Philosophy: Epistemology and Theory of Knowledge
More general subjects:
Epidemics and Pandemics
Philosophical Perspectives
Epidemics pandemics contagion immunity social distance zoonosis are just a few of the concepts that have become commonplace in the academic community and in everyday conversation since the outbreak of the Covid-19. This book aims to provide the reader with a philosophical guide to this conceptual vocabulary by investigating the meanings implications and history of words related to the current emergency of Covid-19.
This book addresses the fundamental anthropological ethical and political issues that have come under the spotlight of the public debate (life and death freedom and authority fear and protection poverty and access to medical care). In this context particular attention is given to the conflict between the scientific discourse on the one hand and irrational bias misinformation and fake news on the other.
The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak is only the latest episode in a long history of pandemics and epidemics that have constellated human history since its very beginning. Authoritative accounts have made some of these contagious plagues famous (Thucydides’ pages immortalizing the Athenian epidemic of the 5th century B.C.; Boccaccio’s description of the Black Death; Manzoni’s depiction of the Plague ravaging 17th-century Milan). Because a full understanding of the present is not possible without historical inquiry several contributions in the book explore debates about calamitous phenomena as documented in philosophical literature from Antiquity to 20th-century philosophy.
Between Religion and Science. The Debate on the Concept of Contagion in the Medieval Islamic World and its Western Parallels
The notion of contagion was looked upon with suspicion in the Arabic medical tradition. Medieval Islamic theologians generally ascribed epidemics to the will of God denied contagion and believed that an epidemic disease was to be accepted as a fatality or even a blessing for the believer as dying of plague could be regarded as a form of martyrdom that granted direct access to paradise. By contrast in the works of two fourteenth-century Arab Andalusian intellectuals Ibn Ḫātima d. 1369 c. and Ibn al-Ḫaṭīb 1313–1374 we find clear clinical evidence of the contagious nature of the fourteenth-century plague outbreak. The paper explores the contribution Ibn Ḫātima and Ibn al-Ḫaṭīb gave to the concept of contagion understood as disease transmission through direct contact or by proximity.
Crisis of the Subject in Mediated Communication *
The years 2020 and 2021 have been marked by a pandemic in terms of the unmeasurable damage to health and the economy. While the endangered health of the population is the primary consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic there are also several secondary ones caused by the security measures taken by the world countries’ representatives. First and foremost is the economic loss; apart from that there is also health damage caused by the lockdown and people’s responsibility to stay at home without physical activity or social interactions resulting in general risk for physical and mental health. Besides the health issues communication is another area which is undergoing a drastic challenge due to indirect COVID-19 pandemic consequences. The traditional forms of mediated communication widely spread and developed in recent decades thanks to the technological progress have become in many cases the only possible way of human communication. The secondary role of mediated communication over the non-mediated primary communication is questionable in the times we live in. In this chapter the crisis of the subject of the communication related to pandemic-induced communicational transformation is examined.
Thucydides and the Politics of Plague
The paper analyses Thucydides’ description of the plague which ravaged Athens for two years in 430–429 bc. In the first part of the paper a detailed comparison with the medical Hippocratic corpus is provided proving that the historian was familiar with that tradition and its methods. The second part of the paper however argues that the relationship with the medical tradition does not play a prominent role in the Thucydidean account. What matters most for him is the exploration of the social consequences of the pandemic. The plague uncovers a more violent and greedy dimension an unsocial and anti-political aspect of human nature which remains hidden in peaceful times. By insisting on this point Thucydides can thus oppose the common belief that human society had progressed from an unsecure and violent past which was dominant in fifth-century Athens.
The Mimetic Faculty Reloaded: Contagion, Immunization, Conspiracies in the Age of Viral Reproduction *
This chapter argues that the human all too human vulnerability to mimesis (imitation) is a central and so far underdiagnosed element internal to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Supplementing medical accounts of viral contagion and providing an alternative to theories of mimetic desire that treated epidemics metaphorically in the past century I develop a genealogy of the concept of mimesis — from antiquity to modernity to the present — that is attentive to both its pathological and therapeutic or patho-logical properties for the present century. Part of an ERC project title Homo Mimeticus the chapter provides new conceptual foundations for a theory of mimesis that is vital to countering contagious crises that cast a shadow on the present and on the future as well.
Contagion and Epidemics in Twentieth-Century Thought. A Hypothesis about Bergson
In the twentieth century as in previous centuries there was also much talk at various levels and in the most diverse cultural fields of epidemics and more generally of contagion. After some references to authors and works dealing with epidemics and contagion in the literary philosophical and human sciences fields the essay focuses specifically on the theme of contagion and on one of the greatest thinkers of the early twentieth century Henri Bergson in whose works this theme is very present albeit in a very peculiar form. Bergson often resorts to terms and concepts such as those of influence diffusion propagation and transmission when dealing with: psychological and gnoseological issues the central theme of the evolution of life and anthropological ethical and religious themes. In conclusion it is hypothesized that in Bergson there is not simply a metaphorical use of the idea of contagion but the presence of an original theoretical model of interpretation of reality consisting of a dynamic of interaction and transfer which constitutes a conceptual structure characteristic of his thought.
New Sciences and Old Diseases. Seventeenth-Century Readings of the Causes of the Plague
As Carlo Cipolla remarked in one of his memorable inquiries into Italian plague epidemics the endurance over time of the miasmatic paradigm of explanation for the plague should be considered a sort of historical mystery. Indeed from a reading of the entry that Louis de Jancourt devoted to the plague in the eighteenth-century Encyclopédie we get the impression that the ‘Scientific Revolution’ hardly affected the standard analysis of the ‘Black Death’. In this regard the early modern criticisms of Galenism especially those coming from mechanist philosophers would appear to have concerned more the notion of natural faculties — which was perceived as an outgrowth of the already discredited philosophy of Scholastic-Aristotelianism and in general of Galen’s philosophical principles — than the concrete descriptions which he had provided of specific diseases like the plague. The thesis of this chapter — which aims to propose a (partial) solution to Cipolla’s ‘mystery’ — is that one of the reasons for the persistence of the Galenic model of explanation of the plague until the nineteenth century is that instead of being challenged by mechanism the new dominant scientific paradigm in the seventeenth century this model was reinforced by it. As we will see this seems due to the fact that the seventeenth-century corpuscular version of mechanism through a re-interpretation of Fracastoro’s notion of seeds of contagion made it possible to interpret the Galenic (putrid) exhalations or ‘effluvia’ as (very tiny) parts of matter in motion that could be described analysed and quantified and hence rightfully be included within the new view of the world.
Latin-into-Hebrew Treatises on the Black Death *
When the first epidemics of the Black Death struck Europe a specific genre of medical literature on the plague developed. Among the medical manuals circulating at the time a certain number were also written in Hebrew. Some of them were original works composed by Jewish physicians; other texts were translations of Arabic and Latin works into Hebrew. The phenomenon of Latin-into-Hebrew translations has long been disregarded as it was considered marginal compared to the Arabic-into-Hebrew movement; this paper sheds light on this lesser-known aspect of the intercultural exchanges involving Hebrew by focusing on plague treatises. The corpus of medical literature on the plague that was translated from Latin into Hebrew includes works by Gentile da Foligno Francesco Zanelli of Bologna John of Burgundy Petrus de Tossignano Antonio Guaineri of Pavia and Valescus de Taranta. The aim of the paper is to offer a general overview of these texts as until now only incomplete or erroneous information is available.
The COVID-19 Pandemic. An Exogenous Shock into Political Systems in the Middle East and North Africa? *
This work will analyse in what extent the Covid-19 Pandemic has been influencing the Middle East and North African socio-political systems. It will focus on the economic social and political impacts by highlighting how the MENA countries are reacting to this exogenous shock. This chapter will also try to figure out how Covid-19 is influencing the ideological framework of middle eastern societies by highlighting the difficulties of the ruling elite in order to face this crisis. At last the Omani case will be analysed in order to offer a more concrete example of how the pandemic has been triggering several socio-economic weak points in the MENA region.
Fear and Dispossession
The pandemic has represented the return of ‘large-scale death’ on the public scene of the world. This essay analyzes the nexus between fear society and politics in general terms and more specifically in the time of pandemics. The fear of self-dispossession is identified as a feature common to contemporary societies. The COVID-19 crisis has emphasized this fear and has limited the opportunities for enjoying personal liberties and rights. Within this context the essay maintains that an important role can be played by a vigorous re-proposal of the principle of ‘self-belonging’ understood as on the one hand the aspiration that one’s dignity be respected and on the other that the irreducibility and inviolability of the Self be recognized. This principle can serve as the foundation for not only an existential perspective of the liberty and relationality of the individual but also a vision of society based upon respect for basic universal rights and a democratic practice which extends from the local to the global level. The principle of self-belonging is seen as an alternative to the authoritarian and paternalistic approaches to the pandemic crisis.
Pestilences and Contagious Diseases in the Middle Ages. Albert the Great and the Fourteenth-Century Plague Treatises *
This paper explores Albert the Great’s views on pestilences and contagious diseases. Albert did not dedicate a specific work or part of a work to these topics but upon thorough inspection it is evident that pestilences were given careful attention within his corpus. Despite objective historical limitations (he did not experience any plague outbreaks during his lifetime and in his works the terms pestis and pestilentia are vague covering a large variety of different sicknesses) Albert’s investigation of the causes of pestilential and contagious diseases is worthy of consideration. My first claim is that he explained these phenomena in scientific terms and not as a result of God’s will which in the Middle Ages was often invoked as the cause of natural calamities. My second thesis is that Albert’s explanatory models provided the basis for the late-medieval discourse on plague. In his works the fourteenth-century treatises on plague the so-called Pestschriften found some of the conceptual tools they used to construct the etiological and nosological identity of this devastating disease.
Zoonosis
This contribution has two main objectives. The first is to isolate and define a particular trait of the COVID-19 pandemic namely its zoonotic character in order to evaluate its importance in relation to other characteristics of this global health crisis. The second is to consider how the widespread awareness of the zoonotic character of the pandemic can change the view that the human species has of itself — its ‘perceived identity’ so to speak. Finally we will try to understand whether the relationships both practical and axiological that the human species has with non-human animals can be influenced by this identity transformation.
Contagion and Pandemics. Plague in Early Modern Medical Thought
Beginning in the mid-fourteenth century the second pandemic of plague afflicted Europe with regular outbreaks until the eighteenth century. Populations learned to live side-by-side with the disease whereas physicians and public officials tried to understand the nature and behaviour of the plague in order to save lives and guarantee health. The notion of contagion which was already developed in ancient sources and whose fields of application are not limited to medicine was tested in everyday experience. The extreme danger associated with a disease like plague impelled practitioners to create means to protect themselves but this was also a stimulus for them to meditate on their relation with patients and on their own responsibilities. Following a short historical introduction I propose to analyse the notion of contagion on the basis of ancient and early modern sources in order to underline the interaction between medical theory and practice. The social and ethical engagement of the practitioners is visible not only in the public health measures implemented but also in the evolution of mentalities at the bedsides of plague-afflicted patients.
The Epistemology of Models in the Era of Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically shown the need for reliable modelling capabilities in order to describe and predict large-scale health processes both in its biological and social dimensions. In the present paper I attempt a review on the sort of issues that arise from the pandemic-induced pressure on several prediction and estimate processes made possible by models. After a general introduction on the several roles that models have been playing since the birth of modern science I will sketch the main traits of the modelling tools that proved effective in the era of the pandemic: in this sketch the inevitably high rate of uncertainty biases and predictive limits of these tools will be apparent. I will focus then on these classes of models from the point of view of what they are supposed to mean with respect to the general philosophical problem of the basis of inductive inference: from this perspective I will end with some general reflections on the social implications of the reliance on models for counteracting pandemics.