https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/8371 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:15:34 GMT 2026-09-18T18:15:34Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/149109 Title: Alphonso Lingis and the question of environmental responsibility Authors: Young, Niki Abstract: In this paper, I situate Alphonso Lingis’s work within eco-phenom enology by showing how his ontological realism locates ethical demands directly within sensibility through a critical expansion of Levinas’s ethic of the “face” to non-human entities. Through the concepts of the elemental, the sensory levels it gives rise to, as well as the imperative, I demonstrate how Lingis views moral responsibility as scalable from an individual bird to an entire ecosystem. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/149109 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148470 Title: Against thanatocentrism : Alphonso Lingis and the excess of life Authors: Young, Niki Abstract: This paper focuses on the work of Alphonso Lingis’s critique of thanatocentric thinking, namely the pervasive notion that a proper understanding of life must be framed in relation to death. I argue that Lingis constructs an alternative philosophy of life centered around a threefold system based on the notions of experience, embodiment, and reality. Through an analysis of Lingis’s major works, this article aims to contribute to the evolving field of “Lingisian studies” by highlighting his novel understanding of what it means to be an embodied being in a more-than-human world. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148470 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148250 Title: How things exceed their relations : toward an object-oriented symbiosis Authors: Schirò, Enrico; Young, Niki Abstract: This article rereads the “symbiotic turn” in the Humanities, showing how the widespread adoption of symbiosis as an ontological paradigm tends to slide into relationism, where entities are entirely constituted by their relations. Through a discussion of Lynn Margulis (1991), Donna J. Haraway (2008, 2016), Scott F. Gilbert (2012), Anna Tsing (2015), and Timothy Morton (2018), this article argues that this otherwise productive framework risks dissolving the autonomy and alterity of organisms. To overcome this limit, the paper proposes a model of Object-Oriented Symbiosis grounded in the philosophy of Graham Harman. On this view, symbiosis is relational but not relationist: interactions are selective, punctuated, and capable of generating emergent unities with retroactive effects, without exhausting their relata. Through the concepts of vicarious causation and allure, symbiosis becomes the mechanism explaining how autonomous entities can form real and irreversible alliances without collapsing into an immanent relational totality. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148250 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148167 Title: Prisca philosophia, prophecy and politics in Tommaso Campanella Authors: De Lucca, Jean-Paul Abstract: The article examines the role of prisca philosophia, particularly the Hermetic and Sibylline sources, in Tommaso Campanella’s political thought. It analyses how Campanella employs ancient wisdom in two of his works, Articuli prophetales and Atheismus triumphatus, to buttress his eschatological views and his vision of universal religious and political reformation. The article argues that Campanella sees sources like the Sibylline Oracles and the Hermetic corpus as corroborating natural religion and natural law, which he considers foundational to proper politics. Since Campanella explicitly frames the Atheismus as simultaneously a theological and a political project, the prisca sapientia that underpins it must be understood as doing political work that the prisca theologia framework alone cannot adequately describe. By integrating these ancient sources with biblical prophecies and contemporary observations, Campanella constructs a narrative of history connecting past wisdom, present urgency, and utopian aspirations. Prisca sapientia offers traces of uncorrupted ancient knowledge that align with his conception of a purified Christianity and ideal universal monarchy. The study reveals how this engagement is integral to his broader project of universal reform, and argues that his appropriation of ancient wisdom constitutes not only a prisca theologia but also a prisca politica, that is, a recovery of a natural and universally valid order of governance, grounded in the natural unity of moral, spiritual and political authority and prior to any confessional or sectarian division. Description: URL: https://socpol.uvvg.ro/prisca-philosophia-prophecy-and-politics-in-tommaso-campanella/ Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148167 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z