Quaderno monografico
a cura di Maurizio Basili – Giovanna Scatena
La soglia. Prospettive multidisciplinari di scienze umane
Categoria: Vol 5 – 2020
Quaderno monografico – La soglia. Prospettive multidisciplinari di scienze umane / Monographic issue – The Threshold. Multidisciplinary Perspectives of Human Sciences
Sulla soglia. L’io e il «limen» nel fluire del tempo
Abstract: This article explores the philosophical meaning of «limen» in relation to the horizon of a «phenomenology of limit». The first part of this paper, from section 1 (L’essere dell’uomo come un «essere nel limite») to section 3 (Il limite come «soglia»), examines the meanings of «threshold» in connection to our experience of limit. The followings terms are analyzed: «perceptual» threshold, «absolute» threshold, «terminal» threshold, «differential» threshold. The second part of the article, from section 4 (Il problema del «doppio-limite») to section 7 (Orientarsi al confine. La frontiera: «terra di nessuno») is devoted to the philosophical problem of the «double-limit» and focuses on the following terms: Limes, Terminus, Grenze, Schranke, Limit-phenomena, Surface, Border, Limit-line, Limit-point (Grenzpunkt).
Soglia: divagazioni ai limiti del concetto
Abstract: The paper aims to investigate the Italian noun “soglia” (threshold). The history and evolution and the conceptual meaning of the term is examined through time, with examples linked to the term itself and to other words – as limit and boundary – with Latin and Tonic Greek etymology, related to the noun itself. Some affine locutions are also discussed. The salient ambiguous aspects of the etymological roots and of the constructs are identified. The noun Soglia, as a concept, adapts its meaning, according to any thematic contexts in which it is used. It does not allow itself to be framed or exhausted by philosophical, historical, literary, astronomical, scientific or mathematical topic. It may refer to multiple subjects but cannot be considered in any univocal meaning, neither simply as a boundary that closes, nor as a threshold, that opens. Some contents, derived from contemporary physics, leads the author to propose a semantic affinity between psychological and physical meaning of soglia, and mentalizes the noun itself, also referring to G. Leopardi’s thought.
La soglia del «probabile»: confine epistemico tra Verità e Realtà nella filosofia di Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Abstract: How many possibilities we have to say the truth about the physical reality? I think that it is one of the most interesting questions in the XXI century. Scientists use words like ‘possible worlds’, ‘parallel universes’ and ‘multiverse’. The threshold of knowledge in physical sciences seems to go to a new statute: the probable, like a border which not divide the absolute truth by the contingency of reality, but represent the interlude between the mathematical and geometrical world and factual truth. This idea was addressed in the philosophy of XVII century. We can found in Leibniz’s thoughts a particular vision about the Truth. He formulated the famous distinction between Truths of Reason and Truth of Fact. The first are eternal elements and they are caused by themselves, they are characterized by absolute necessity. The elements of factual reality are corruptible and prone to changes, they are characterized by hypothetical necessity. The only way to say the truth in factual reality is to deplete all of substance attributes, but it is impossible. The mathematic and geometric application on reality is not enough for a perfect knowledge of human and physical events. I think that in the Leibniz’s philosophy we can stipulate a threshold of Probable that represents the current touch point between the mathematical truth and the limit of empirical observations.
La Mettrie, D’Holbach e i «confini» dell’anima: il concetto di «limite» nel materialismo e radicalismo filosofico del Settecento
Abstract: The concept of limitation is addressed in this article around the eighteenth-century discussions between materialists and immaterialists. In particular, the article focuses on the theses of the materialist perspective regarding the materiality of the soul and its confining in the natural world, supporting in this sense a monistic view of reality. The authors considered will be La Mettrie for the mechanistic view, and D’Holbach for the criticism of the supernatural world and the idea of «spiritual soul».
Labirinto, soglia e scrittura: Foucault interprete di Roussel
Abstract: This study intends to deal with the work of Raymond Roussel in the light of the studies of Michel Foucault. Among the main themes, we define the concept of the labyrinth linked to that of interpretation in order to understand how Roussel constantly seeks a plural truth. Secondly, we tried to define the role of language as a founding threshold between the simulacrum and reality; the reference to thresholds that are always cyclical, indicates that true and false are mobile categories and the language has the task of digging both in depth and horizontally along the surface of things.
La territorialità e i suoi confini elastici. Testimonianza odeporica e autoreferenzialità. Spunti di riflessione.
Abstract: The strong interest that Geography has for journeys and historical diaries is closely connected to the alienating adventure of going beyond and, therefore, of the transgression that this brings with it. The journey is an experience that deals with the border: territorial, metaphorical and physical dividing line, which separates the place known from the Elsewhere. In this sense, the Hodoeporic journal witnesses this experience in its existential and cultural limits. This study aims at thinking not so much about the destination, the point of arrival of each journey, but rather about the circumstance, not at all obvious, that each traveller lives from a territory marked by values and symbols that embodies his surroundings and to which he was socially educated, according to the specific aspects of his own cultural environment. The territory is, therefore, a space of influence where the cultural identification that creates the feeling of belonging starts, and it is geographically defined as territoriality. While the physical boundaries of a territory can be crossed with one step, those of its cultural signification are much more insidious because they are elastic. Yet transgressing the boundary of the “semiosphere” is an attempt that leads to the awareness of one’s own territoriality through the “different”. Thus, the boundary becomes metaphorically a mirror through which the traveller discovers himself by reflecting the Elsewhere.
Soglie: dai processi percettivi al f unzionamento della mente dell’Io
Abstract: The threshold indicates that part of the space that delimits two territories. The threshold isn’t hard and absolute, like the front door, it identifies and separates an outside from an inside, and at the same time, it allows the meeting between them. It’s an undefined space, opening to the possibility. In psychology it is used in many contexts and to identify different psychic events, from the field of perceptual systems to the functioning of the mind and the family system. In general psychology: the absolute threshold identifies the minimum quantity of functional energy to produce a sensation. In clinical psychology: the healthy or pathological development of the individual (and of his group) depends on the threshold (high or low) of activation for neurotic, borderline or psychotic functioning, and on the tolerance thresholds to change by the family system.
Liminalità e trasformazione dell’identità del personaggio letterario nel mito epico: Achille, figura in limine nella poesia latina di Stazio
Abstract: This paper reflects on liminality concept applied to Latin epic poetry. The limen is a stimulating subject, useful, in a transversal prospective, to many fields study, including the literary one. Thus, the limit will be identified as a liminal dimension of the mythical character in Latin poetry. In the Achilleid, Statius lingers on the narration of the pre-Iliadic life of the Homeric hero, who lives an in limine experience during his youth and that allows him the metamorphosis from a mythical-literary status to the other. I will also try to interpret the poetic verse in a social and cultural key, reading the adventures ‘at the limit’ of Achilles as a literary expression of the initiation rites of the young ephebes of the ancient Greek civilization.
