Abstract: Much of the social sciences removes the ontologically constitutive relationality of the social in which the Third lies. Disconnecting the human from the social causes all the crises we experience in social life today. To get out of these crises, it is necessary to see that the social is human if and only if it operates on the basis of the supra-functional sense that exists in the Third included, as relational sociology shows.

Keywords: Third Included – Relational Sociology – Theological Matrix – Social Bond – Humanism

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 17-29

Abstract: The article, in the epistemological debate of the social sciences and in particular within “third” perspectives between the two traditional ones, holism and individualism, presents an epistemological-methodological proposal for social relations analysis. Emerging from the convergence of Paradigm of gift and Social Network Analysis, it shows how the first can find a valid and coherent “complement” in the methodological apparatus of the second, to go “on the field” of empirical observation.

Keywords: Social Relationship – Gift – Social Network Analysis – Epistemology

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 31-41

Abstract: This contribution comes from listening to and welcoming those anthropological moments present in Sergej Bulgakov’s theology. Human intersubjectivity, open and hospitable, reaches towards the horizon of divine life in a dynamic that promotes its constitutive relation while safeguarding the freedom of the subject.

Keywords: Anthropology – Holy Spirit – The Subject – Relation – Generativity

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 43-54

Abstract: The present article presents the ontological scope of George Simmel’s reflections, in the light of a particular “rhythm” that vibes both from below and from within, in a way that captures the tension between diametrical opposites. The dynamism that is unleashed from such “opposition” is not presented as a tertium quid, or as a synthesis between two elements but rather as a relational tension capable of offering a new space and habitable existence in which to interpret that which is  underneath all that is.

Keywords: Relation – Opposition – Between – Ontology – Society

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 55-67

Abstract: This paper aims to show that the problematic Simmelian characterization of love as a configurative category – not founded– of the existing seems to offer arguments to develop a philosophical analysis of love as a way of being conscious based on a creative representational form with relative and recognizable epistemic values in the regulative function of unconditionality and in its distinction of spontaneous indifference.

Keywords: Love – Configurative Category – Representation – Unconditionality – Indifference

Read full article in Spanish: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 69-81

Abstract: It is on the basis of this doctrine of Parts and Wholes – studied by E. Husserl in the Third Logical Investigation – that reflections on social ontology are being developed. The texts of the 1920s on the eidos of the community are highly topical in the face of the resurgence of liberal individualism on the one hand and exclusivist identitarianism on the other. Is there an alternative way to these two extremes?

Key words: Community – Social Ontology – Material A Priori – Love – Empathy

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 83-93

Abstract: In Simone Weil’s philosophy, the “city” appears as a physical and ontological place from where every human being achieves his full development, both corporal-spiritual and individual-relational. And this not only horizontally, but also – and above all – vertically. The city thus represents a privileged “entre-deux”, as well as a necessary and indispensable one, so that every man, individually and together with others, can take deep root in his one and true homeland, situated “dans l’autre côte du ciel”.

Keywords: City – Metaxy – Beauty – Rootedness – Recognition

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 95-109

Abstract: Through some passages of P. Ricoeur’s The Course of Recognition we want to look into the original configuration of intersubjectivity and the “third” that emerges from his reading of the Hegelian Ankerkennung in terms of mutual exchange of gifts in the horizon of agape, with particular attention to the status of the third as other than the subjects of recognition, to its impersonal or personalizing character and to the problem of its “intentionality”.

Keywords: Recognition – Intersubjectivity – Reciprocity – Third – Between

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 111-122

Abstract: In pluralist democracies, when Constitution is interpreted and applied to the concrete case, there is an encounter between constitutional law and social reality. This encounter generates those “rules” that regulate the life of a community, express its history, its identity and cultural elements: law “lives” when it encounters human experience.

Keywords: Italian Constitution – Multiculturalism – National communities – European Union

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 123-131

Abstract: The article claims that the identity of the school as an institution is rooted in its thirdness. Firstly, Ivan Illich’s critique of the school is discussed as an attempt to free school from societal demands. Secondly, the re-discovery of the school as a place characterized by thirdness – a space for free and independent study, condition of possibility of the development of the other societal components – by contemporary philosophy of education is presented.

Keywords: School – Illich – Deschooling – Attention – Teaching

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 133-141

Abstract: This article seeks to show that trichromatism is an authentic analogy of the Trinitarian mystery: not a pedagogical metaphor like the three-leafed clover, but a participation of the uni-trinity God. Starting from two fundamental experiments, it presents the scientific and aesthetic interpretation proposed by the great color theorist Johannes Itten. After having evoked some philosophical interpretations, it presents a metaphysical rereading in Trinitarian key.

Keywords: Trinitarian Ontology – Metaphysics – Holy Trinity – Colour – Johannes Itten

Read full article in French: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 143-161

Abstract: What are we human persons? What do we need to persist over time? These are fundamental questions of the long standing debate on personal identity also involving contemporary philosophers belonging to the so-called Analytic Philosophy. One of the dominant positions among those taking part in current debate states that each of us is a human animal and that the  conditions of our persistence are the same as those of animals. In addition to the content of animalism, the paper explores some of the arguments for, and the objections to that matter, concluding with some reflections on the importance of dialogue among the different philosophical traditions in order to study in depth the understanding of our metaphysical distinguishing features.

Keywords: Animalism – Personal Identity – Human Persons – Rational Animal – Metaphysics

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 163-182

Abstract: Of the two aspects that make up the consciousness of the Logos in the Christian tradition the modern rationalist paradigm unilaterally considers only one of them; the moment of the pure concept, outlawing that of the eidos or imaginal form. The response that Balthasar suggests to restore the form, and in particular the Christi form, is not to fight in vain against the consummation of historical events that have reduced the Logos in this way, but to conceive a new alternative that is not properly a Theology but rather an Aesthetics that is theological. In relation to the novel by Herman Hesse, The Glass Bead Game, I postulate that this project of Theological Aesthetics displays useful elements not only for theological reflection, but also for the ecclesiological one.

Keywords: Von Balthasar – Theological Aesthetics – Hesse – Ecclesiology

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 183-196

Abstract: This article analyzes Plato’s dialogue by highlighting the role of a politician as μεταξύ internal to a city. Similar to Solone, he is the instigator of a common, contingent and fragile space, capable of integrating the opposing differences that make up a city. His artisan technique allows for an unpredictable return of conflict and although he wants harmony in the city, he is incapable of knowing a priori the outcome triggered by his decisions which could go wrong at any time.

Keywords: Plato – Metaxy – Statesman – Metretic – Weaving

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 197-211

Abstract: The phenomenological analysis of the mystical experience witnessed by John of the Cross in his Spiritual Canticle shows two concrete forms of knowledge, expressed as “drawing of faith” and “drawing of love”. Klaus Hemmerle, for his part, proposes a fassendes Denken and a lassendes Denken based on two ways of understanding the cognitive process. Both thinkers identify the relationship between these forms of knowledge and how the mystical experience allows access to knowledge that pure reason alone is not capable of achieving.

Keywords: Mystical Way – John of the Cross – Poetry – Knowledge

Read full article in Spanish: «Sophia» XIV (2022-1) 213-227