«Sophia» XV (2023)

Abstract: This work highlights the specificity of the feminine in humanity from the perspective of Edith Stein. Through the idea of personal vocation, we underline personal individual and its specific characters of uniqueness, showing how, in both man and woman, what is truly peculiar is the personal core and the feminine that can express itself in each core. The emphasis on the feminine should therefore be conceived, in our view, as a further quality that each person possesses in personal quantities and in personal ways, but still constitutive of each individual. To this goal, will show and describe the characteristics,
peculiarities and emerging possibilities of this quality in Steinian anthropology.

Keywords: Phenomenological essence – Personal Core – Quality – Feminine – Individual

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 19-29

Abstract: Detachment is a fundamental concept in Simone Weil’s theor-etical thought. At the level of thinking, it is qualified by the thinker as the “highest value” of philosophy. Based on this conception, the attempt of the present article is to eviscerate the profound meaning of detachment declined from its relation to philosophical exercise and seeking to delineate the essential features of Weil’s pensée détachée. A thinking that is positioned as an original critical alternative to the “objectifying thinking” that has characterized in particular modern philosophy. Ultimately, we would like to highlight two figures ormodels that embody and ground in a paradigmatic way
the dynamic of Weilian detached thinking. Figures who, being one masculine and the other feminine, can open us to further horizons of reflections about anthropological and ontological meaning of thinking as such.

Keywords: Detachment – Death of the ego -Logos – Metaxu – Matter

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 31-42

Abstract: Maria Montessori is known for being the creator of one of the most popular pedagogical theories in the world: the Montessori method. Her alternative pedagogy is opposed to traditional teaching, which advocates homogeneous and standardized learning. Montessori advocated that children have The Absorbent Mind, the capacity to develop and learn on their own. In this article, we summarize her fascinating life and some of the most important contributions she has made to education.

Keywords: Childhood education – Child respect – Absorbent mind – Scientific pedagogy – Peace education

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 43-57

Abstract: Hannah Arendt’s first book, dedicated to Rahel Varnhagen, offers the opportunity to reflect on the interweaving of first and second birth, one of the central themes of Vita activa (1958). Arendt’s theory of political action delivers an idea of freedom which is not an affirmation of the power of the ego against what resists its control. A freedom which maintains its power of innovation intact with respect to any fixation and automatism, but remains bound to reality because in the latter it opens up space of the search for something that goes beyond pure happening, opens up the space for the search for meaning.

Keywords: Love for the world – Fellows of suffering – Freedom – Plurality – Hannah Arendt

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 59-65

Abstract: Reading once again Simone de Beauvoir’s book, The Second Sex, it is possible to pinpoint some proposals in the field of feminine studies from the twenties of the last century until our times. This book was very important for the French culture in the Fifties, but one has to recognise that in other European countries the situation was different. For example, twenty years before in Germany there was Edith Stein’s proposal of dual anthropology, through which it is possible to tackle the emancipation of women in a better way. The comparison between the two women philosophers let us to clarify Beauvoir’s position on one hand and to deepen the question from a theoretical point of view, which requires a feminine philosophical foundation, on the other.

Keywords: Sex – Gender – Femminism – Difference – Dual Anthropology

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 67-77

Abstract: María Zambrano’s thought questions the meaning of history, outlining an original hermeneutics. This contribution retraces the essential features of her philosophy of history, starting from the metaphor of the dawn, from which a relational humanism and an aesthetics of the word emerge.

Key words: Crisis – Humanism – Aesthetics – Anthropology – Ethics

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 79-93

Abstract: This article presents an introduction about life and thought of Adriana Zarri, the first woman in Italy who declared herself and was collegially recognized as professional theologian. Lay hermit and militant intellectual, beyond having inaugurated the actual flourishing road of italian female theology, Zarri should be especially remembered for the books she wrote. They are a reflection of an peculiar mystical attitude, characteristic element which makes her one of the protagonist of twentieth century’s history of Christianity.

Keywords: Christian mysticism – Trinitarian theology – Lay activism – Emancipation of woman’s role – Spirituality – Ecology

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 95-109

Abstract: The present contribution reflects on the first women to be proclaimed Doctors of the Church: Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena (1970); Thérèse of Lisieux (1997); Hildegard of Bingen (2012). The first point of interest explored here is that of the status of teaching in the Church, outside of the ordained ministry. The article then examines the symbolic and spiritual theology of these women. In conclusion, it attempts to define future points of reference for the ecclesial doctorate, in consideration of what may be described as the specifically female genius.

Keywords: Women in the Church – Doctors of the Church – Munus docendi – Priesthood – Female theology

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 111-119

Abstract: Paolo Scirpa, Sicilian artist, has played an important role in the context of twentieth century art. His experiences are in the field of optical art but are characterized by an original style. He is the author of the Ludoscopes, or optical machines with neon structures, which lead the observer to experiment with infinite perspectives. Trained alongside Lucio Fontana and therefore influenced by Spatialism, he then developed a personal language that is enriched with metaphorical allusions. Appreciated by Bruno Munari but also by Pierre Restany, he has exhibited in various parts of the world, never ceasing to experiment with new solutions. In a recent exhibition in Turin, 100% Italy: 100 years of masterpieces (21 September 2018 – 10 February 2019) his works were presented for their contribution to the development of the art of the twentieth century.

Keywords: Art History – Paolo Scirpa – Ludoscopes – Light calligraphy – Italy

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 121-139

Abstract: This article comes almost as an extract from my book Madeleine Delbrêl. Frailty and transcendence, the result of my doctoral research, in which I outlined the delbrêlian anthropology and spirituality: an “exodal” anthropology, which finds its peculiar character in frailty, and a spirituality that is embodied in the feriality of existence.

Keywords: Frailty – Transcendence – Anthropology – Delbrêl – Spirituality

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 141-151

Abstract: Can silence say about Being? God spoke to the prophets; but Mary’s unicum appears immanent to the fact, because it is the Act that determines its time, so as to be able to define a Via Trinitatis in Maria. She, ‘Trinitarian Pause’, participating in that present, lives as a Mother, like a silence that interrupts the Sound, generating the non-sound that becomes rhythm (‘family life’): She is a ‘pause’ of/of sound, for the voice of God to burst forth from eternity in a suspended instant (μεταξὺ): between ‘the eternal of Being’ and ‘the present of Being’. The Pres-Ent of/in Maria.

Keywords: Mary – Silence of Being – Trinitarian Pause – Pres-Ent – Via Trinitatis

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 153-167

Abstract: Fear seems to be one of the typical features of modern life, emerging as a ‘culture’ and a perspective for interpreting life. After a brief discussion on Martha Nussbaum’s perspective on the role of fear in our societies, this article analyses the vision of fear that emerges from Fratelli tutti with reference to what Pope Francis calls the “culture of walls”. Next, it addresses the idea and practice of fraternity in the encyclical: can it constitute an “antidote” to the culture of fear?

Keywords: Fear – Fratelli tutti – Fraternity – Nussbaum – Walls

Read full article in English: «Sophia» XV (2023-1) 169-181