WORLD MENTAL HEATH DAY

The New Atlantis, 2024

The current view of man on himself is characterized by a deep ambivalence. On the one hand, man attributes to himself the godlike power to generate artificial intelligence, artificial life or even consciousness. On the other hand, there is a deep pessimism coupled with human self-contempt. Post-humanism, in its more radical variants, ascribes itself to the abdication of humanity, which should best be dethroned by its own artificial offspring. In this paper, I examine the development of this ambivalence since modern times and trace it back to a vacillation between feelings of omnipotence and impotence, which is ultimately based on a collective narcissism. We try to compensate for an inner emptiness by creating an ideal self-image through the reflection of ourselves in anthropomorphic machines, in digital intelligence and in virtual images. In light of this development, I argue for a new humanism based on our embodiment, our intercorporeality with others, and our embeddedness in an ecological environment of the living.

Academia Letters, 2021

"I tempi del bello. Tra mondo classico, Guido Reni e Magritte", catalogo della mostra (Domodossola, Musei Civici, 18 luglio 2022-12 gennaio 2025), a cura di A. D’Amico, S. Papetti, F. Troletti, Genova 2024, pp. 134-135, cat. 46 , 2024

Questo Saggio, diviso in due parti, riguarda forze il periodo più tragico per la Marina italiana sulle rotte della Libia, dopo l’annientamento del convoglio “Beta” (Duisburg) la notte del 9 novembre 1941. La necessità di far passare un'altro grande convoglio, nel momento in cui l’8a Armata britannica era all’offensiva in Cirenaica, e occorreva mandare rinforzi, fu studiata con urgenza e timore dagli Stati Maggiori della Maribna e dell’Aeronautca, sotto la supervisione del Capo del Comando, generale d’armata Ugo Cavallero. Ma ancora una volta l’operazione per far passare i rifornimenti si ridusse in un mezzo disastro, che i Capi Militari, dovendol anche rassicurare a Mussolini e la Nazione, fecero a gara per giustificarlo. Il secondo grande convoglio che sarebbe seguito ebbe, come vedremo, risultati ancora peggiori. E questo, occorre dirlo, davanti a una manciata di navi di superficie, una dozzina di sommergibili e non più di quaranta aerei da bombardamento e aerosiluranti nemici, però guidati da comandanti ed equipaggi coraggiosi che conoscevano il loro mestiere.

Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 2018

The commercially successful book by archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoule (Seuil, 2014) casts doubt on the existence of an ancestral language of the Indo-European family on the ground of criticisms directed at Indo-European linguistics, and at historical linguistics in general. We show here that these criticisms are based on a biased documentation, and that they contain numerous errors and misinterpretations, of which we present a selection. We examine the potential alternatives to the idea of an ancestral language : pidginization, creolization, interactions within a Sprachbund, formation of mixed languages through prolonged mutual contact, and show that all fail to account for the verbal, nominal and pronominal inflections common to the various branches of the family. Finally, we reject the equation between Indo-European linguistics and racist ideologies. We reaffirm the scientific and non-ideological nature of Indo-European historical linguistics.