. the internal working models (iwm) also regulate, in a cognitiveemotional-affective and behavioral intertwining, the different areas of the “mental” and affectivity, therefore the ability to interweave relationships. the attachment system, in fact, is a system that “manages” and regulates all aspects relating to love and emotional bonds, such as parent-child relationships and sentimental relationships: this “organization” can take place thanks to the mediation of “mental structures” or saying it better https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 65 “representations” which are formed and transmitted also in an inter and trans-generational way from the caregiver to the child, since the early-years care relationship (ortu, pazzagli, & williams, 2013). during the relationship with the caregiver and throughout the course of life, in the development phase and beyond, together with the activation of the attachment system, in all its structures and variables, “the internalized patterns of the representations of relationships are also activated. (iwm or schemes) contained in the attachment system” (camerini, pingitore, & lopez, 2016). there is, therefore, this adaptive and organizational capacity of the mind in its paradigmatic structures that is formed on the basis of the early relationship with the caregiver, which seems to recall the structure of jung’s “archetypes” (montecchi, 2016, p. 36): this structure seeks a sort of logical coherence between conceptions, that are already possessed, and the new ones the person will necessarily assume gradually throughout his/ her life. any change that occurs in the environment or in the caregiver itself will produce “adjustments and adaptations” (santelli beccegato, 1998, p. 40) to the archetypal structure formed at the early age and during the age of development. “the attention therefore turns to the evolutionary process and qualitative changes of the organization. […] the self finds its roots in the organization and relationship of the dyadic system” and in this context the representations of the self and the other “are formed within the relational matrix thanks to the construction of interactive schemes, of a series of adaptive expectations and behaviors that form the backbone of the internal working models that the child is building” (montecchi, 2016, p. 36). on the same nature of bowlby’s investigations, mary ainsworth (ortu, pazzagli, & williams, 2013, p. 63) conducted her research: the results of the strange situation brought further clarity on the definition of the nature and structure of iwms; bowlby himself referred to kenneth craik (ortu, pazzagli, & williams, 2013, p. 68) when, with regard to the iwms, he believed that their structure was such as to allow children “to adapt to changes in the environmental context by expanding the behavioral repertoire at their disposal” (ortu, pazzagli, & williams, 2013, p. 68) and underlining their inner dynamic, he highlighted that “the intrinsically relational character of the processes underlying behavior. the term model indicates in fact that the structure of representation is relational and that it originates from the relationship with the real world, while the operative term emphasizes the dynamic quality of the models” (ortu, pazzagli, & williams, 2013, p. 68). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 66 what seems to be clear, therefore, is that starting from the early dyadic relationship, from the “interactive dance” (ortu, pazzagli, & williams, 2013, p. 61) of mother and child and based on the responsiveness and sensitivity of the mother towards the “emotional needs” of the child, models and structures as “representational” of the self, the other and the world are built in the “mind”; they also constitute a “general conceptual horizon” in which to understand the general frame of the self, the other and the world. they also help the individual to predict and understand his/her environment, promoting behaviors that guarantee survival, such as “maintaining proximity to another clearly identified person, deemed capable of facing the world adequately” (bowlby, 1983, p. 25) and they are responsible of the “sense of security” for the individual. of the same opinion and, in particular, on the genesis of the construction of the broader “horizon of meaning” and conceptual paradigm that is formed within the early relationship with the caregiver, bretherton and munholland (breterthon & munholland, 1999) believe that the iwms define self-other representations not only in the relationship with the “figure of attachment” but above all in the entire “cognitive map” of the world: “the subject constructs an internal map of the external world” that is a conception of the self, the world and others, as said and which could be called, according to a marcusian expression, a “given paradigm” (marcuse, 1999, p. 188). this “coherence” of the detail with the general structure is crucial since in fact once constructed, the mental representations of oneself in relation to others tend to be relatively stable over time, thus allowing forecasts of future evolution, and to self-perpetuate, since each person is led to recreate congruent experiences with their own relational history. (marcuse, 1999, p. 110) each model, therefore, acts as a “filter” for future relational experiences and will select, unconsciously, relationships that will confirm the paradigm or the conceptual reference in which the same models were formed; from this, consequently, arises the character of self-perpetuation of the models. the models, then, are stable and consistent, but adaptive and flexible at the same time; to use a metaphor found within the jurisprudential field, it seems is possible to understand them as basic “constitutional principles” of one’s weltanshauung: that is, principles we can refere that create a stable “hermeneutic horizon” for the individual, which are difficult to be modified but at the same time not totally “immune” to change even up to subversion: one’s vision of the world, therefore, becomes modifiable https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 67 should the external environment require it for the purpose of its conservation. understood as a paradigm, then, the model somehow prejudices the future destiny of the individual as it tends to seek and recreate the conditions of experience of the “given” reality; the same is for a relationship that needs to be coherent with the structure of the model that has been being formed itself. intimately linked with mental representations, the models then create “the internal onto-gnoseological environment” within which a total vision of the world, of the self and of the other is possible since it must necessarily respect an internal logical coherence functional to its own ecology: in this regard, it is interesting to note the correlation between autobiographical narrative and implicit memory that springs from the representations of the internal models; this is in fact the observation that siegel (siegel, 2001) adds to what has been analyzed so far. in fact, the author believes that the system of implicit memory, structured by virtue of the models, is capable of extrapolating and memorizing complex rules that also govern co-variations; they are self-perpetuating in the interpretation of subsequent experiences since they seek that logical coherence with past experiences, as said. moreover, the very modality of the individual to organize his own experiences directly influences the mind’s ability to integrate the “new” experiences: implicit and explicit experiences make themselves responsible and, at the same time, “builders” of the same personal identity that it is “continuously” shaped by the models. it could then be argued that the models influence memories and autobiographical narratives, both as a conscious experience and as an unconscious experience: in fact, schacter (schacter & mennella, 2001) is of this opinion and argues that auto-biographical stories provide narrative continuity between past and future, configuring themselves as a set of memories that “continuously” form the core of the personality. it can therefore be argued that, in turn, the internal working models, following precisely this logic, are influenced by an external “given” paradigm, both at the level of personal and family education, and at the level of society: elements that make up the “riverbed” in which the single individual is formed “while” his models are configured. one could therefore believe that it is exactly this self-preservation process that can be interrupted, at a certain point, intercepted and subverted by an “other”: what does allow this “subversion” capable of directing the paradigm differently? what does allow the opening of a “new conceptual horizon” recognized as “truer”, worthy, therefore, capable to modify and replace the previous one? https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 68 2. from the early care relationship to the “given paradigm”: the “interference” in the attachment system it is not only the early dyadic relationship to form the internal working models and representations that create identity and vision of the world: as a testing ground let us take the “desire”, which “behaves” exactly like a model, and it appears to us “conditioned” not just by the attachment relationship with the caregiver but also by the “given paradigm”, in which the same caregiver is formed, receiving himself/herself a continuous education. indeed, it is herbert marcuse’s analysis (marcuse, 1999) to elicit some reflections that somehow create a conceptual “bridge” between the conception of the formation of representations, due to the dyadic relationship with the caregiver, and the alteration or interference that an “external paradigm” may have. the parallelism between the marcusian socio-economic conception “of man in relation to society” and that of the internal working models of the attachment theory theorized by bowlby “of a child in relation to the mother”, seems evident to us: on one hand, we would like to investigate the modality in which a “conceptual paradigm” is formed, as said, at the level of “philosophy of mind” in the deweyan sense; on the other hand, we also want to deepen what is the process, through which the identity can be altered, reaching the point of alienation, if it “impacts” another “given paradigm” and another weltanschauung. the “paradigm shift” which we are witnessing today specifically concerns the philosophical-economic horizon of neoliberalism, the digital revolution and globalization: all these are the vectors within which to understand and define the conceptual horizon, which properly generates the general conceptions humankind can think of in our present era. marcuse’s “individual” is immersed in an empirical “a priori” of a given conceptual horizon, in a certain sense, “taken for granted”: “by virtue of de facto repression, the world as it is experienced is the result of a restricted experience, and the positivist clearing of the mind brings the mind into alignment with the restricted experience” (marcuse, 1999, p. 189). as said, we seem to be able to establish a comparison between this conception of marcuse and the conceptual focus of bowlby’s theory: in the “care relationship” the child’s innate abilities can find expression and development if the caregiver is emotionally available since the presence of an emotionally available figure constitutes the only possible context for the realization of innate programs and […] today we tend to see development in terms of a continuous reorganization of innate abilities and https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 69 emotions in which the previous levels of organization are integrated into more complex and new levels. (ortu, pazzagli, & williams, 2013, p. 104) we believe we can put forward the hypothesis that identity and desire are structurally formed and conditioned, in principle by the child’s relationship with the caregiver at an early age, and subsequently, during adolescence and adulthood, when it “impacts” society, or in marcusian terms, the “given paradigm”: whether it belongs to the socio-economic environment in which one is immersed, and, if impacted, belongs to the religious environment, in some way “integrates”, modifies or replaces the “attachment system” in its entirety, not just one or some conception. this phenomenon can occur if the “source” of that new paradigm “is emotionally available” or available in an improved way with respect to the caregiver. the research, especially by peter fonagy (allen & fonagy, 2006) has demonstrated the interconnection between the security of attachment and the ability to mentalize: representation, or mentalization, consists in the ability to “imagine”, to “feel” the whole one’s own and one’s own mental states. in addition, one can also feel and understand other’s mental states and so this capacity is the basis of reflective and interpersonal competences; it is, in fact, only by virtue of the personal ability to “feel”, to “listen to oneself ” in one’s own needs that one can open up to those of others. this can be learned, assumed as a capacity, thanks to “mirroring”, offered in interpersonal interaction, by the “care figure” when it shows itself to be “sufficiently good” (lingiardi & gazzillo, 2014): this mentalizing representational system would offer immense evolutionary advantages for survival because it would allow individuals to understand, interpret and predict their own and others’ behavior. as such it constitutes the cornerstone of social intelligence. (lingiardi & gazzillo, 2014, p. 132) the “responses, or answers” of the caregiver are in the womb of the educational relationship, at the heart of the interpersonal interaction which allows mentalization and affective regulation; this is is configured as an “emotionally responsive social environment”: the emotionally connoted and socalled “highly contingent” facial expressions allow the child “to discover the mental self in the social world” (lingiardi & gazzillo, 2014, p. 133). somehow, it seems clear to us that, where responsive “emotional gaps” have formed on the part of the caregiver, probably, “the new paradigm”, whether it comes from a person, society or the religious environment mentioned here, may be able to “activate” the attachment system that has shown itself to be “incomplete”: and it is in this sense, therefore, that we can better understand what we mean when we assimilate the attachment figure https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 70 to the marcusian matrix or “paradigm”: it is in this way that we assume that happens the “other” can easily fill this gap “of attachment” to replace it. according to marcuse, in fact, the cornerstones of a society, of its socio-economic organization above all, are based on a philosophical-metaphysical conception, which is in a certain sense preliminary, and acts as a theoretical matrix, as a conceptual framework, for everything that can be organized as a social practice in every sphere and sector of society (marcuse, 1999, p. 189). compared to the historical period mentioned by the author, the positivist philosophy “erects for its use a self-sufficient world, closed and well protected against the entry of external disturbing factors” and it is easy to understand how, without reporting all the philosophical-historicaleconomic evolution here indicated by the author, it acts as a paradigm; first of all, this occurs at the level of the very possibility of “creating and conceiving” concepts that can be thought of by man: “the transformation of critical thinking into positive thinking takes place above all in the therapeutic treatment of universal concepts” (marcuse, 1999, p. 189); in the marcusian conception and analysis an assumption emerges, which we think is fundamental: when a conceptual horizon is given, being on the same wavelength, this is transformed for man into a real total weltanshauung, within which is possible to conceive all aspects of the human life; consequently is possible to giving life and shape, based on its theoretical basis, to the various socio-economic sectors of a society, for which this conceptual horizon “once accepted, it constitutes an empirical a priori that cannot be transcended” (marcuse, 1999, p. 189). it is interesting to note that precisely by virtue of the influence exercised by the paradigm, the empirical “a priori” given, even in its acceptance, in any case “violates” the empirical itself as what speaks “in it” is the “abstract mutilated individual who experiences and expresses only what is given to it, which affects only the facts and not the factors, whose behavior is one-dimensional and manipulated” (marcuse, 1999, p. 189): it seems to us that we can identify in this nature of the paradigm the root of any “prejudice” generally understood. we have seen how, what applies to the structural ontological order of man in society, by virtue of the intimate and innate connection that exists between the “i” and the “us”, between identity and otherness, applies primarily and first of all to man as an individual: we now want to turn and analyze, on the basis of what has been said so far, the implications of the phenomenon of vocation in the religious sphere with the constitution of the paradigm that interferes in the system of what we have called “incomplete” attachment. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 71 3. the concept of “vocation”: the irruption of the new paradigm and the new weltanshaaung peter fonagy, speaking of mentalization (fongay & target, 2001) refers precisely to the early interpersonal experience that a child has with the adult: in the literature there are several references to the ability to mentalize previously done before fonagy but it is with his work that the intrapsychic component is best configured, as much as that of the intrapersonal component of the mentalization itself: the psychological self can therefore develop through the perception of the fact that another person thinks of us as having mental states. parents who cannot reflect comprehensively on the child’s internal experience, and therefore respond accordingly, deprive him of a nuclear psychological experience, necessary to build a sense of vital self. (lingiardi & gazzillo, 2014, p. 132) mentalization, the ability to reflect on one’s mental states, to recognize them, and the very ability of reflexivity, which is discovered in the narrative capacity, somehow coincides with “a vital sense of self”: if the caregiver has unfortunately created “responsive emotional voids” what is penalized is above all the ability to mentalize, the reflexivity as such. this will lead to a confused sense of the self that will not be able to structure, develop and elaborate nor a “positive and real thought” of oneself and others, as seen in insecure attachment, nor, consequently, any kind of “critical thinking” (tani, 2007). the phenomenon of the religious vocation, as belonging to the inner sphere of conscience, probably fits and “nestles” in this “emotional void” caused by the inadequate responsiveness of the caregiver during the early relationship: the condition of total dependence and the need for survival manifest themselves first of all in the search for affective closeness, correspondence, reflection and confirmation of the self, which is realized, as we have seen, in the attachment system. if the internal experience is “empty” due to the “not happened” mirroring, probably, one will look for a “fullness” and a sort of a “fullfillment” throughout his/her life: the need to be confirmed in one’s own identity, the emotional-affective needs first and foremost correspond to the survival of the unitary sense of the self, of that “vital sense of the self ” we have mentioned. it does not seem bold to us to believe that a “vocation”, while retaining the purely “religious” sphere of transcendence in which we do not enter here, can be “hosted” more easily by those consciences that in some way are “wounded” by the gaps left by an insecure attachment; because of its https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 72 marked character of “filling” or “correspondence” for the affective level and for the identity, the phenomenon of vocation corresponds, phenomenologically, simultaneously to a “call”, on the one hand, and to a “advent” of one good from the other hand. romano guardini, in fact, affirms that “every” vocation has something to do with “the good”, the good as it is conceived for the self, and which grows in the interior space: “[…] this interior space exists” he affirms and “includes a second concept: the depth” (guardini, 1967, p. 15). speaking of the interior dimension and depth we speak of concepts linked to the “voice of conscience”, which resounds in the “personal conscience”. depth means a special dimension, different from quantity or extension […] it is a stratification towards the interior and precisely in such a way that the more internal the layers become, the more precious they become ours, delicate, living. (guardini, 1967, p. 15) gathering in its interior space, therefore, the self discovers its depth, its face, its identity; and this identity has a voice that speaks, the voice of conscience that has a precise, clear content, identifiable with the good. the good “beats to the conscience” and speaks to it; the good, while presenting itself to consciousness as an infinite ideal totality (unendlicher inbegriff ), presents itself to it from time to time in the situation; “the good is the good” guardini says and it cannot be broken down into simpler elements, it cannot be identified with a precise, single content; doing this would only result in a single manifestation of the good; but it is at the same time an ideal totality and still a specific content; it is therefore not an abstract idea, not a simple “law”, but something “spiritually alive” (guardini, 1967, p. 14). it is necessary to dwell on the concept of good as it is intimately linked not only to that of conscience: conscience is something more than the simple “knowing” something: it means having something within oneself, […] something intimate, […] something that is related to what the ancient concept of the “bottom of the soul”, of “scintilla animae” expresses. (guardini, 1967, p. 14) consciousness is then that organ that “knows” and “feels” the good, it is that organ “through which i respond to good and become aware of this” (guardini, 1967, p. 14): then every identity possesses in itself this precious, universal and absolutely particular at the same time, this capacity, this organ, capable of grasping the good in its evident existence. the passage from the gnoseological to the ethical-moral level takes the form of a sort of logical consequence; the making of the good, which “beats” the conscience and wants to be understood and implemented, shows itself as a richness, a value that requires form not only content: https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 73 “good therefore is equivalent to a real creation; it is not a simple execution of an order but a creative actuation of something that is not yet” (guardini, 1967, p. 18). the first good that man/woman, in a certain sense, creates and must create for him/herself is the response to the call to his/her own existence; the vocation is part of the order of realization of this fundamental call. every man/woman “hears” the call to self-realization, which can only consist in the realization of a good for him/herself, for his/her own life above all. but this, somehow, needs to be learned, needs an example, a guide. here the attachment theory reveals its essential and fundamental importance for the sense of existential fulfillment, task and destiny of humankind in every age. it is the mother, or in general, the caregiver, who transmits the sense of self-fulfillment, with the care and love she/he offers; it is above all with this recognition of the essential emotional-affective needs of the child that is transmitted the sense of the self. and this happens through the “reflection and correspondence” but also with the example of the caregiver’s life. when this care is non sufficient and creates “emotional voids”, the vocation, placing itself as a “promise” of that good that in some way has not been received, or has been received in an inadequate way, penetrates into the depth of consciousness by “giving” a sense of emotional-affective “fullness” together with the recognition that is needed. trying to take a further step, we want to underline also the “historical” character of the vocation: it is never abstract, detached from a precise historical context; the figure of christ himself is historically located and many studies of a philosophical-theological nature, that could not be enumerated here due to their enormous vastness in time and space, traces it as a cornerstone and distinctive element of christian doctrine: compared to other doctrines, it is this precisely historicity of the advent that characterizes the christian announcement. indeed, the christian proclamation, which preludes and permits vocation, is always located in time and space and finds both body and hospitality in the community of the faithful people: an example for all of this christian “method” is the conversion of augustine of hippo, also documented in a vast multiplicity of philosophical-theological works, in which the “tolle lege” (guardini, 1967) represents the novelty under the theoretical aspect, that is the beginning of the change of the conceptual paradigms and of the total vision of the world; while the community of cassiciaco, founded by him, embodies the ethical novelty under the historical-existential aspect (agostino d’ippona, 2000). the historicity and being historically “situated” of the phenomenon of vocation are well documented in the well-known trilogy by luigi giussani: https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 74 the mistery makes itself known only by revealing itself, taking the initiative to place itself as a factor of human experience, how and when it wants. the human reason, in fact, awaits this revelation but it cannot make it happen. (giussani, 1988b, p. vii) as augustine “found” the church, understood as the “body of christ”, in any case he founded the community of cassiciaco as a particular need for fraternal life to lead life in communion, yet today vocations are accepted because they “are born” in the current stream of the church; it also happens today that they are “raised up” precisely in the bosom of the various particular ecclesial communities, which belong, despite the diversity of charisms, to the same womb, to the same unique church, called, precisely, “mother”. the phenomenology of the vocation first occurs in the interiority of the conscience, then translates in the joining a community and following people immersed in a concrete “christian environment”, made up of a visible human reality; one might ask: but today, after two thousand years, how is it possible to achieve certainty about the fact of christ? how does it make sense today to adhere to the christian claim? this identifies the heart of what is historically called the church, that socially identifiable phenomenon that appears in history as the continuation of the event of christ. (giussani, 1990, p. ix) according to giussani, the vocation, therefore, seems to trace the existential story of christ and his first apostles on a methodological level in fact in a certain historical moment a man, jesus of nazareth, not only revealed the mystery of god, but he identified himself with it. how this event began to attract the attention of men; how jesus created a clear conviction in those who began to follow him; how he communicated the mystery of his person, how he confirmed his unveiling with a new and perfect intelligence of human life. (giussani, 1988b, p. ix) the content of all this constitutes the core of the author’s intuitions expressed in the second volume of the trilogy mentioned; while the joining to the religious community, that is, the phenomenology of “the encounter with the human reality in which he is present” (giussani, 1988b, p. ix) is documented in the third volume. it seems, then, that by hearing and responding to the call of good, of the full realization of the self, man joins at the same time a community of believers, the faithful people, who share the same event that has erupted into conscience and into life, “modifying”, “replacing and ultimately converting” the previous paradigms, representations, values, ideals and desires: it is precisely for this reason that we speak of conversion, precisely because a cum-verto occurs into another total existential direction. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 75 the moment in which one adheres to the vocation, which is precise in the space-time coordinates, puts in place a real revolution of the being: it represents a watershed with the past, with what one was before, what was believed, thought and desired. this revolution of the being that is visibly concretized in the christian community, in the single persons belonging to the community to which one has joined, presents itself to the “wounded conscience” by a “failed” attachment as fullness of being: as that recognition and emotionalaffective responsiveness which, as documented, was asked to the mother or the caregiver and which did not happened in a “enough good” way, to recall winnicot, or which did not happen at all: what further consequences can this revolution entail? 4. the gnoseological-ethical consequences of vocation and the “to join” the religious community: the loss of critical thinking and integralism let us now try to face the modality of interaction, which exists in the organization of a religious community, with the “communication” that accompanies it: we will not deepen the sociological aspect, so to speak, but we will focus on what we consider as fundamental aspects of the relationship that is inaugurated in such of situation and which, as mentioned, replaces the attachment relationship. widely validated by the numerous researches in the field, the theory of attachment, through the complexity of communication, resting on the two intrapsychic and relational bases (including in this the person and the environment), explains the “style” of attachment of the child, which we find in the adult; the style of attachment, which, as known, was deepened in ainsworth’s research (ainsworth et al., 1978) in the famous “strange situation” (marris, parkes, & stevenson-hinde, 1995), depends on the “quality” of the parental care received, and organizes the “attachment system” so as to determine, already in early age, both the personality and the “thinkability of concepts”, or the “paradigm”, as well as the concepts of the self, the other and the world, as already said. we have seen that, the general “worldview”, as said, depends, to a very large extent, on the matured attachment system and on the interactions with the “given paradigm”; while on a social level, as we have analyzed it in the marcusian theory, the “attachment style” defines the type of relationship that is expected fromwho is felt as a “guide”, as it is from a parent or a caregiver. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 76 now let’s see how the “paradoxical communication” works within the relationship with those who lead the religious community and how it “opens” the space of what we think could be a “cognitive-emotionalaffective alienation”. let us take up what we have said about the interior situation that creates the phenomenon of vocation and the “joining” the religious community: we expect a good, we have joined the community of brothers who expect the same thing; the conceptual paradigms and representations will change and we will adhere to those communicated by the religious community in which and through which the vocation took place. the different defense mechanisms (tani, 2007, pp. 20-21) will selectively exclude all information coming from the outside that could “disturb” or “question” the system, newly adapted, thus allowing its conservation and the sense of unity of identityalong with it that has been formed in that apparently “new” emotional-affective relational situation. paradoxically, this could be what happens: the very “first” true alienation, formed with the original imprinting of the attachment system, is re-actualized precisely when the encounter with that human reality preannounced as good occurs, which is it was communicated as the bearer of that existential good, corresponding to the expectations of cares, typical of the educational relationship and of occurrence, which were not realized. it remains in its basic structure for life through a whole series of defensive mechanisms aimed at the conservation of the system itself and is perpetuated in the “choices” or relational preferences of the adult. we have also seen how what formed us and, at the same time, “wounded” as children, by virtue of the self-perpetuating attachment system consisting of a closed conceptual horizon, will continue to be sought to be maintained and preserved, through a sort of pre-selection of information, a kind of “selection at the entrance”. the vocation and the religious community are placed as a place of that “safe” relationship, of full support, comfort and development of the self that was expected from the caregiver: in reality, when the original conceptual representations and paradigms change by adhering to those proposed by the community, the identical alienating dynamic of the “failed” attachment relationship, that we wanted to replace with and in the vocational phenomenon, occurs again. what, in fact, could open to a true understanding of one’s identity, emotional-affective needs, which were not reflected in the care relationship and which led to the failure of the attachment system, would be the processing of the “attachment trauma” (lingiardi & gazzillo, 2014, p. 79). https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 77 if, on the other hand, one adheres to an “other” paradigm without reviewing what happened in the “failed” attachment, adherence to a creed or a religious community does nothing but re-proposing the same identical dysfunctional dynamic for the self that has occurred in the relationship of care characterized by the failure of attachment. from whatever source it comes, then the “paradigm” is closely linked to its communication: in this regard, cumming believes that “it is necessary to continually reconstruct the concept of the self if we are to exist as persons and not as objects: a reconstruction that generally takes place in ‘communication activity’” (watzlawick, beavin, & jackson, 1971, p. 73); certainly, the insecure attachment (ainsworth et al., 1978), in its various forms, which in a certain way predisposed to “hearing the call” and to joining the religious community is characterized by a “paradoxical communication”: it seems to us that we can identify with it the “key” of alienation which is found as a communicative and relational modality in the interactions of the religious community with the person. analyzing the works of watzlawick and jackson we see, in fact, how the paradoxical communication, generating confusion and inducing a sort of “transcendental epochè”, creates a sort of “opening” in the definition of the representations matured up to then, but felt, so to speak, as “unsatisfactory”: in this suspension of judgment, “anyone” can enter and “take” the place in the creation of the representations, generating a new “programming” of the same; the emotional-affective area is of absolute importance since, in the absence of the original attachment, the subject (be it a child, adolescent, young or adult) looking for the attachment figure, especially on the emotional-affective side, with one of his substitutes, will “attach” him/herself to anyone whoenters in the door left open by the suspension of the thought. it is precisely the paradoxical communication that generates the “availability” or “vulnerability” to openness, to the reorganization of representations, through confusion and suspension of judgment, thus fully investing the cognitive level; alongside it, the “emotional-affective request” of the “abandoned child” plays the other important part, giving rise to the “new attachment”, a harbinger of new representations more or less integrated, superimposed or totally substituted to the previous ones. it is, in fact, the pragmatic paradoxes (watzlawick, beavin, & jackson, 1971, p. 186) that reveal the functioning of the “black out” that is created at the “level of representations” in the mind engaged in the attachment relationship: descending and showing its fascinating unity with the previous logical and semantic levels (watzlawick, beavin, & jackson, 1971, pp. 184-185), the pragmatic paradox at the same time reveals the end and the beginning of the disorganized, contradictory attitude of the https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 78 mentality, and therefore of the vision of the world and of the self of the attachment figure; it is in fact the total weltanshaaung of the attachment figure that is “handed down” intergenerationally to the child/learner and it shows itself with behaviors; it is also communicated with the different levels of communication within the educational relationship felt as “an intrinsic need” of relationship itself. 5. the “key” of joining the “alienating” religious community: the paradoxical communication and the attribution of role let’s go back, then, to the paradoxical structure of communication that characterizes this particular type of attachment relationships that favor alienation, introducing the pragmatic paradoxes, metacommunication and the “double bind theory”. to understand the nature of these types of human communicative interaction that has the characteristic of the “paradoxical”, we are met by the pragmatic behavioral evidence that these interactions produce, that is: the levels in which the paradox occurs are first of all the “logical” ones, secondly the “semantic” and thirdly the “pragmatic” place (watzlawick, beavin, & jackson, 1971, pp. 146-207); starting from the latter it is easy to detect, in some way, the path that the paradox itself takes to get to “enter the existential experience of man” (watzlawick, beavin, & jackson, 1971, p. 180). what interests us here, leaving aside the logical-semantic levels and therefore the semantic antinomies, are the “paradoxical injunctions” that most exquisitely belong to the “pragmatic” level of human interactions and communications; and which, in our opinion, permeate that specific field of relations that we are investigating here. as already seen, the attachment relationship of an insecure type (avoidant-ambivalent-disorganized in the various forms it can take) is characterized by a paradoxical type of communication; it presents three clear elements: first of all it occurs when a strong complementary relationship has been established; secondly, within this relationship we find a scheme that provides for “an injunction” that must be obeyed but to be obeyed must be disobeyed; thirdly, the person who is one-down in the relationship is not able to get out of the pattern and therefore to dissolve the paradox through “metacommunication”. indeed, the role of the “comment” on the paradox is interesting, and therefore of metacommunication, which represents, together with irony, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 79 the means to overcome or unmask the paradox itself. but this possibility, which we would say to be a sort of counter-manipulation strategy, cannot be adopted by the one-down person who is not aware of the paradox since it is subordinate: this is the “role” or position, in the dysfunctional educational relationship we are delineating, in which it is conceivedor “put”, more or less voluntarily and knowingly, the child or the faithful. we understand, then, through the form of communication, the nature of the relationship that is the basis of the interaction we are talking about: from the pragmatic paradoxes, moreover, it is possible to “go back” to the origin of the type of communication that animates that relationship and therefore to the relationship itself; we look at an example of a complementary relationship to analyze its communication and trace the injunction that generates the paradox by “paralyzing” the one-down person in the impossibility of resolving the paradox itself: we then can transfer what we see to the educational relationship of the insecure attachment and to the relationship of the faithful towards the religious community or the leader of the community. this is the “place” in which, through paradoxical communication, alienation is generated. watzlawick proposes a series of examples: we borrow one that guides us both towards understanding parental alienation, which takes place between a parent and a child, as towards the religious one. perhaps the most frequent form in which the paradox enters the pragmatics of human communication is an injunction that requires specific behavior, which by its very nature can only be spontaneous. the prototype of this message is precisely: be spontaneous! anyone who receives this injunction finds himself in an unbearable situation because to comply with it he should be spontaneous within a scheme of condescension and non-spontaneity. (watzlawick, beavin, & jackson, 1971, p. 190) alongside the formula “be spontaneous” we can find many that apparently seem harmless and absolutely legitimate, such as “you should obey and follow”, “don’t be so sentimental”, “you know that you are free but it is impossible not to say that out of here there is no the possibility of happiness” and so on; truly, such injunctions are paradoxical since they require symmetry in a relationship established as complementary, and here is the point: the nature of the attachment relationship when insecure and dysfunctional as well as the relationship of the faithful who must place him/herself in the position of following with respect to the leader or to the entire religious community, it is characterized by paradoxical injunctions that paralyze reflexivity and critical thinking; in the same way as the child, trapped in the paradoxical scheme, typical of the following relationship with those who lead and who participate in the community, the faithful, https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 80 unable to free themselves from the paradoxical injunction, suspend his/her judgment. the disavowal or rejection or avoidance of the emotional-affective mirroring put in place by the leader and by the members of the community who play a role (group leader-deacons-responsible of groups) does nothing but re-actualizes exactly the wound created by the failed attachment; especially when the believer does not “manage” to follow or shows discomfort in fully adhering to the injunctions, beliefs or values shared by the community, the joining the community that at the beginning was thought it would have been a “salvation” from the “attachment trauma” through the “new life” promised by the vocation, tragically re-closes what was glimpsed as true communion and liberation, in a sort of hermeneutic circle, in the cage of alienation. 6. educate in critical thinking, personal identity and an authentic religious sense “i would say then: if you want to become adults without being deceived, alienated, slaves of others, exploited, you get used to comparing everything with elementary experience” luigi giussani writes in one of his most beautiful works (giussani, 1988a, p. 13); the author argues that the “heart” of man understood as a sort of unity of reason and feeling, is endowed with first evidence, with criteria of judgment on the basis of which it is easy to compare an experience that one lives by every kind with the elementary needs of happiness, goodness, justice, love. through this comparison of reality that impacts with one’s own needs that call for a sense of fullness, wholeness and satisfaction, man could make a sort of ascent towards his own liberation; he writes: “in fact, as a rule everything is dealt with according to a common mentality: supported, propagated by those who hold power in society” (giussani, 1988a, p. 13). in this way the tradition that permeates the context in which we grow up, the whole of society, but above all starting from the abusive attachment bonds, do nothing but embody a sort of power and “settle on our original needs and constitute a great encrustation that alters the evidence of those first evidences” (giussani, 1988a, p. 13), so that if one wants to contradict or critically judge by virtue of an unease one feels, he/she is faced with a difficult task since he/she will find him/herself “having to challenge public opinion” (giussani, 1988a, p. 13). it is paradoxical to think that the very community that luigi giussani himself found with the aim of educating to the authentic religious sense https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 81 based on the full and correct use of human reason, would become, in his practices of community life, exactly a power society, characterized by a strong alienating power by virtue of what has been said so far. “the boldest challenge to that mentality that dominates us […] is precisely that of making the judgment on everything habitual in us in the light of our first evidence and not at the mercy of more occasional reactions”, so sounds the warning, the fascinating existential solicitation of the author who presses on saying “it is always necessary to pierce these images induced by the cultural climate in which one is immersed, to go down to take in one’s own needs and original evidences and on the basis of these to judge and evaluate every proposal, every existential suggestion” (giussani, 1988a, p. 13); and it is precisely on the basis of this solicitation, by comparing everything with elementary evidence, to its “exercise”, that one can “realize” the alienating work that, every type of community, company, organization or person, when in the field a relationship of power can exert on man, on the child, on the faithful, at the level of representation, images and thought. we believe that an education on the authentic religious sense corresponds in fact to the education of critical thinking that “rests” on the first evidence of reason: the personal identity that is formed starting from the original attachment relationship, as we have seen, is not other than the product, the visible result of an adequate care and education of and “to” this “system of evidences” of which humankind is made by nature; care, in its form of “mirroring”, as has been said, taking the form of a “secure relationship” can become the privileged place for an education in the “primary evidence of reason”, the basis of critical thinking and the exercise of reason and the affectivity of man, able to free him/her from any form of alienation, dependence and, ultimately, existential discomfort. references agostino d’ippona (2000). confessiones libri tredecim. a cura di a. trapè. ainsworth, m. d., blehar, m., waters, e., & wall, s. (1978). patterns of attachment. psychology press & routledge classic editions. allen, j. g., & fonagy, p. (2006). la mentalizzazione. il mulino. bowlby, j. (1972). attaccamento e perdita, vol. 1: l’attaccamento alla madre (trad. it.). bollati boringhieri. bowlby, j. (1975). attaccamento e perdita, vol. 2: la separazione dalla madre (trad. it.). bollati boringhieri. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 82 bowlby, j. (1983). attaccamento e perdita, vol. 3: la perdita della madre (trad. it.). bollati boringhieri. bretherton, i., & munholland, k. a. (1999). modelli operativi interni nelle relazioni di attaccamento. in j. cassidy & p. r. shaver (a cura di), manuale dell’attaccamento. teoria, ricerca e applicazioni cliniche. giovanni fioriti editore. brofenbrenner, u. (1979). the ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design. harvard university press. busacchi, v., & martini, g. (2020). l’identità in questione. jaca book. byung-chul, han. (2015). nello sciame. notettempo. camerini, g. b., pingitore, m., & lopez, g. (a cura di). (2016). alienazione parentale. innovazioni cliniche e giuridiche. francoangeli. casonato, m., & mazzola, m. a. (2016). alienazione genitoriale e sindrome da alie nazione parentale (pas). key editore. corsi, m., & stramaglia, m. (2011). dentro la famiglia. pedagogia delle relazioni educative familiari. armando editore. demetrio, d. (2020). micropedagogia. raffaello cortina editore. elia, g. (2006). le forme dell’educazione. laterza. elia, g. (2016). prospettive di ricerca pedagogica. progedit. filograsso, n., & travaglini, r. (a cura di). (2004). dewey e l’educazione della mente, vol. 49. francoangeli. fonagy, p., & target, m. (2001). attaccamento e funzione riflessiva. selected papers of peter fonagy and mary target. raffaello cortina editore. gaffal, g. (2012). parental alienation in divorce judgments. indret privado, 4. giussani, l. (1988a). il senso religioso. rizzoli. giussani, l. (1988b). perché la chiesa. rizzoli. giussani, l. (1990). all’origine della pretesa cristiana. rizzoli. guardini, r. (1997). la coscienza. il bene, il raccoglimento. morcelliana. kanitsa, s., & mariani, a. m. (2017). pedagogia generale. pearson. lavadera, a. l., ferracuti, s., & togliatti, m. m. (2012). parental alienation syndrome in italian legal judgments: an exploratory study. international journal of law and psychiatry, 35(4), 334-342. lingiardi, v., & gazzillo, m. (2014). la personalità e i suoi disturbi. raffaello cortina editore. marcuse, h. (1999). l’uomo a una dimensione. introd. di l. gallino. einaudi. marris, p., parkes, c. m., & stevenson-hinde, j. (eds.). (1995). l’attaccamento nel ciclo della vita. il pensiero scientifico. martini, g. (2020). l’identità in questione. saggio di psicanalisi ed ermeneutica. jaca book. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 83 mazzola, m. (2016). alienazione genitoriale e sindrome da alienazione parentale. key editore. montecchi, f. (2016). i figli nelle separazioni conflittuali e nella (cosiddetta) pas. francoangeli. ortu, f., pazzagli, c., & williams, r. (2013). la psicologia contemporanea e la teoria dell’attaccamento. carocci. santelli beccegato, l. (1998). interpretazioni pedagogiche e scelte educative. la scuola. schacter, d. l., & mennella, c. (2001). alla ricerca della memoria. il cervello, la mente e il passato. einaudi. siegel, d. (2001). la mente relazionale. neurobiologia dell’esperienza interpersonali. raffaello cortina editore. tani, f. (2007). i legami d’attaccamento fra normalità e patologia. aspetti teorici e d’intervento. in normalità e patologia dello sviluppo. giunti. watzlawick, p., beavin, j. h., & jackson, d. d. (1971). pragmatica della comunicazione umana. astrolabio. riassunto può esistere una connessione e un parallelismo tra due “luoghi” privilegiati in cui l’educazione viene messa a tema e agita: la famiglia e la comunità religiosa, come luoghi in cui, paradossalmente, lo sviluppo dell’identità può cedere il posto all’alienazione. un filo comune connette tali spazi e interpella la persona che può restare “intrappolata” in relazioni disfunzionali: essa può “perdere” la propria identità “sostituendola” con quella del genitore alienante o del leader religioso. la relazione educativa ha la funzione principale di “formare” l’educando, sia esso bambino o adulto, ma allo stesso modo, anche la società o la comunità, intese come “ambiente esterno”, influenzano continuamente la formazione di un individuo: lo “spazio interiore” è inevitabilmente influenzato dallo “spazio esteriore”, sia esso la madre, le relazioni interpersonali o la società in generale. per questo, incontriamo diverse fonti educative paradigmatiche che fungono da “stimolo” per la formazione umana e che, mentre si pongono come soggetti “educanti”, possono realizzarsi come forze “alienanti”, presentandosi, alla coscienza dell’uomo, spesso in contraddizione l’una con l’altra, segnate, al proprio interno, da una logica paradossale. l’intento di questo studio è, dunque, quello di indagare questo “spazio interiore della coscienza”, quando accade che esso venga “violato” volontariamente o incoscientemente sia da parte di chi lo invade sia da parte di chi “concede” tale invasione. si è di fronte ad un “potere” che, prendendo il posto del “religioso” o della “cura” genitoriale, “imposta” un nuovo legame d’attaccamento, capace di emulare cura o significatività, infondendo in sua vece, disagio, dolore e, infine, alienazione. https://www.ledonline.it/elementa daniela savino elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 1 (2021) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 84 copyright (©) 2021 daniela savino editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: savino, d. (2021). “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 1(1-2), 61-84. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-savi https://www.ledonline.it/elementa https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2021-0102-savi elementa_1-2021-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial pierpaolo limone first section the vagaries of the superego slavoj žižek nature and pandemic ricardo espinoza lolas mask and otherness between recognition and concealment: notes on the self and the you paolo ponzio “liquid” identity and otherness in the phenomenon of religious alienation: the loss of critical thinking and the “barter” of the self in the system of communion daniela savino the sexistential vulnerability of bodies in contact in the philosophy of jean-luc nancy francesca r. recchia luciani second section universal design for learning and inclusive teaching: future perspectives martina rossi a historical account on italian mechanism models marco ceccarelli cyberfeminism: a relationship between cyberspace, technology, and the internet giusi antonia toto 1 alessia scarinci 2 super-ego after freud: a lesson not to be forgotten luigi traetta 1 federica doronzo 2 functioning of declarative memory: intersection between neuropsychology and mathematics federica doronzo 1 gianvito calabrese 2 peer tutoring and scaffolding principle for inclusive teaching giuliana nardacchione guendalina peconio recent extensions of the gift 5 elementa intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 3 (2023) 1-2 the gift edited by francesco fistetti francesco fistetti editorial – what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide 7 first section alain caillé recent extensions of the gift 15 jacques t. godbout the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don 43 francesco fistetti the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” 59 annalisa caputo ricœur, gift and poetics 81 second section andreana lavanga francesco sulla praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers 93 and their students elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives 6 anna daniela savino the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience 105 and theory of attachment various roberta baldini maria grazia mada logrieco the gifted student: gifts and talents development 125 alessandro de santis stefania fantinelli digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation 135 to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis salvatore iuso pia marinaro education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 153 elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 15 recent extensions of the gift alain caillé université paris nanterre (france) doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-caia alaincaille90@gmail.com abstract in this essay, alain caillé reconstructs the “singular history of the mauss (antiutilitarian movement in the social sciences)” from when in early 1980 a group of friends from different disciplines (sociologists, economists, philosophers, etc.) decided to found the “bulletin du mauss” to counter the growing hegemony of utilitarianism and economism in the human sciences and in the philosophical disciplines themselves. the bulletin would initially become the “revue du mauss trimestrielle” from 1988 to 1992 and from 1993 to 2022 the “revue du mauss semestrielle” until its current anglophone extension “mauss international”. the author takes marcel mauss’ definition of the gift as a “total social fact” and explains that the gift paradigm is a “translation operator” in the sense that it is continuously enriched in interaction with existing discourses. the theoretical operation that caillé proposes is to explicate mauss’s discovery by moving from a simple gift paradigm, based on the perspective of simple reciprocity between giver and recipient, to an expanded gift paradigm. in this way, it can dialogue with other paradigms and other currents of thought (theory of recognition, theory of care, theory of human development, etc.). and from here to a conception of the gift as “adonnement”, i.e. the commitment of human subjects to bring something new and unprecedented into the world. keywords: axiomatic of interest; extended gift paradigm; mauss’s epistemological revolution; simple gift paradigm. i am a well-bred boy. i was taught not that “the self is hateful”, as pascal wrote, but that it should not be put forward, and that it is better to listen to others than to talk about oneself. my editor, however, encourages me to talk about myself with this book. i have already published many books, indeed, about thirty, some of which are about giving as well. “what is new elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-caia mailto:alaincaille90@gmail.com https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 16 about this one? why is it particularly important to you”, she asks? the question is legitimate and forces me to come out of my reserve. after all, i am now of a certain age, not to say a definite age, which authorizes me, in the hope of making the reader understand better what is at stake in this work, to briefly retrace the intellectual path i have followed for some fifty years. in retrospect, it seems to me that everything i have tried to think about for half a century (yes, time does fly) stems from my astonishment at the amazing contrast between the two disciplines in which i was trained and which gave me a doctorate, economics on the one hand, and sociology on the other. the certainty that animates the first of these two disciplines, at least for the majority of its representatives, is that human subjects are or must be considered as (more or less) rational calculators whose only aim is to maximize their individual interest. sociology has a much more complex representation of humans. too much so, perhaps. the sociology i favor, that of the classics, is multidisciplinary. when i was 23, i had the good fortune to be appointed as a sociology assistant at the university of caen with claude lefort, the intellectual heir of the famous philosopher maurice merleau-ponty, and himself considered one of the main theorists of democracy and totalitarianism. the sociology we taught at the time was in dialogue with all the disciplines of the human and social sciences, anthropology, philosophy, history, psychoanalysis and political economy. at the crossroads of all these disciplines, one text shone out: marcel mauss’ essay on the gift. fascinating, disconcerting since the gift that he showed his readers with the help of a gigantic wealth of ethnographic materials, the gift that structured archaic societies, hardly resembles what the word gift most often and spontaneously evokes today: a radically disinterested gesture, close to charity or sacrifice. under his pen, it appears on the contrary as a “hybrid” act, charged with ambivalence, disinterested, yes in a sense, but just as much interested, both free and obliged. in any case, it is far from the figure of homo œconomicus that economists hold dear. by generalizing his discovery, i gradually came to the conviction that the gift relation, as analyzed by mauss, is the general form of relationship between human subjects insofar as they intend to consider themselves as persons recognized as such and valued in their singularity. it is an operator of recognition and singularization: i give you this, and not something else, because you are you and not someone else. this is enough to outline a vision of human subjects that is infinitely richer and more powerful, more general in any case, than that which inspires the dominant economic science. if we consider that standard economic science is the crystallization of a utilitarian vision of the world – a vision, to put it briefly, that reduces all questions to a single one: “of what use is it (for me)?” – then it is easy to see how this elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 17 conception of the gift is at the heart of an anti-utilitarian approach to the human and social sciences. “anti-utilitarianism” is the banner under which, with my friends of the mauss (mouvement anti-utilitariste en science sociale), i have led and still lead all my scientific, but also ethical and political, struggles. these, during two or three decades, were seen with a strange eye by my colleagues in various disciplines, most often skeptical and suspicious but for occasional and punctual sympathies. gradually things have changed. an international colloquium organized five years ago at the chateau de cerisy la salle, a high site of intellectual exchange in france, allowed us to take the measure of this change. it brought together a good thirty renowned representatives of the social and human sciences – sociologists, but also anthropologists, philosophers, historians, geographers and economists – all of whom agreed on two crucial points in my view (caillé et al., 2018). (1) the first is the idea that in the humanities and social sciences, disciplinary specializations only have meaning and legitimacy if they are thought of as moments of a generalist social science that is too often lost from view. a generalist social science of which it is urgent to train … specialists (on the model of generalists in medicine). (2) the second point of agreement, to my great and happy surprise i must say, was, even among economists, that the urgency is to overcome the current scientific and political hegemony of economic science, and that this can only be done on anti-utilitarian grounds. but the agreement now reached on anti-utilitarianism does not imply an agreement on what i call the gift paradigm, i.e. on the idea that in order to understand our human and social condition in all its complexity, we must start from (or return to) mauss’ discovery. after all, isn’t it logical to start at the beginning, in other words, with what we know or understand about the way primitive societies function? and this is where i come back to the question of my editor, sylvie fenczak. why is this book important to me? for three sets of reasons. first of all, it seems to me that the conception of gift that i am presenting here has now come to full maturity and that it is worthwhile to make it known in its generality and its coherence to the general public. this conception has been developed little by little, in successive stages, from hypothesis to hypothesis. each step has had its readers but very few of them will have had the time and the availability to follow the path step by step, book after book. and, if i am not mistaken, if the gift is indeed “the general form of the relationship between human subjects insofar as they intend to consider themselves as persons recognized as such and valued in their singularity”, then it is clear that the question of the gift, of its nature and of its modalities, is the most important thing for all of us. and, in fact, i and my friends have noticed that each time we have exposed our reflections to a wide variety of audielementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 18 ences, the general public, associative activists, managers, etc., they have met with an immediate response, as if they were finally putting into words what everyone feels more or less confusedly. this is because the question of the gift touches on life itself. but this book is not only for the general public. it is also intended for my colleagues in the humanities and social sciences. a certain number of them, as i have just said, recognize themselves in anti-utilitarianism. i would now like to try to convince them that the gift paradigm represents to date the most general anti-utilitarian formulation – non-economicist if one prefers – and the one best able to dialogue with a whole set of other existing theoretical constellations, for example the theories of care, or those of the struggle for recognition, pragmatist sociologies, the economics of conventions, connected history, anthropology, etc. none of them, of course, is reducible to the paradigm of the gift, but each can be translated into its language, illuminating and nourishing it in return. this is also true of one of the most promising advances in contemporary sociology, the theory of resonance developed by the german sociologist and philosopher hartmut rosa, already world-famous for his acceleration and now for his latest book, resonance. between the paradigm of the gift and the theory of resonance, there are strong … resonances. but in order to bring them out, to put the paradigm of the gift in effective dialogue with the constellations of thought that i have just named, we must go clearly and resolutely beyond what the discovery of mauss alone allows us to think. it was necessary to make it explicit and to restore it in all its theoretical power against misleading or lazy interpretations. this is what i have done in my previous books on the gift. it was also necessary to show its links with the question of the struggle for recognition. but, beyond that, in order for it to take on its full philosophical or psychological significance, it is necessary not to limit the gift to relations between people and to extend it to the relationship of subjects to life, to nature and to creativity. this is what i propose to do here thanks to the concepts of “donation” and “adonation”. finally, under the name of convivialism, i have been trying for some years to contribute to the elaboration of a common language, at the same time theoretical, ethical and political, that can be shared by alternative intellectuals and civic activists of very diverse origins and ideological sensibilities. the convivialist manifesto, published in 2013, which sets out a whole series of points of agreement, translated into a dozen languages, is now beginning to be known and appreciated in many circles. it is the result of collective writing. but a number of its central theses are inspired by the gift paradigm. convivialists will find here the main lines of an anthropology, of a vision of the human being, quite different from those that still elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 19 inspire the majority of existing political projects. without an alternative anthropology, no other politics will be possible. as i finish this foreword, i tell myself that yes, this book is important to me. more than all my previous ones, indeed. 1. introduction to extensions of the gift domain for nearly forty years now, the authors gathered around the revue du mauss (mouvement anti-utilitariste en sciences sociales) have been working, each in their own way, to develop all the implications of the discovery made by marcel mauss in his famous essay on the gift (1925), probably the most important text in the history of the social sciences as well as moral and political philosophy. this discovery could be summarized in a few words: social relationships are created and maintained by entering into the dynamics of what mauss called the triple obligation of giving, receiving and returning. all this time, we have not ceased to be astonished and to marvel that this thesis, so simple in appearance, gives us so much to see, to think, to observe and to understand. however, we must now try to go beyond mauss’ discovery while at the same time remaining faithful to it. this is what the present book proposes to do. but before explaining why and how, it will perhaps be useful to present a brief history of the journal la revue du mauss, because it is unique and provides a good illustration of the fecundity of the spirit of the gift, of the “spirit of the given thing”, of its hau. this hau, explained by the māori sage ranapiri in a famous passage of the essay on the gift, that has become one of the most widely known and discussed concepts in the whole history of anthropology. 2. the unique history of mauss the history of mauss begins in a modest way. in 1980, gérald berthoud, professor of anthropology at the university of lausanne, and i, then assistant professor of sociology at the university of caen, attended a conference on the gift. we were surprised to find that almost none of the participants, economists, philosophers or psychoanalysts, referred to mauss, and that for all of them, the gift could only be an illusion, since – as seemed obvious to them – only personal interest, more or less hidden, guides our actions. for my part, i was astonished at the same time by the economicist and individualist trends (one spoke at that time of “methodological individualism”) that were affecting the social sciences, biology and political philosophy. we elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 20 then decided, with a few friends from various disciplines, to create a sort of liaison bulletin between those who shared our surprise and concern. we called it bulletin du mauss, which allowed us to kill two birds with one stone by criticizing, on the one hand, utilitarianism, which seemed to us to be the matrix of the economic drift we were denouncing, and, on the other hand, to pay homage to marcel mauss. without having the slightest awareness of it at the time, when we were only thinking of resisting economism with the means at hand, it was a powerful research program that entailed both a critical aspect – challenging utilitarianism and economism – and a constructive dimension (the elaboration of what we were going to call, some fifteen years later, “the gift paradigm”). the means at our disposal were, to say the least, very limited, and they have remained so. without the symbolic and financial support of any institution or research laboratory, we had to do everything by ourselves. the articles that we published in the bulletin du mauss were simply photocopied, those that we wrote were typed on old typewriters that made stencils, we designed the covers (which did not last very long) with … decals, and the whole was printed in offset. i was helped in this by three young doctoral students in economics, rigas arvanitis, cengiz aktar and ahmet insel who distributed copies in the bookshops of the latin quarter. rigas, who has since become more of a sociologist than an economist, was until 2020 the director of the ird (institut de recherche pour le développement). cengiz, professor at the bahçesehir university of istanbul, closed by erdogan’s government, is in turkey the best known advocate of accession to the european union. ahmet, former vice-president of the university of paris i, creator of the franco-turkish university of galatasaray, is the main columnist of the famous newspaper cumhurryet, whose managing team is currently in prison. both of them, together with three other well-known turkish intellectuals, are behind the request for an apology to the armenians for the genocide they suffered. both are now banned from entering turkey. curiously, m. thorel, the person in charge of the social science and philosophy departments of the puf bookstore on the place de la sorbonne, took a liking to us and deposited stacks of our review near the cash register. despite the cobbled-together appearance, which was puzzling even at the time, we were quickly read by a number of academics, particularly foreigners, who were intrigued, and wanted to see what was happening in france. from the very first issue we received the support of two great names in social science, who had sympathized with the declaration of intent published in our first issue: the economist albert hirschman and the philosopher charles taylor. good fairies, we surmise, had bent over our improvised cradle. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 21 a few years later, we had gained enough of an audience for the publisher la découverte to offer to take us under their wing. thus began a second period of the journal. the bulletin became la revue du mauss, which appeared from 1988 to 1992 with a mouse-gray cover, and a much larger circulation. it was necessary to become serious, and this was fortunate – even if some regretted it – because the number of authors who were sympathetic to the journal increased considerably. so much so that it became tempting to publish their books. that’s when we had to revise our agreement with our publisher. in 1993, while continuing to benefit from distribution through the la découverte network and under its label, we thus resumed our autonomy, assuming all the production costs of both the journal – which became la revue semestrielle du mauss – and the collection of “la bibliothèque du mauss” (the mauss library), which was then launched and would go on to publish nearly seventy titles – and still counting. what is interesting in this history, and why i thought it appropriate to point out some of its highlights, is that this scientific adventure developed without any institutional support. i don’t think there is any other example. if we have been able to hold on until now without deviating from the initial project, it is because it was not merely technical. the critique of economism, the reflection on the power but also the dangers and ambivalences of the gift, all this speaks to many people who very quickly perceive what is at stake ethically, existentially and politically. this is what allowed us to reach a financial viability, obviously very precarious, but in the end sufficient to survive until now despite some delicate moments. the other side of the coin, the downside, has been, for a long time, a certain academic invisibility. as we did not belong to any particular discipline – anthropology, economics, sociology, philosophy, etc. – but to all of them, and as we did not claim to belong to any of the established schools (we even criticized them), it was almost forbidden to mention us in these different fields. and since we had no institutional identity, we did not fit into the usual identification systems, so people wondered what was behind it all. some of the criticisms that were addressed to us (and occasionally still are) were of a rare indigence. they seemed to think – or pretended to – that since we were criticizing what i have called the axiomatics of interest – the monism of the explanation by interest – it was because we believed that human relations were based on charity and altruism. they were strangely oblivious of the fact that the gift studied by mauss is an “agonistic gift”, a kind of war by the gift. a war that allows us to avoid war and conflict, but which nevertheless contains violence. gradually, however, suspicions have dissipated, and criticisms have become rarer. even if, seen from the heart of each particular discipline, elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 22 the journal remains largely a uso, an unidentified scientific object, it now enjoys fairly general respect and esteem. what is it that earns us this attention, even though we still have no means and no institutional support that would guarantee us a principled academic legitimacy? there are three factors which, i believe, are complementary: first of all, since we do not depend on any school or any established organization, we do not appear to be a threat to anybody. symmetrically, the magazine has always chosen a radical pluralism, opening its pages to all opinions, including those most opposed to its own, betting that one can only progress by confronting opponents who must be considered to have the strongest arguments, and not by insulting them, or by pretending not to know them. finally, and this is the decisive point i wanted to get to and which justifies this detour through the history of the mauss, the paradigm of the gift – the theorization in social science and in political philosophy resulting from the discovery of mauss – does not contest the legitimacy of any particular school of thought. each one seems to us to express a part of the truth and helps us understand effectively a dimension of human and social reality. but none of them makes room, or only in a very insufficient and debatable way, for the question of the gift, which is nevertheless essential if, as we said at the outset, social relationships are created and maintained by the gift. to each of the existing approaches or schools in the social sciences we say: yes, what you see and what you show is interesting, but wouldn’t it be even more interesting if you widened your field of vision to include the gift? and, by putting on the tinted glasses of the gift, wouldn’t you be led to have further insights into whatever you thought you had perfectly identified? the paradigm of the gift, on the other hand, does not claim to possess any particular a priori truth. the gift, as discovered by mauss, constitutes what he called a “total social phenomenon”. the concept, it is true, is uncertain and open to discussion. let us simply agree that the archaic gift mixes dimensions at the same time economic, political, social and symbolic. i was saying just now that the various schools of the social sciences (and humanities) miss the essential reality of the gift. but, conversely, the paradigm of the gift would remain impotent if it did not rely on them. let us say, therefore, that it functions as an operator of translation. or, rather, it develops its own discourse, but this discourse is constantly enriched by the translation it makes of other already existing discourses. in another field, that of political philosophy, one could say that convivialism, resulting from the reflections carried out within mauss, is inspired by the same logic. it presents itself as an operator of translation, but also of actualization and sursomption (auhfhebung) of liberalism, socialism, communism and anarelementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 23 chism. as an operator of translation, both actualizing and reaching beyond liberalism, etc.? in order to accomplish this work of translation, however, so that the paradigm of the gift functions as a shuttle that allows us to weave together discourses or approaches to which it might seem foreign, we must go beyond mauss’ initial discovery to give it sufficient generality. it is necessary to proceed to extending the domain of the gift. and that is the whole purpose of this book. 3. which gift? such an extension cannot take place without an indispensable clarification of the term “gift” itself. few words, in fact, are as full of multiple meanings, ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty, few carry as many expectations and hopes, or, on the contrary, disdain and rejection, as the “gift”. perhaps none. yet, or precisely for this reason, it is indeed from here that we must start if we want to grasp some of the central questions of moral and political philosophy, or of social science, without letting ourselves be discouraged by their infinite fragmentation into rival doctrines, disciplines and sub-disciplines. and to understand, more generally and more simply, the questions that we face in everyday life, the questions of life itself. but is it on the word or on the practices of the gift that we must concentrate? one will be tempted by the latter, to grant primacy to the practice over the word, as the word does not exist in all languages. not, in any case, with the same breadth of meaning as that found in indo-european languages. but how can we observe the thing, the practices of giving, if we do not have a word that allows us to identify them by distinguishing them from those that do not have to do with giving? it is therefore essential, in order to break out of this circle, to start trying to see the uses of the word “gift” with some clarity. in french, as the linguist lucien tesnière pointed out, donner (to give) is, along with the verb dire (to say), the typical example of a “trivalent” verb, that is, a verb that necessarily puts three “actants”, in relation to each other, the giver, the receiver and the object given (tesnière, 1959; meng, 2015; descombes, 2017). in french, we can give so many things – from the most precious gifts to the most violent blows, life, birth or death, a piece of flank steak at the butcher’s, a baguette at the baker’s, a kick or a hand, hope or regret, to see or to think, etc. – that “to give” plays a role that is almost as important as “to have” or “to be”. but, beyond the syntactic functions of the verb, one cause of the profusion of meanings attached to elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 24 the word “gift” is, of course, the crucial role it has played throughout the history of christianity, a history of which we are the heirs, whether we like it or not. christianity obliges believers to give (and to give themselves). to give out of love, without calculation, without expectation of return, in such a way that, as the gospel according to saint matthew says, “the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing”. with this injunction, giving appears to be simultaneously the effect, the mark and the proof of love. the gift and love thus seem indissolubly linked. just as it is sometimes said (especially in the anglo-saxon world) that there is no friendship but only proofs of friendship, one could say that for christianity only the gift bears witness to the reality of love. but what kind of love? we know that it is mainly through greek that the gospels and the words of christ circulated in antiquity. the greek language distinguishes three varieties of what we understand by love: eros, which is of the order of desire, philia, which is of the order of shared and reciprocal friendship, and agape, which designates unconditional and asymmetrical love, that of, as christianity would say, god towards his ungrateful children. a love all the more beautiful and properly divine, moreover, since the children do not deserve it in any way. what model of love should the church or the religious authorities encourage? agape alone, or agape with a touch of philia, or even a touch of eros? it is around this question that many of the great theological debates that have taken place over the centuries have revolved. in the field of catholicism, it is in the 17th century, in france, with the quarrel known as “pure love”, that the debate was the most lively. taking over peacefully, in a way, the debates on the nature and conditions of grace that had fueled the wars of religion and the related massacres in the previous century, it opposed the two greatest preachers of the time, fénelon (1651-1715) and bossuet (1627-1704). should one love god for his own sake or with a view to gaining heaven through a love for which god would be grateful? one must love him for himself, and without any personal interest, answered madame guyon, a mystic supported at the court of louis xiv by his pious mistress, madame de maintenon. yes, but how to be assured of the purity of this love? by what one could call a test of love that madame guyon presents under the name “impossible supposition”. “let us suppose”, she wrote, “that god has damned me for eternity, i should nevertheless love him with all my soul”. to which, at the risk of contradicting saint augustine (whom he defends too and following whom there are only very few predestined elected), bossuet answered by attempting to reconcile self-interested love of oneself and disinterested love of god. he affirmed that to desire one’s salvation is to respond to the purpose for which god created us; eternal beatitude. in elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 25 short, we must love god because he only wants our good (terestchenko, 2000). he therefore wants us to be concerned about ourselves. at the same time, however, the discussion changed its meaning and nature by placing at the root of all human actions not the obligation of love but the sinister reality of interest (hirschman, 1977). behind the most apparently noble sentiments, the jansenist “gentlemen” of the abbey of port-royal, wanted to see only vanity and self-love at work. “the self is hateful”, wrote pascal, their disciple, who explained that the best calculation of interest, the most profitable, is to believe in god. in the same vein, la rochefoucauld (1613-1680), the most forceful and best known of those who would later be called the french moralists, wrote, in the first sentence of the first edition of his maxims: self-love is the love of oneself, and of all things for oneself; it makes men idolaters of themselves and would make them tyrants of others if fortune gave them the means […] it lives everywhere and it lives on everything; it lives on nothing […] and, as long as it is, it is willing to be its enemy. [and he specified:] interest is the soul of self-love. but already hobbes (1588-1679) in england, in his famous leviathan, which can rightly be considered to be the matrix of all modern political philosophy, had developed even darker views on human nature: the passions which, more than all the others, cause differences of mind, are principally the desire, more or less great, for power, riches, knowledge and honor. but all these desires can be reduced to the first, that is to say, to the desire for power. for wealth, knowledge and honor are but various kinds of power. or again: thus i put in the first place, as a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and unceasing desire to acquire power after power, a desire which ceases only at death. for two or three centuries, the exchanges between the french and the english, soon joined by the germans, would continue on this theme, inaugurating what the writer nathalie sarraute would rightly call the era of suspicion. a suspicion that will affect all spheres of social or individual existence, all our acts and thoughts, always to be accused of impurity and conscious or, more likely, unconscious hypocrisy. its great masters will be marx, nietzsche and freud. and the object of suspicion par excellence will be the gift, and its supposed correlates, love, altruism, generosity, disinterestedness, etc. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 26 4. political economy and sociology the social sciences for their part were born in the same space of general suspicion that had been in place since hobbes and the french moralists. at the end of the 18th century for political economy, at the beginning of the 19th century for sociology. we can see perfectly what is at stake with this birth of the social sciences from the first pages of adam smith’s the wealth of nations (1776), which is generally considered to be the first book of scientific economics: when a man has no other means of engaging them (his fellow men) to act according to his inclinations, (he) endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. he has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. in civilized society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. what is targeted here, in this denunciation of “servile attentions”, is the totality of the relations of gift and return through which one makes friends. not only are these relations vile, we debase ourselves by cultivating them, but they take time. a lifetime would not be enough. the economic science that was born at that time was thus presented as the scientific invention that would allow us to save time. this time, which we have known since benjamin franklin, is money. but what is less well known is that to save it, what must be saved first, or even eliminated, is the gift. this marks the end of all the questions about the different types of gift – or love – possible, about their combinations and their earthly or cosmic destiny, about what they can bring us here below or postmortem. it is a social order freed from all transcendence that will have to be built. it will obey only one motive, only one watchword: interest. the individual interest or the sum of the individual interests whose composition will allow, according to the formula of jeremy bentham (1748-1832), the pope of utilitarian doctrine, to lead to the “greatest happiness of the greatest number”. the canonical formula of the new purpose for the world is given by smith at the very beginning, again, of the wealth of nations: it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the beer merchant, and the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. we address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love; and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. if we look closely, this formulation is not nearly as original and innovative as is often said. three centuries before christ, the chinese philosopher of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 27 the legalist school, han-fei-tse, had already written, in opposition to the confucians: if a doctor sucks the boils […] of his patients, without being related to them, it is because he has an interest in doing so […]. the carpenter (who makes coffins) does not hate his fellow human beings, he only has an interest in their death. (han-fei-ttse, 1999) or again: altruism excites hatred: self-interest ensures harmony. animosity and conflicts set parents and children against each other, whereas it is enough to give fat broth to one’s workers to be well served. (p. 23) and, finally: a prince maintains his subordinates by calculation, as they serve him by calculation. thus, the common basis of their relationship is calculation […]. calculation is therefore the only link between prince and subject. (p. 23) conversely, adam smith was much less of a champion of the rule of interest than is generally claimed. in his theory of moral sentiments, written before and revised after the wealth of nations, he places at the heart of human relations not interest but “sympathy”, which today we would call empathy. nevertheless, from this period, a new era begins, which even before becoming the era of suspicion will prove to be the era of the domination of the economy over all the other dimensions of social existence that had seemed primordial until then: religion, political power and the person-toperson links sealed by gift relationships, whether in the domain of solidarity and loyalty or that of subjugation to hierarchical superiors, nobles or priests. it is a society without gifts, without religion and without political power that is beginning to be invented. its only regulator and its only cement would have to be in principle material interest however it is calculated. is such a society, in which only individual interest would reign, viable? no, answers sociology, whose beginnings are classically traced back to saint-simon (1760-1825), father of saint-simonism, so important for the industrialization of france, and to his disciple auguste comte, inventor of the term “sociology”. from the beginning, sociology has seen itself as the other of economic science, both its double and its rival. from political economy it borrows the aim of a purely objective and scientific analysis of social relations. but it objects that these cannot and should not be reduced to market relations alone, and that human subjects are infinitely more complex than the sad and poor figure of homo œconomicus, on which the whole edifice of standard economic science rests (laval, 2002). of course, each of elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 28 the great names of the sociological tradition, tocqueville, marx, durkheim, weber, etc., will say this in a particular way, and with a different political aim: liberalism for tocqueville or weber, communism for marx, republican socialism for durkheim. but this opposition to economic reductionism, shared, supported and developed, in their great majority, by historians as well as philosophers and ethnologists, will remain a constant of the discipline and of the whole of the social sciences until the 1970s and 1980s. what happened then? a profound change in the relationship between the various social science disciplines. in those years, economists, who for two centuries had limited their object of study to market relations alone, began to apply their explanatory models to all social activities, to the family, to education, to politics, to religion, and so on. to put it another way, they set out to generalize the model of homo œconomicus and to turn economic science into the general social science that sociology, despite its initial ambitions, had failed to become. to do this, it is enough to state that in all our social, family, romantic, and professional relationships, we behave in all circumstances, consciously or unconsciously, as buyers and sellers, eager to buy at the best price and to sell at the highest possible price, even if we do not pay and are not paid always and everywhere in money, but in love, power, or prestige. 5. marcel mauss’ “essay on the gift” and mauss: a middle way what surprised us then – flabbergasted us – my friends and i, who were going to create in 1981 la revue du mauss (mouvement anti-utilitariste en sciences sociales), was that this claim of the economists for hegemony met with broad support everywhere in the other social sciences. everywhere, whether in sociology, in political philosophy, in biology (but less so in history or ethnology), the language of the economists, the theory of rational choice, alias the rational action theory, was being spoken. or, more generally, what i have called the axiomatics of interest. the most influential book of the end of the 20th century in political philosophy, john rawls’ theory of justice (1971), for example, is written entirely in this language. in a few years, this upheaval in the division of intellectual labor was to be followed by globalization, i.e.serial deregulations, the worldwide reign of markets and today, increasingly, that of financial and speculative markets. if we are only economic people, nothing should prevent us from trying to earn as much money as possible, by all possible means, as quickly as possible. that alone is important. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 29 the revue du mauss has prioritized the scientific resistance to this economist groundswell  1. it is based, first and foremost, on the famous essay on the gift (1925), by marcel mauss, disciple and intellectual heir of émile durkheim, the primary inspiration of all french scientific ethnology. two lessons from mauss, among many others, are absolutely essential for any serious academic struggle against the axiomatics of interest. the first is that “man has not always been an economic animal, coupled with a calculating machine”. the second is that early societies (let us call them that) were not based on the market or on contracts but on what mauss calls the triple obligation of giving, receiving and returning. in short, let us say that they were based on giving. on the gift? how many misunderstandings and counter-understandings, more or less well meaning, emerged around this question? how many lawsuits of intent have we had to endure for recalling mauss’ essential empirical discovery! it is because at the time the very word “gift” had become almost unpronounceable, almost obscene. pierre bourdieu and a good part of the left denounced the ideology of the gift in the field of education for a start. (in another sense, it is true, of the word “gift”, but which we shall see is not completely unrelated to the first.) since we criticized the academic omnipresence of the axiomatics of interest, we were thought to believe, as i have already said, that we could explain human action by love and altruism (lordon, 2006). that we were advocating a return to charity, or something of the kind. a few years later, in the opposite direction, by a sort of pendulum swing, we witnessed in the early 1990s a return in force of reflection on the gift in the philosophical field. and, more precisely, within the framework of the phenomenological tradition, inaugurated by husserl and extended by heidegger. strangely enough, this philosophical return of the gift made it almost as unthinkable as its exclusion or repression. in order to give full scope to mauss’ discovery, we had to fight on two fronts, facing a double problem with the gift. the first is easily identifiable. it results from the omnipresence of the axiomatics of interest, which dominated the whole of economics, of course, but also a large part of sociology, 1 which, since the years 2000-2010, no longer presents itself exactly in the way i have just described, in a few words briefly and therefore in an excessively crude mannerrather broadly. the dominant language in social science or in moral and political philosophy is no longer that of rational choice theory, the lingua franca of economists, but that of deconstructionism or deconstructivism. it is about showing that everything is “constructed” and therefore deconstructable at will. it is not difficult, however, to see the elective affinities between homo œconomicus and homo deconstructivus; marx and engels said it perfectly in the communist manifesto. under the rule of the market, “all that is solid melts into air”. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 30 biology (via sociobiology in particular), a branch of psychoanalysis, etc. if everything can be explained by interest, then the very idea of the gift vanishes. the gift can only be a mask of interest, conscious or unconscious, a way of “winning the good graces (of others) by flattery and servile attentions”, according to adam smith. but the phenomenological rehabilitation of the gift, radically opposed in appearance to the axiomatics of interest, was also to lead, under the guise of aiming to release the pure essence of the gift, to the conclusion that it cannot be of this world. “if i give, then i do not give”, wrote the worldfamous champion of “deconstruction”, the philosopher jacques derrida, meaning that if i know that i give, i see myself giving and derive glory or narcissistic satisfaction from it. i have an interest in it and, since i am interested in it, i am not a real donor. the gift thus appears for him as “the figure of the impossible” (derrida, 1991). did mauss believe he had seen the gift in the first society? he was mistaken, said derrida. there is no gift because there is a return, in the practices described by mauss, and this return is expected or hoped for. what mauss took for a gift is only an exchange. the true gift, to be such, should be absolutely disinterested, without intention, close to sacrifice. another well-known philosopher, jean-luc marion, went further (marion, 1997), explaining that for there to be a gift (by which he means a “true” gift), there must be neither a subject who gives, nor an object given, nor a recipient of the gift. we will quickly understand the reason for such a disconcerting and, in fact, discouraging statement. to fully assess mauss’ essential discovery, it is necessary to extricate oneself from a double “inexistentialism” (i borrow this useful term from marcel gauchet), from the two symmetrical statements which affirm that the gift does not exist. the first, which reduces the gift to one form or another of exchange, to a purchase; the second, which, returning to the doctrine of pure love, sees it to be a gift only where there is a radical sacrifice of the interests of the donor, and/or unconsciousness. and, therefore, does not want to see it anywhere. it is important, however, to understand the reasons for the blunder of such sharp minds as derrida or marion (a blunder that was also partly made by that of the one we cancould call the second levinas). on a strictly conceptual level, and if we do not stop at the ethical or political motivations of the one or the other, it is due to a confusion between “gift” and “donation”, and also between “interest” (intérêt) and “interestedness” (intéressement). confusion that applies to both inexistentialisms. because one cannot obviously accomplish anything without any interest in what he one does, both discourses wrongly conclude to the impossibility of disinterestedness, of acting without a material or purely narcissistic interest. let elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 31 us put it another way and say with amartya sen that one can be a rational fool. the german philosophical concept of gegebenheit, translated into philosophical french as donation, accounts for the fact that “there is something rather than nothing”, that this something is there, as if it had been given, given by nobody to nobody in particular but given all the same, and that it must therefore be considered to be a gift. this conceptualization is made possible, and almost self-evident, by the fact that in german, “there is” is said es gibt, “it gives”. within this framework of thought it is obviously possible, and tempting for some, to imagine a great subject of the gift: god or an equivalent of god. but, as the physicist laplace said to napoleon, “we don’t need this hypothesis”, and everyone is free here to use it or not. our phenomenologists abusively apply to the gift, that is to say to a relation between subjects, what could only be valid for donation, that is to say a relation without subjects. a fatal misunderstanding. which does not prevent us from making use of this notion of donation in a more reasonable way. but before that, we must be interested in the gift itself, and study it in its human, very human, existence, without dissolving it either into barter, exchange, contract and market, on the one hand, or into charity, altruism, sacrifice or donation, on the other. it is to this task that la revue du mauss was going to address itself. it is impossible to summarize here what has been thought and discovered through the more than fifteen hundred articles published since 1981, many of them rather long and substantial. without counting the seventy or so books published in the framework of the collection “bibliothèque du mauss”. around the journal formed a whole informal international nebula of teachers, researchers, economists, anthropologists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, essayists, and other free and unclassifiable authors. some of them are directly sensitive to the attempt to draw out all the implications of mauss’ discoveries (or of authors in strong consonance with them, karl polanyi, hannah arendt, cornelius castoriadis, claude lefort, andré gorz, marshall sahlins, jan huizinga, rené girard, louis dumont, etc.), others were simply attracted by a reputation for intellectual quality and respect for pluralism. of the “gift paradigm’ that has gradually emerged from this work, of this commitment to observing social relations by asking how the triple obligation to give, receive and return functions in a specific way each time, i will only consider here a few elements. mauss explained that the terms used in the essay on the gift, “present, gift, donation, are not themselves entirely accurate”, and immediately added: “we cannot find any other, that’s all” (mauss, 1966, p. 267). uncertain about the right name, he speaks sometimes of exchange-gift, elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 32 sometimes of gift-exchange to make us understand that the practices of the gift do exist within the framework of what it is possible to call the first societies (sociétés premières), and that they are not reducible either to exchange and barter, or to radical disinterestedness. neither to egoism nor to altruism, if we prefer. there is a sui generis reality of the gift that cannot be explained by anything other than itself. what inspires the gift is “neither the purely free and purely gratuitous service, nor that of the purely interested production and exchange of the useful”. and he concludes: “it is a kind of hybrid that has blossomed there” (mauss, 1966, p. 267). this is a way out of many of the quarrels about the essence of the gift. the gift is not made unconsciously, without expectation of return. one hopes that the person to whom one has given will give back, or rather will give in turn (to oneself or to another), but one is by no means certain of that. it is this dimension of uncertainty and gamble, this margin of play that characterizes the gift between human subjects. the gift is not free, but there is a dimension or a share of gratuity within it, if only in the form of a margin of play between giving, receiving and returning. let’s be more precise. at the same time gift and exchange, exchange and gift, the gift as analyzed by mauss, the agonistic gift, comprises a part of unconditionality and a part of conditionality, of giving and receiving, of do ut des. a part of unconditionality since it accepts the risk that the other does not give back. one is not obliged to give in turn, or only indirectly. it is this dimension of unconditionality that seals the alliance. for the gift is a covenant operator. it is what makes us friends rather than enemies. in this sense, far from charity, which will only appear much later, in its wake, with the birth of the great universalist religions, it is a properly political act. but if in the alliance one does not feel right, if, within the framework of the founding unconditionality, one of the parties feels wronged, then one begins to review one’s accounts so as to work it out and to settle the score. the regime of the gift is thus neither that of strict unconditionality put forward by the supporters of pure love or pure gift, nor that of the general conditionality which only those who stick to the axiomatics of interest want to know. it is that of conditional unconditionality (caillé, 2000 [2006]). or again, it obeys neither the sole interest for oneself nor the sole interest for others (“lovingness”). made within the framework of an obligation, the social obligation to give, receive and return, it manifests its strength, its effectiveness, its power, only if it testifies to the freedom and creativity of the giver and if it leaves the receiver the freedom in return to give back or not to give back. to give back sooner or later, equally, on parity, or in subtly differing amountsless or more, etc. in the gift, as in any human action, there are four primary motives, organized in two crossed elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 33 pairs: interest for oneself (intérêt pour soi) and interest for others, (intérêt pour autrui) on the one hand, obligation and freedom-creativity (libercréativité ) on the other (caillé, 2009). this maussian conception of the gift provides an assured starting point, both empirically founded and sufficiently clarified (in all its ambiguity), for both empirical research in the social sciences and analyses developed in the field of moral and political philosophy. to the former, it gives to see a social state in which law, economy, politics, religion, kinship and sociality are not yet disjointed and where the gift manifests itself as what mauss calls a total social phenomenon (or fact). to moral and political philosophy it offers the possibility of considering a kind of original state of morality – what mauss presented as “the rock of eternal morality” – and of politics. but what does this have to do with contemporary societies? one of the great advances made by the mauss is to have shown that far from representing a residual phenomenon, limited to christmas or birthday gifts, for example, giving is still very much present today within the framework of primary sociality, the set of person-to-person relationships in which, from the family to friendship or the world of small groups, the personality of people matters more than what they do (godbout & caillé, 2000). and that even in the sphere of impersonal and functional relations which are, in theory, those which govern the world of secondary sociality (of the market, of business, of administrations, of science, etc.), where functional efficiency matters more than the personality of the persons who perform them, as the functions are in reality always accomplished by concrete persons it is largely the quality of the relations of gift and counter-gift which bind them that is the determinant of their functional effectiveness (alter, 2009; caillé & grésy, 2014). from this discovery it is possible to deploy the paradigm of the gift in the most varied fields, from medicine to business, from sport to the family or the world of voluntary associations, etc. (chanial, 2008). 6. from the simple gift paradigm to the extended gift paradigm to give it its full scope, however, mauss’ discovery must first of all be clarified, made explicit and completed, but also extended and generalized. particularly attentive to the richness and complexity of social realities, mauss was excessively suspicious of all speculative conceptualizations. an enemy of misplaced abstractions, he is nevertheless a theorist of extraordinary scope, but many of his theories remain implicit, as if buried under the elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 34 abundance of factual material. part of the work of mauss has consisted in making fully visible and explicit a whole set of mauss’ theses, that were never clearly stated as such or not fully developed. such is the case, for example, of the link between the gift and the struggle for recognition. that through agonistic giving, the rivalry to give, (which is the subject of the essay on giving), what is sought is recognition, appears as obvious in many passages of the essay. by giving, i recognize the value of the donee (or his clan) and at the same time i affirm my own value (or that of my clan). but the evidence for this must be clearly formulated in order to ensure that the reflection on the gift is related to all the literature, so important today, which deals with the struggle for recognition. and, reciprocally, to enrich this debate, initiated in the wake of hegel by thinkers such as charles taylor, axel honneth or nancy fraser, by showing how recognition is primarily recognition of a gift (or a donation). in the same way, one should not hesitate to go beyond mauss’ proposal where it is clearly incomplete. this is the case with the theme of the triple obligation to give, receive and return. to have identified and named it represents a real scientific feat on the part of mauss, which allows us to understand how, in the course of our existence, we find ourselves caught up in multiple networks of giving, in which we are alternately donors, indebted receivers, or donors in return, more or less freed from our debt of gratitude. but, on reflection, it soon becomes clear that this cycle could not function if it were not animated by a fourth moment (which largely escapes the register of social obligation because it refers to the fragility of the individual subject), the moment of the demand, whether this demand has been formulated explicitly or simply anticipated – guessed at – by the donor. what sense would there be in a gift that did not respond to any desire, to any need, yearning or expectation of the donee? the complete cycle of the gift is therefore that of asking (or demanding), giving, receiving and returning (dgrr). but this is the cycle that takes place when everything goes well, i.e. when the gift functions as a shuttle braiding together all the threads that link the social actors together. let us call it the symbolic cycle of giving, taking up the etymology of the word symbol: that which brings together. this symbolic cycle, however, exists only through its victory, often precarious and always to be renewed, over the opposite cycle, the diabolical cycle (which separates) of ignoring, taking, refusing, keeping (itrk). with this precision, we begin to have an appreciable number of elements of a basic grammar of social relations (caillé & grésy, 2018). all of this is fully thinkable within the framework of what might be called the simple gift paradigm, which rests on the perspective of a norm of parity, or simple reciprocity between givers and recipients. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 35 in order for the gift not to hurt or destroy the recipient, rather than benefiting him or her, the recipient must be able to become a donor in turn. this is perhaps the primary lesson of the essay on the gift. but if we want the gift paradigm to be able to enter fully into a fruitful dialogue with other paradigms or currents of thought in philosophy and social science, or better, to appear as their greatest common denominator, the one in which – i hope – all are likely to be translated, and derive more clarity from it, then we need to switch from a simple gift paradigm to an extended gift paradigm. in order to bring the theories of the struggle for recognition into dialogue with the theories of giving, it does not seem essential to leave the simple gift paradigm, even if its extension brings new insights. however, it is impossible to remain with a notion of simple reciprocity if we want to enter into resonance with, for example, the theories of care, which are so important in contemporary discussions, and all the more so since, beyond the reflections on the relationship of care, solicitude or attention to others, care thinking orients the feminist debate in particular onto new paths: why and how are women traditionally assigned to care giving? the connection with the question of gift is obvious here. even if some authors, precisely in order to avoid the assignment of women to what alienates them, try to think of care as work, it is clear, assuming that it can indeed be understood as work, that care can only be effective, helpful or curative, if it includes a dimension of gift. but this dimension of gift cannot be apprehended in a logic of simple reciprocity. what can the newly born child give back? even more, what gift in return can we expect from a sick person at the end of his or her life, from an insane person or a bedridden old person, etc. (chanial, 2012)? the gift of care to them does not, however, lead one to leave the register of the maussian gift, if one accepts to reason in terms of a generalized reciprocity. in such cases, what i give to those who are in no condition to ever be able to give back to me, i can hope that it will be given back to me by others if i find myself in the same situation as they are. this is a first extension of the domain of the gift. this extension is insufficient, however, to begin to think about a whole series of other phenomena, which are nonetheless crucially important. do sportsmen and women, for example, at the time of a great match, not say that they have given their all, that they have “given everything”? but the same is true of the activity of the fervent artist or the austere scientist, of the craftsman or the simple employee who “gives himself ” to his task, of the entrepreneur, the farmer or the executive who does not count their hours. and so on. all these implications are forms of a generosity that is not, or not directly, a gift to others. this is another type of gift. a gift to elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 36 the task at hand, to creativity, to the movement of life itself (raynal, 2016). to becoming. i propose to speak of “adonation” (adonnement) 2 to designate this commitment to what the philosopher hannah arendt classified under the register of action, the capacity to make something new happen, something never seen, never heard, by which the capacity of humans to show themselves to others in their singularity, to become subjects, is manifested. pierre bourdieu used the term illusio to designate more or less the same idea, but the use of such a term made sure to miss its object from the outset. the term illusio was intended to replace (most likely following criticism by mauss) the reference to interest, omnipresent in the first bourdieu. he wanted to signify that one cannot engage in a given field of activity without being caught up in the game, without being in ludum (in the game). but the term illusio implies from the outset that all action is illusory. abandoning the rhetoric of interest without having made the indispensable distinction between interest for (l’intérêt pour, the passionate interest) and interest in (l’intérêt à, the instrumental interest), or between interest and interestment, he reconduces the idea that any interest for an activity whatever it be is in the last instance only the mask of an instrumental interest. jansenism not dead. “the wind adonates (adonne), speaking of a sailing ship, when it turns in a direction favorable to travel, that is, when it comes more to the rear”, the french dictionary of maritime terms tells us. we sail, we go forward when a favorable wind pushes us. but where does this wind come from? when was it born? what is its nature? it results from a gift, you might say. a gift for painting, for music, for mathematics, for soccer, tennis, skiing, for whatever. this is a new meaning of the word gift. we must take seriously the similarities with the maussian gift, as the poet-philosopher lewis hyde makes clear about the artist’s gift (hyde, 1979). the artist is only fully such (at least before the appearance of artist-speculators) when he knows how to relate to the gift he has received in the same way that in early society, it was necessary to know how to return a precious good, with a surplus and above all not to keep it for oneself. one can wonder at leisure about the origin of such gifts. but in one way or another, we can see that they refer us to a dimension of life that exceeds the sole field of intersubjective social relations, of the gift between humans. starting with life itself, and all that accompanies it, the energy, 2 the word adonation does not exist in english, but neither does the word adonnement in french, where is only used the verb s’adonner. the best translation would be “dedication”, but i think it is useful to elaborate a semantic field as coherent as possible between gift (don), donation (gegebenheit), adonation (adonnement) and donativity. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 37 the rhythm, the grace or its lack, the graceful or its absence. and, following them, charisma, inspiration, power, etc. it is here that we must reappropriate the concept of donation by putting it back on its feet, as it were. as we have seen, philosophers of phenomenological inspiration lead us astray by proposing to think of the gift with a model of donation as a gift without subject and without intentionality, thus making the gift by and between humans unthinkable. on the other hand, it is essential to recognize that an infinite number of things, the most precious without doubt, are as if given to us: life, as i have just said, but also nature, the cosmos in all its diversity, and even in a sense the plurality of cultures, of forms of life, and everything that we receive as an inheritance. all of this, even the totality of the history of art, music, literature, science, technology, etc., is in a sense given to us, far beyond what our friends or relatives can pass on to us, all those of whom we are the direct beneficiaries or legatees. even if this gift is the gift of no one, of no subject (or else of an infinite and indeterminate multitude of subjects), even if it is not strictly speaking addressed to us, we must nonetheless consider it as such, as a gift, recognize it, feel gratitude for it, because we cannot live fully without it. i therefore propose, instead of thinking of the gift as a donation without subject, to think of donation (without subject) as a quasi-gift. 7. applications of the gift paradigm this is why sport, which multiplies the gift contained in the game (or the game contained in the gift), has become the world’s first, if not only, religion. the only world religion, together with that of consumption, whose hold on us would be difficult to understand if we underestimated the imaginary relationship it induces to “donation”, and which incites us to devote ourselves to the realm of goods or brands. in the field of art, one will speak about inspiration. the interest of thinking about gift, adonation and donation, together in their interdependence, is to allow us to treat subjects that are often approached with emphasis, in a more or less mystical mode, without falling into mysticism in our turn. as we have seen, the maussian conception of the gift is modest, resolutely claiming its “mediocrity”, as against those who conceive of it only as identical to pure love. i sketch some features of what a modest conception of art might look like. in the field of art, one often speaks of inspiration. this implies, i argue that it is important not to see in the artist a pure genius, that is to say the recipient of a gift without equal, without how and without why, i.e. as a unique elect, chosen by a superior elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa alain caillé 38 instance, giving to the humanity an equally unilateral gift of his work, that no return could equal. it is necessary on the contrary to think of the artist maintaining a relationship of gift and counter-gift in response to the gift that he received, the one that authorizes him to devote himself to art, and partaking as much as others in gift relations with fellow kindred. let us say it again differently. the notions of adonation and donation make it possible to break with sociologism, the reduction of human facts to social relations only, without needing to break with sociology or, more generally, with social science and philosophy. it is here that the proximity with the approach followed by the german sociologist-philosopher hatmut rosa in his book resonance appears most clearly. refusing to split the sociological and philosophical approaches allows us to reintegrate the question of the good life into sociology. when do we live well? when we are in, or enter into, resonance not only with others but also with the world, answers rosa. this formulation is right and telling. what remains to be explained is what creates resonance or makes it possible. and this is where it seems to me that the paradigm of the gift takes over. as we explain in œil pour œil, don pour don. la psychologie revisitée, the condition of felicity (of resonance, if one prefers) in human relationships lies in the capacity to know how to ask as well as to give, to receive or to give in return. not too much, not too little, and in a good way. this is what true and well-understood generosity consists of, which i propose to call “donativity 1”. but the recognition that arises between the partners in giving is only fully satisfying if it opens onto something else, by giving each one the feeling of participating in and of life itself. if it bears witness to one form or another of creativity, then i call it “donativity 2”. donativity 2 puts us in relation with donation through one or more adonations. as i suggested at the beginning of this introduction, the reason why some people approach the gift with so much distrust or difficulty, if the notion smells almost of sulphur or faggots, is because it almost inevitably refers to religion. the religion that is coming back so violently today, whereas we thought it was almost at the end of its life ten or twenty years ago, and that the social sciences have so much difficulty to think about. the religion which is par excellence the domain of the gift, the adonation and the donation in their most extreme and tightened conjugation. i try to show how by taking these notions in the right order, in their right articulation, the domain of the religious (of religion and religiosity) becomes thinkable. and, with it, that of its therapeutic effectiveness. for religion heals and cures – sometimes – as medicine or psychotherapies also try to do. another notion difficult to handle, undoubtedly because it maintains a more or less close relationship with both the gift and religion, is power. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 39 this power, mauss showed, goes to those who are in the position of a unilateral giver, who make gifts that the recipients are not able to return. in the same way, the divine entities evoked by the universalist religions, make gifts incommensurable to those that the humans could make in return. this is why they have power over them and why they subject humans to heteronomy. thirsting for emancipation and autonomy, social science or philosophy reveal themselves in the end as uncomfortable in front of power as in front of the gift or religion. we don’t really know what power consists of, but it represents for social science and philosophy only what we should denounce and from which we should free ourselves in order to finally reach autonomy. and the reaction is more or less the same when faced with authority and charisma. it is urgent, i believe, to get out of these denials and to situate these different notions in relation to each other, avoiding above all confusing power with domination, as is almost always the case. here again, it seems to me that the extended gift paradigm allows us to move forward. references alter, n. 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(1959). éléments de syntaxe structurale. paris: klincksieck. riassunto in questo saggio, alain caillé ricostruisce la “singolare storia del mauss (movimento anti-utilitarista nelle scienze sociali)” da quando, all’inizio del 1980, un gruppo di amici provenienti da diverse discipline (sociologi, economisti, filosofi, ecc.) decise di fondare il “bulletin du mauss” per contrastare la crescente egemonia dell’utilitarismo elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa recent extensions of the gift 41 e dell’economicismo nelle scienze umane e nelle stesse discipline filosofiche. il bulletin sarebbe diventato inizialmente “la revue du mauss trimestrielle” dal 1988 al 1992 e dal 1993 al 2022 “la revue du mauss semestrielle” fino alla sua attuale estensione anglofona “mauss international”. l’autore riprende la definizione di marcel mauss del dono come “fatto sociale totale” e spiega che il paradigma del dono è un “operatore di traduzione” nel senso che si arricchisce continuamente in interazione con i discorsi esistenti. l’operazione teorica che caillé propone è quella di esplicitare la scoperta di mauss passando da un paradigma del dono semplice, basato sulla prospettiva della semplice reciprocità tra chi dona e chi riceve, a un paradigma del dono allargato. in questo modo, può dialogare con altri paradigmi e altre correnti di pensiero (teoria del riconoscimento, teoria della cura, teoria dello sviluppo umano, ecc.) e da qui a una concezione del dono come “adonnement”, cioè l’impegno dei soggetti umani a portare nel mondo qualcosa di nuovo e inedito. copyright (©) 2023 alain caillé editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) led edizioni universitarie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. how to cite this paper: caillé, a. (2023). recent extensions of the gift. elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives, 3(1-2), 15-41. doi: https://doi.org/10.7358/ elementa-2023-0102-caia elementa. intersections between philosophy, epistemology and empirical perspectives – 3 (2023) 1-2 https://www.ledonline.it/elementa online issn 2785-4426 print issn 2785-4558 https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-caia https://doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2023-0102-caia https://www.ledonline.it/elementa elementa_3-2023-1-2_00b_sommario.pdf editorial what is the gift paradigm? a reading guide first section recent extensions of the gift the enduring relevance of mauss’ essai sur le don the gift paradigm: towards a science of “total social facts” ricœur, gift and poetics second section praise as a gift in the relationship between teachers and their students the gift of desire: the “inner voice” between neuroscience and theory of attachment various the gifted student: gifts and talents development digital well-being as a new kind of adaptation to the new millennium needs: a state-of-the-art analysis education and culture: pluralism in the age of globalization 