Ricerc@Sapienza

In view of current scientific knowledge, it seems premature to
hypothesize a qualitative distinction between processes, networks,
and structures involved in abstract processes from those
based on perception, episodic, or procedural memories.
Predictive thought and mental travel strongly rely, at different
levels of consciousness, on past and ongoing sensory input,
bodily information (e.g., interoception), and the results of perceptual
elaboration.

Neurons in prefrontal cortex (PF) represent mnemonic information about current goals until the action can be selected and executed. However, the neuronal dynamics underlying the transition from goal into specific actions are poorly understood. Here, we show that the goal-coding PF network is dynamically reconfigured from mnemonic to action selection states and that such reconfiguration is mediated by cell assemblies with heterogeneous excitability. We recorded neuronal activity from PF while monkeys selected their actions on the basis of memorized goals.

La tesi espressa dal titolo di questo contributo sembra porsi in esplicita contraddizione con la tradizione del pensiero religioso in generale, cristiano in particolare e forse per alcuni aspetti soprattutto cattolico, secondo cui si è veramente liberi, si guadagna piena libertà, nel momento in cui si àncora la libertà stessa a Dio. È Dio infatti, e solo Lui, ad essere vera e piena libertà. Non nell’indipendenza da Dio, dunque, ma, al contrario, nel legame e nell’unione con con lui, si raggiunge la libertà.

What can we still learn from Hannah Arendt’s political categories and reflections on the public realm in an era that sees the growing spread of populisms? The large critical literature on Arendt’s work has been spreading over the years a sort of standardized vision, according to which Arendt was a nostalgic and anti-modern thinker, whose aim was to rehabilitate the greek polis model against the modern decline of the public sphere, so that very few of her conceptual categories are still useful to understand contemporary phenomena.

What can we still learn from Hannah Arendt’s political categories and reflections on the public realm in an era that sees the growing spread of populisms? Among the large number of current debates, in the age of populist simplification and of the so-called “post-truth”, Arendt's relationship between truth, lying and politics seems to assume particular relevance.