Fabio D'Andrea- Ph. D.
- Professor (Associate) at University of Perugia
Fabio D'Andrea
- Ph. D.
- Professor (Associate) at University of Perugia
About
42
Publications
4,617
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
27
Citations
Introduction
Sociology of the Environment; Sociology of the Imaginary; Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty; A complex model of Humanity
Current institution
Publications
Publications (42)
The topic of what being human really signifies returns centre-stage after a somewhat lengthy period when it was considered practically meaningless – rather like the end of History, as somewhat precipitately announced at the end of the last century. From pop culture to art, from science to philosophy to narrative, thinking and stimuli on the subject...
The topic of what being human really signifies returns centre-stage after a somewhat lengthy period when it was considered practically meaningless-rather like the end of History, as somewhat precipitately announced at the end of the last century. From pop culture to art, from science to philosophy to narrative, thinking and stimuli on the subject a...
Most scholars and actors in civil society no longer deny the existence of a climate crisis. Very little is being done about it, however, which appears logically and rationally incomprehensible. To try and find a reason for this peculiar behavior, since it could be vital to the survival of our species, the hypothesis might be advanced that it is a s...
In mainstream environmental discourse, the acceleration of climate change and the consequent need for adaptation in the actions and ways of thinking of those involved is becoming increasingly popular. Most scholars and civil society's actors no longer deny the existence of a climate crisis. Very little is being done about it, however, which appears...
At the start of 2020, with the emergence of Covid-19, risk turned from a state of virtuality into reality and the anticipated catastrophe became factual. Suddenly, we were confronted with the pervasiveness of multidimensional risks that spill over into different social domains partly escaping control of our perfected techno-scientific society. Publ...
Gender stereotypes still surround women's reproductive health for several reasons. Moreover, in the last 20 years, women's access to essential reproductive healthcare is becoming an issue contributing to inequality and exacerbating different kinds of violence (cultural and structural). The patriarchal system, intimate partner violence, and traditio...
The question of imaginary starts where its opposition to reality ends. Once this opposition is dismissed, it becomes possible thinking of imaginary as a mean of construction and transformation of the social reality. A series of essays – regarding the taking form of socio-anthropological environments; the collective dynamics of social integration; t...
Simmel and Benjamin wrote, at one time or another, about the heuristic value of fragments. It was a choice strongly related to a criticism of the proceedings of the instrumental reason that, in their view, lost track of quality in its pursuit of Order. A “fragment” is something that remains after a structure has collapsed. The fall of the rationali...
In this essay the rationalistic evolution of Western culture is shown and retraced through the parallel evolution of the idea and project of the garden, as a way of bringing to light the self-representation of Man and of what he thinks his place and role in the world should be. The age-long struggle for control and domination on matter and Nature c...
In this essay I contend that at the roots of the current ecological crisis is the “simplistic” paradigm (Morin) Western culture is based on. The separation between Descartes’ res is the systematization of a deep imaginal issue that goes back to the start and find its origin in the contradictorial character of proprioception, which is our most impor...
Il dibattito sulle modifiche antropologiche che le tecnologie digitali starebbero causando al genere umano è influenzato da una rappresentazione immaginale dell’essere umano che non tiene conto di numerose evidenze scientifiche e del loro impatto sulla probabile tempistica dell’evoluzione. Laddove l’uomo – o i suoi progenitori – abiti la Terra da p...
Simmel's sociology has been explored and exploited from perspectives largely belonging to a homogeneous culture that "translated" his insights in its own terms. Ground-breaking ideas - such as Wechselwirkung, "reciprocal action" - have thus been interpreted as rational and instrumental, losing sight of their innovative potential. Not only the relat...
Ecology should be understood as a new kind of knowledge that goes beyond the structural limitations of scientific discourse. Its emphasis on transdisciplinarity as the only way to cope with the new complexity of its object of study should be taken even further, to make room for other ways of understanding that Cartesian reductionism has more or les...
Si discute molto di necessari salti tecnologico-evolutivi che dovrebbero consentire all’essere umano – autoresosi obsoleto – di non venir lasciato indietro da un progresso altrimenti fuori controllo. È una narrazione diffusa e sovente argomentata che può essere interpretata come il culmine di una Modernità trionfante o come l’ultimo colpo di coda d...
Attraverso la pubblicazione di questa collettanea si vogliono offrire al dibattito sociologico e filosofico contemporaneo letture, riflessioni e prospettive di ricerca sui temi e le domande ultime di Georg Simmel, nella convinzione che sia tempo di cambiare passo. Occorre lasciare da parte la tentazione di restituire ciò che si presume abbia detto...
A growing chasm between what man is and what he thinks he should be is undermining Western culture. It has to do with Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. Even though such pretense at hyper-rationality has been criticized by influential philosophers, it has become a fundamental element of the Weltanschauung and of the self-representation of its members. Lot...
In recent years, in the wake of the coincidence of economic, social and environmental crises, the unceasing inflow of the Other has catalyzed distress and fears. It is a meeting from which arise questions and doubts about crucial issues: personal and collective identity, the balance of society and the capacity of a culture of generating a shared se...
This essay will explore the possibility of a metamorphosis destabilizing the certainties of modern societies and the preconditions of its thinkability with the aid of two fathers of sociology, Georg Simmel and Max Weber. Both authors share the same view of culture as an instituting act, creating an island of meaningfulness within the perpetual flux...
We have been wasting away whole dimensions of our being human and it has not been simply an inconsequential shame: our world is built on a partial representation of our actual complexity which penalizes aspects that are truly significant for our humanity, as Robert Kennedy acutely pointed out in his speech against GDP, and so our world is less and...
This essay is composed of two parts: in the first I contend that Simmel was a representative of a cultural variant within Enlightenment modernity. Dumont has shown that there are several cultural variants born of the clash between former European traditional cultures and the modern set of universal values. This set and the variants are linked by a...
Turn the card over and… Notes sur la profondeur imaginale des objets
This essay focuses on the imaginal dimension of the credit card. A constellation of myths and symbols is described that makes clear the connection between the rational-instrumental level and the mythic narrative that has always been involved in enchanting the world we are constant...
Abitare è un verbo apparentemente inoffensivo, qualcosa che il senso comune non associa all’esercizio di qualità e competenze particolari, ma che pensa come una pratica che si svolgerebbe spontaneamente. Tale pratica non dà, quindi, l’impressione di essere un’attività che richiede un pensiero e una sensibilità dialogica, che richiede tempo, aggiust...
Western attitude towards environment can be better understood by studying the evolution of the form of the garden along the centuries. The passage from the medieval orchard to the baroque garden, from this one to the English garden and then the shift toward trekking and mountaineering mark the paradoxical affirmation of a figure of rationalism and...
L’écologie scientifique est née d’une géographie des plantes amenant Haeckel à en faire étymologiquement une science de l’habitat (oekoumène) dès 1866; l’idée gagnant progressivement les champs de l’économie et de la politique (Deléage, 1991). A une époque encore marquée par l’influence du romantisme, l’écologie est plus largement une réinvention d...
The essay aims to walk along the way to the symbolic richness of Evil, starting from a critique of the Spaltung. Contemporary malign manifestations will be explored with the aid of Durand's coincidentia oppositorum hermeneutics, in order to overcome the limits imposed by Modernity on Good and Evil. Special attention will be given to the microscopic...
A better understanding of what knowledge is and how it works is a crucial tool to cope with the current paradigm shift and the uncertainty it is causing everywhere. It can shed some light on the imaginal foundations of human enterprise, even of reality itself. Reality is in fact the result of innumerable definitions and agreements, to which moderni...
With the aid of a Baudrillardian text that sociology mostly overlooked, this essay aims at highlighting the author's closeness to the mythanalytic core of French socio-anthropology, particularly Durand and Maffesoli - thinkers to whom Baudrillard has been connected by strong friendly, even more than intellectual, ties. In Symbolic Exchange and Deat...
Ecology should be understood as a new kind of knowledge that goes beyond the structural limitations of scientific discourse. Its emphasis on transdisciplinarity as the only way to cope with the new complexity of its object of study should be taken even further, to make room for other ways of understanding that Cartesian reductionism has more or les...
The never-ending quest for love is likely a sign of its difficulty to be found, which is not so strange, given the Western emotional illiteracy. This is not part of a “normal” human evolution, as most would think, but is rather a perspicuous consequence of a specific human self-representation: the all-rational Man Descartes established as the ideal...
The never-ending quest for love is likely a sign of its difficulty to be found, which is not so strange, given the Western emotional illiteracy. This is not part of a “normal” human evolution, as most would think, but is rather a perspicuous consequence of a specific human self-representation: the all-rational Man Descartes established as the ideal...
Georg Simmel was recently included among sociology's founding fathers, after years of neglect. This article contends that it happened because Western culture is facing a deep crisis and is no longer able to ostracize authors who think along different lines. Simmel's success proves that the cultural variant that dominated the West for three centurie...
The world of comics is a confusional universe where Western dualisms fade and fit into new configurations. One of the strongest oppositions, man/animal, finds in it some original solutions. This essay describe the negative valorisation of the bestiality and the contemporary tendencies that aim to bridge the gap dug by 2000 years of prejudice betwee...
Sebbene non venga indicato tra i fondatori della sociologia della religione, Simmel ne realizza il riscatto dai pregiudizi illuministi attraverso l’elaborazione di una teoria della conoscenza secondo cui esistono grandi principi capaci di organizzare la totalità del reale secondo i propri criteri: la religione è uno di questi. Questi pregiudizi, tu...
Simmel sees the work of art as a perfect entirety enjoying an insularity that distances it from the everyday, a distance and a separation underlined and made visible by the frame. However, since it is the radical contrast to the human condition of incompleteness that leads the author to define man as “a fragment of himself”, this perfection poses c...
