https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/8371 2026-04-15T23:03:53Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145536 Title: Pathologies of passion Authors: Young, Niki Abstract: In this paper, I aim to clarify and expand Alphonso Lingis’ understanding of impassioned states by showing how society pathologises passion through the language of emotions, there by obscuring the excesses that are constitutive of life. I proceed by first analysing how modernity reconfigures disruptive passions into manageable emotional states that sustain regularity, utility, and calculative models of the self. Second, I elaborate six interrelated properties of passion while systematically contrasting the latter with culturally coded emotions. Finally, I briefly examine how literature, theatre, cinema, and media narratives disclose the contingent, irrational forces that shape individual lives. I conclude that pathologising passion is not a neutral diagnostic gesture but a deeply philosophical operation that props up a shallow, needs-based conception of agency, and I argue instead for a philosophical practice that attends to impassioned ruptures and shared festive intensities as indispensable revelations of the real forces that contour both individual and collective existence. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/144530 Title: On the derivation of an ought from an Is : the stakes of Alphonso Lingis’ moral realism Authors: Young, Niki Abstract: On the Derivation of an Ought from an Is: The Stakes of Alphonso Lingis’ Moral Realism – In this paper, I construct a systematic approach to Alphonso Lingis’ take on the «is/ought problem», namely the question of whether it is possible to derive normativity from being or moral imperatives from facts. I show that his solution to the problem involves the three-pronged system. First, Lingis is shown to be a champion of realism in his recognition that beings themselves throw their weight around by issuing directives for action. Second, I show how sensibility’s subservience to the demands of the imperative is not enough, since one must also be able to appropriate and channel its force via what Lingis terms passionate states. Finally, I explore how the investment in an object of passion brings the intrinsic importance of the thing to the fore in order to guide the subject toward the investment of excess energies. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/143841 Title: Cyberspace as a neoliberal dream Authors: Zammit, François Abstract: Cyberpunk offers a vision into the consequences of neoliberal economic and social policies implemented since the Reagan and Thatcher administrations. The economic inequalities, lack of social safety nets, and restricted presence of state institutions reflect a neoliberal socio-economic order. In a cyberpunk reality, we also encounter cyberspace as a market order. It emerges from the proliferation of a ubiquitous cybereconomy that operates as a market economy, free from government intervention. The cyberpunk imaginary depicts cyberspace as a psychogeography in which individuals pursue their own goals and act in their self-interest. In cyberspace, individuals and corporations have dealings, interactions, and business relationships that follow the rules and norms that have emerged as part of the self-organising process of cyberspace. Therefore, cyberspace is a form of spontaneous order that entails complex selforganising systems and mechanisms that arise from the multitude of interactions that happen within it. This paper aims to use the imagery of cyberspace to show how cyberpunk literature formulates in tangible ways the realities of a market order as envisioned and proposed by neoliberal thinkers like Hayek, thus providing the public with a critique of the neoliberal dream of an unregulated market order. 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/143150 Title: Filosofia aristotelica e neuroscienze contemporanee. Un avvicinamento? Authors: Caruana, Christopher Abstract: È ormai diventato un luogo comune ritenere che la crescente centralità delle spiegazioni meccanicistiche nella scienza contemporanea annunci anche la fine dell’ilemorfismo aristotelico. In quanto segue, desidero offrire una modesta risposta a questa posizione, raccogliendo l’invito a proporre uno schizzo in cui l’ilemorfismo di tipo aristotelico e tomistico possa armonizzarsi con il mondo scientifico della ricerca empirica. È compito del filosofo andare oltre la semplice intuizione che le neuroscienze portano con sé presupposti e rivendicazioni filosofiche, oltre che scoperte e un oceano di nuovi dati. Sebbene lo scetticismo nei confronti dell’ilemorfismo o della “scolastica” in generale possa essere storicamente giustificato, in questa sede vorrei sostenere che le versioni contemporanee dell’ilemorfismo aristotelico e i nuovi modelli di spiegazione e analisi della biologia, delle neuroscienze e della psicologia contemporanee condividono impegni significativi che consentono loro di impegnarsi in conversazioni che si arricchiscono reciprocamente. Ciò diventa particolarmente vero quando si ha a che fare con le componenti organizzate e causali dei sistemi. Spero di difendere il punto di vista secondo il quale non è corretto affermare che le ontologie filomorfiche e scientifiche sono fondamentalmente incompatibili. È necessario articolare un’ontologia accurata per colmare quelle che sono due serie complesse di conversazioni. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z