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In this paper, we argue that the Jonasian turn undergone by the Varelian autopoietic theory, which was intended to include a teleological complement to autopoiesis, can be replaced by the phenomenology of biology in the German philosopher Helmuth Plessner, which, unlike the Jonasian one, does not include anthropocentric existential assumptions in the consideration of living beings. The argument unfolds in four steps: a) first, we will develop the fundamental elements of the classical version of the autopoietic theory, elaborated by Maturana and Varela in the ‘70s, which, among other things, is decidedly anti-teleological; b) then, we will show that years later, Varela turns towards teleology in the so-called Jonasian turn, including within the autopoietic theory elements of existential phenomenology; c) subsequently, we will develop some of the most relevant arguments of Plessnerian biological phenomenology, especially those arguments in relation to the concept of positionality and which serve for this complementarity between the autopoietic and Plessnerian positions; d) finally, we will conclude that the autopoietic theory, due to the accusations it receives for having turned towards an existentialist philosophy, can migrate towards the Plessnerian biological phenomenology, which does not suffer from the anthropocentric problems attributed to the Jonasian phenomenology.

This essay outlines the main stages of an educational proposal within certification programs aimed at designing a philosophy syllabus. The proposal focused specifically on developing terminology, including both instructional language and content-specific terms. To ensure a rigorous approach, key pedagogical concepts were identified and analyzed, establishing a framework for critically and thoughtfully situating philosophical curriculum planning. Among the thematic vocabularies selected, those related to the issue of dwelling (Wohnungsfrage) were prioritized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a teleological perspective on spousal love, exploring Wojtyła’s thoughts on sponsality as the divine plan for human love. The investigation is important because spousal love is presented in the Bible and in Christian mysticism as an analogy for God’s love and for the eschatological mystery. It is also necessary considering the social impact of family experiences on issues such as mental health, parenthood, criminality, and antisocial behavior. This bibliographical research is based on Wojtyła’s Love and Responsibility and The Catecheses on Human Love in the Divine Plan. It is divided into four sections: the human person as a relational being, biblical texts about spousal love, Wojtyła’s teaching on this category, and the teleological aspects observed in this teaching. Our findings indicate that for Wojtyła, spousal love is the teleological reality of the human person, supported by three main aspects. (1) According to Wojtyła’s personalistic thought, God must be understandable when inviting a person to a definitive relationship. The Bible uses spousal relationship to indicate God’s definitive alliance. (2) Wojtyła understands spousal love as the original sacrament of trinitarian relation. He states that the human person is the image and likeness of God because it was created as man and woman. (3) Spousal love is a total gift of self that leads the person to blessedness and fulfillment. It is the only way to imitate Christ in his kenosis.

This paper aims to show how a teleological model of reality and knowledge can be of aid in order to understand the connection between objective knowledge and subjective experience. The separation between them seems indeed to have been established by an opposite deterministic ontological and epistemological model within modern philosophy, which does not allow to explain the subjective relevance of objective knowledge and the objective relevance of subjective experience. In order to overcome this aporetic dichotomy, the paper will underline the actuality of the Aristotelian teleological conception of knowledge and experience and its heritage especially in contemporary philosophy.

The formation of an independent Ukrainian state in 1991 posed some important historiographical questions to scholars. Starting with the collapse of the Ussr, the nation-building effort immediately involved history as well: it was necessary to separate the history of Ukraine from that common to the rest of the Soviet space and, at the same time, deal with national history. In the Ukrainian case, the attempt to employ the model of national histories – on which Western contemporary historiography was formed between the 19th and 20th centuries – was problematic, since the different territories of Ukraine came from multiple historical experiences. The essay analyzes the attempts made by historians to find an interpretative paradigm that would account for the complexity of Ukrainian history. Teleological vision, essentialism, ethnocentricity, ethnic exclusivity, linearity and absolutization of the historical continuity are the greatest risks that historiography has run into. Conversely, the regional approach and the inclusion of Ukrainian history in global history, seem to open new research perspectives and provide new interpretative keys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions on the relationship between Christian faith and natural science often focus on the question whether or not finality can be discerned in nature. The essay analyzes the issue of teleology from the viewpoint of both natural sciences and theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The form of the Good in Plato’s Phaedo and Republic seems, by our standards, to do too much: it is presented as the metaphysical princi­ple, the epistemological principle and the principle of ethics. Yet this seemingly chimerical object makes good sense in the broader context of Plato’s philosophical project. He sought certain knowledge of neces­sary truths (in sharp contrast to the contingent truth of modern science). Thus, to be knowable the cosmos must be informed by timeless princi­ples; and this leads to teleology and the Good. The form of the Good, it is argued, is what makes the world knowable insofar as it is knowable. This interpretation plugs a significant gap in the scholarship on the Good and draws attention to a deep connection between Plato’s episte­mology and his teleological understanding of the cosmos.

Taking Pierpaolo Cesaroni's book La vita dei concetti as a starting point, this paper addresses the problem of the political concept within the framework of an epistemological inquiry into the epistemic status of political science. After engaging with the major theoretical implications of Cesaroni's work, whose method and design are assumed as key to examining the subject at issue, the paper proposes a schematic analysis of the general structure of the specifically political end. In the conclusive remarks, I suggest taking Aristotle's political science seriously in order to build some preliminary guidelines towards the scientific comprehension of political teleology in terms of the constitutional good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I intend to argue that the emergence of the material conditions for the suppression and denial of the will in the human organism (the extraordinary and to some extent “unnatural” development of the brain) is not something like an “accident on the way” of will's manifestation in the world. It is rather, as it were, an intentional result of the whole process of objectivation of the will, a result that emerges from a teleological order. This teleological order is primary and more fundamental than the teleological order of nature that produces each phenomenon and each organic structure according to its ability to promote the emergence, conservation and expansion of life. This means that we have to understand the problematic principle of nature's purposiveness in Schopenhauer's thought as containing two distinct and largely contradictory orders of purpose. We can call these two orders of purposiveness “order of nature” and “order of salvation” (in analogy to Schopenhauer’s “kingdom of nature” and “kingdom of grace”). These two orders of purpose correspond to what I understand to be two forms of teleology that coexist in constant tension in his system: a functional and an ethical-soteriological teleology.

The paper discusses Hölderlin’s reading of the Kantian antinomy of the faculty of judgement from a letter to Hegel in January 1795. Its meaning is first explored in relation to a kind of distinctiveness that Hölderlin recognizes to the solution of the antinomy, to the point of considering it the place where the entire spirit of the Kantian system comes to the fore. Secondly, the prototypical role of the antinomy of the faculty of judgement for the other antinomies is shown according to a feature they share in the way in which they are solved. The aim of the paper is to bring out the distinctive feature of Hölderlin’s theoretical confrontation with the Critique of teleological judgement as a task and orientation of Hölderlin’s philosophical commitment itself, which understands Kant’s efforts from a different perspective than the one of his contemporaries.

Teleology is still a source of embarrassment for the natural sciences and in particular for biology that seems unable to describe and explain the genesis and structure of life without it. How is it possible for something not yet existing to determine the occurrence of what is temporally prior to it? How can the future cause the present and the past? In what follows we intend to examine the elaboration of the biological notion of «teleonomy» through the writings of Ernst Mayr, in order to verify its rigor and strenght with respect to the criteria of scientificity adopted by Mayr himself, in particular with respect to the adoption of the cybernetic model. On the one hand, to show the consistency of the debt that the so-called scientific discourse owes to the philosophical tradition, where it elaborates notions that claim to be emancipated. On the other hand, to detect, within the scientific discourse itself, the limits that a certain position that claims to be scientifically founded can impose on research, becoming a dogmatic assumption.

In this paper I argue that 1) Kant’s power of judgment is constitutively always reflecting, as its lawful employments involve a preliminary self-reference of the faculties the power of judgment itself is required to connect and let them match with each other. Accordingly, I claim that 2) the principle of purposiveness is the principle of the power of judgment as such, and not just of an allegedly self-standing reflecting branch of this faculty. I criticize the view that Kant draws a dichotomy between reflecting and determining judgments and argue that 3) Kant’s point in the third Critique is to rule out the amphiboly between the reflecting and the determining employment of the principle of purposiveness. The power of judgment is, as such, always reflecting: while in the case of cognition it also works in a determining way, in the case of both aesthetics and teleology it is only reflecting, i.e., self-purposive – as it sets its function as its own end.

This article proposes a radical take on what an archive should be: catastrophe, the overturning of property. By way of James Clifford, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, Clarice Lispector, Jorge Luis Borges, and Cildo Meireles, we seek to pinpoint the conceptual difference between a collection and an archive, positing that what makes an archive radical is precisely the fact it is not a collection. A collection is concerned with the accumulation of property and the preservation of the status quo. It is an aspirational – or, to use Benjamin’s words, bourgeois – endeavor: it seeks to protect and preserve itself. An archive, on the other hand, is catastrophic: it should disturb – the archivist most of all. We understand archive here not as an institutional practice, but as an intellectual and artistic method. An archive asks of the archivist: What are you going to do with this? The archive asks the defining question of our capitalist age: why are you accumulating property?

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This paper analyses the relationship between Perugia and its countryside in the Middle Ages, seen on the overall context of the relationship between the city and the rural area. The study is based on a critical revision of the traditional historiographical reconstruction and on a very large number of unpublished sources, especially related to the XIV century. The essay aims to explain the complexity of the relationship between Perugia, the neighbouring small cities and the local powers, overcoming a linear and teleological vision focused on an urban-centric reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking aesthetics as epistemology (in agreement with Emilio Garroni’s perspective) means taking aesthetics as teleology, namely as the need for knowledge to attribute a purpose to what is known. Art has the ability to anticipate these purposes, letting them emerge even if there is insufficient evidence.

The article deals with Witt’s monograph The Two Latin Cultures by providing a thorough analysis of the part devoted to the twelfth-century. In particular, the article focuses on the relationship between culture, politics and society as outlined by Witt, and it approaches critically the teleological structure of Witt’s “searching for roots” of the Italian exceptionalism.

This paper will show how the normalization of the forms of life that governs the political anthropology of Aristotle leads to a naturalization of the social hierarchies typical of the polis of his time. Toward this end, the first part of this paper highlights how in the Politics, the realization of the rational-political nature of Man implies the necessary declension of life (zoe) toward the living well (eu zen) of the polis. Subsequently, the paper will focus on how this living well, which characterizes the political form of life (bios politikos), relates to the condition of autarkeia, conceived by Aristotle not so much in the sense of economic and material or juridical and political selfsufficiency, but rather as the teleological realization of human nature. Finally, we will show that in the Nicomachean Ethics the Stagirite conceives of the nexus between the autarkeia and happiness and the living well as an ontological prerogative exclusive to the good man (spoudaios), thereby justifying his anthropological and moral superiority over other naturally subaltern forms of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Con-textos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy is the property of Con-Textos Kantianos (CTK) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Kant outlines the distinctive feature of ethics through two ends which are at the same time duties: the perfecting of the self and the happiness of others. How should we interpret this thesis within Kant's moral theory as a whole? In the Tugendlehre we find an overlap of a deontological moral theory (based on formalism) and a teleological moral theory, which provides a content to the prescriptions of ethics. My interpretation arises from the semantic complexity of the concept of humanity, here conceived as a dynamic notion that implies the idea of a progressive development of the human sphere; on this basis, I will try to suggest an interpretation which points out the elements of continuity between the Tugendlehre and previous Kantian works. The core of the question analysed in this paper concerns the following idea: the ends of the actions done out of duty arise from a reflection on how to realize the principle of morality: therefore, these ends are not exactly given a priori, they are rather determined by the activity of practical Judgment, which identifies the aspects of the context of action that are relevant for the realization of the moral law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

the article explores the putatively non-metaphysical – non-voluntarist, and even non-causal – concept of freedom outlined in Hegel’s work and discusses its influential interpretation by robert Pippin as an ‘essentially practical’ concept. I argue that Hegel’s affirmation of freedom must be distinguished from that of Kant and Fichte, since it does not rely on a prior understanding of self-consciousness as an originally teleological relation and it has not the nature of a claim ‘from a practical point of view’.

In this paper, I use the comparison between human beings and intelligent machines to shed light on the concept of teleology. What characterizes human beings and distinguishes them from a robot capable of achieving complex objectives? In the first place, by stipulating that what characterizes human beings are mental states, I consider the mark of the mental. A smart robot probably has no consciousness but we might have reason for doubt while interacting with it. And a smart robot shows intentionality. I focus on the type of naturalized intentionality that is at stake here. Then I go back to the traditional idea of teleology, and to the scientific criticism of it, through the question of the kind of purposes that artificial intelligence (AI) may set itself. Husserl's basic idea of teleology therefore serves to have an authoritative term of comparison and to introduce the intuitive difference between human beings and intelligent machines based on the homo pictor thought experiment proposed by Jonas. My conclusion is that a specific finalism, understood in a non-criterial sense, is what qualifies the human being and differentiates the latter (for now) from smart robots.

The contemporary philosophy of mind and neuroethics are two of the liveliest fields of interdisciplinary reflection which deal with the everlasting topic: what/who we essentially are. One of the many questions that can be tackled in order to go deep in this knowledge is: why man is naturally inclined towards specific tiers for survival which constitute his/her teleological project of flourishing? Two different, but complementary, answers are brought to light in this work. The author argues for an apparently obvious, but relatively underexplored view of the classical hylomorphic concept of form (morphé), not just as the information that characterizes the organization of human body, but also as the intrinsic final reason why, through a specific type of bodily (brain) structure, the human being develops his/her natural inclinations and behaves according to them. The author advances the argument in terms of an upward comparison between the threefold levels of Thomas Aquinas’ natural human inclinations according to Summa Theologiae I-II, question 94, article 2, and the pioneering structural and functional “Triune Brain” model developed from 1949 to 1952 by Paul MacLean. The hylomorphic view sketched is profoundly different from a purely materialistic conception of teleological processes of human behavior, and it is a plausible explanation that motivates and invites further considerations and research.

Both Millikan’s brand of naturalistic analytic philosophy and Husserlian phenomenology have held on to teleological notions, despite their being out of favor in mainstream Western philosophy for most of the twentieth century. Both traditions have recognized the need for teleology in order to adequately account for intentionality, the need to adequately account for intentionality in order to adequately account for meaning, and the need for an adequate theory of meaning in order to precisely and consistently describe the world and life. The stark differences between their accounts of these fundamental concepts stem from radically different conceptions of the world, the natural and life. I argue that Millikan’s teleosemantic approach relies on a teleology of determination by means of the lawfulness of nature that leaves no room for the freedom of self-determination, for reason, or for experience—for the reality of lived human life. In contrast to Millikan’s account, Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology situates teleology as a function of reason and first-personal experience, part of an extended account of intentionality and meaning according to which the full range of our making sense of the world is conceived as a rational activity that is itself a part of that world, and not an unnatural activity to be separated from it. While Husserl’s account of these issues is indeed symptomatic of what Millikan calls “meaning rationalism,” I argue that it is immune to the sorts of problems she claims will plague any such account, since these problems arise only against the background of a set of presuppositions about intentionality (representationalism, the “mythiness” of all givens) that Husserl does not share. Husserl’s position can itself be understood to be within the bounds of a suitably liberal conception of naturalism, and interpreting him in this way it has the added benefit—contra Millikan—of not divorcing teleology from reason, the latter construed as our first-personal striving to make sense of the world as we experience it—of life.

This article explores the way in which Husserl’s transcendental idealism reverses the thesis stemming from the naturalistic worldview, according to which the existence of humanity in the universe is a contingent fact. It will appear that the resulting teleological account of the world history does not interfere with the traditional explanations provided by the empirical sciences and that it is a consequence of the teleology inbuilt in the correlation between transcendental subjectivity and the world. The conclusion is reached by analyzing some of Husserl’s text concerning the transcendental role of embodiment and normality.

The recovery of the problem of meaning and intellectual life in terms of responsibility are, as I try to argue, two questions from which the proposal of the Husserl’s phenomenology can be reconstructed. A proposal that aims to revitalize the horizons of reason (on which depends the true meaning of human existence) that is, the philosophy that nurtured the West and why it's so classic and so genuine, so traditional and so contemporary too.

In this article, I restate the interpretation of Aristotle’s Ph. 2.5, 196b17– 21, which I presented for the first time in my book I fondamenti della causalità naturale (2006). According to my reading, both the things that are due to deliberation and those that are not (Arist. Ph. 196b17–18) fall within the group of beings which come to be not for the sake of anything (Arist. Ph. 196b17). In his recent book, Aristotle’s Concept of Chance (Albany 2012), John Dudley found my interpretation laudable and original but rejected it, opting for the traditional interpretation. As he did not provide sufficient reasons for this, I deem it appropriate to discuss more broadly and in greater detail my interpretation in order to demonstrate that it is correct theoretically, linguistically and grammatically. I also discuss a reading of Neoplatonic commentators which seems to me very useful: when commenting on Aristotle, they start with a very prejudicial interpretation which comes from Alexander and which probably determined all later interpretations of the passage. According to this interpretation, beings which come to be not for the sake of anything (Arist. Ph. 196b17) are beings that have no teleology of any kind. Yet this exegetic position faces a series of difficulties which can easily be solved if one assumes, as I do, that these beings have a certain end albeit not an intrinsic one.

This article aims at characterizing 1) the experience of death as something that one must sooner or later face, resorting to Heidegger’s claims on the personal aspect of death and on the issue of “delay”; 2) the consequences of the above claims in relation to the “unauthentic death” and to the notion of responsibility; and 3) the concept of transcendence as the triumph over the life-dead dichotomy. Death is seen as an empty sign that cancels all other referents and determines the transfer of teleological values. However, all that transcends is, at the same time, in and out of the world.

Galen intends to deny any relationship between Erasistratus and Aristotle, arguing that the former does not follow Aristotelian teleology. The example chosen is the uselessness of the spleen, although Aristotle himself had said that this organ is not teleologically necessary. Through Erasistratus, then, Galen hit the very limitations of the finalism of Aristotle. Galen was not wrong, however, to see in Erasistratus elements of mechanism (probably influenced by the Hellenistic technology) and of the Epicurean epistemology. Such features separate Erasistratus' system of medicine from the vitalistic tradition of Hippocrates, Aristotle and the Stoics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper is focused on some relevant philosophical issues discussed by Vigna in his book entitled Etica del desiderio come etica del riconoscimento: a teleological justification in ethics; a new understanding of metaethics; the dialectic of desire; the logic of reciprocal recognition. It also suggests a different terminology that could provide a better account of the structure and of several forms of recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I propose to show: 1) that in Phys. II 8 Aristotle takes Empedocles as a paradigm for a theoretical position common to all philosophers who preceded him: the view that materialism implies a mechanistic explanation of natural becoming; and 2) that, since Empe­docles is regarded as a philosopher who clearly expresses the position of all mechanistic materialists, Aristotle builds his teleological arguments precisely to refute him. Indeed, Aristotle believes that refuting the argu­ments of Empedocles – the champion of mechanism – means refut­ing the mechanistic theory itself. In order to illustrate this point, I will discuss some passages from Phys. II 8, while also turning to consider the Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle’s Physics. I will then endeav­our to explain why in 198b19 ff. Aristotle formulates the argument of rain, which has attracted so much attention from scholars of the Phys­ics: I will consider whether Aristotle believes that rain serves a purpose, contrary to what he claims with regard to meteorological phenomena in Meteorologica.

Although the theoretical background of Edmund Husserl and James Gibson respectively could be hardly more distant, their accounts of perception show high compatibility. This compatibility does not extend to the ontological status of percepts. We propose here a short contrastive analysis of Gibson’s and Husserl’s theses on the relation between perception and reality. We dwell on three restrictions formulated by Gibson with regard respectively to the nature of memory, imagination and the biological meaning of affordances. These restrictions, which are functional to Gibson’s direct realism, are then criticised in the light of relevant Husserlian analyses. Finally, we suggest a phenomenological line of inquiry able to address and resettle the ordinary notion of perceptual reality.

Aristotle’s defense of natural teleology in Physica II 8, and in particular the aporia he raises in this context with regard to the proper explanation of rainfall and the coming to be of animal parts are among the most disputed passages in the whole Aristotelian Corpus. In my account , I will first offer a general outline of the passage and indicate the problems involved. Then, I will offer my solutions to them.

Trata-se de investigar a tese marxiana acerca do papel da violência na história, tal como enunciada em O Capital, analisando sua sintaxe de matriz hegeliana e o modo como Engels articula tal tese, para então defender uma interpretação não-teleológica da violência, segundo a qual esta apresenta uma pluralidade de formas, um caráter totalmente difuso e uma pesada materialidade.The Marxian Thesis about the role of violence in History, as it is enunciated in The Capital, is investigated through an analysis of the Hegelian character of its syntax, and the way Engels develops it; a non-teleological interpretation of the thesis is then defended, one that understands that violence presents a plurality of forms, a pervasive character and a heavy materiality.

In this paper I focus on Philippa Foot's analysis of the so-called Hume's law and her solution of Moore's criticism of the naturalistic fallacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O objetivo deste ensaio é propor uma interpretação daquilo que para muitos intérpretes constitui o enigma e a dificuldade maior da terceira Crítica de Kant: o fato de o filósofo remeter para a mesma faculdade do espírito (a faculdade de julgar - Urteilskraft) e para o mesmo princípio transcendental de apreciação (a teleoformidade ou conformidade a fins - Zweckmässigkeit) o fenômeno da arte humana e os fenômenos da natureza organizada - a estética e a teleologia. Na leitura que propomos, tentamos perceber a fecundidade dessa estranha associação ("associação barroca", no dizer de Schopenhauer) precisamente para permitir pensar alguns dos problemas que coloca atualmente a racionalidade ecológica, não aquela que visa excluir o homem da natureza como seu inimigo, mas uma consciência ecológica que defenda uma natureza viva com homens sensíveis, com seres humanos tais que não pensam já a sua relação com a natureza como sendo uma relação de meros "senhores e possuidores" frente a um objeto inerte e destituído de valor e de significação por si mesmo, mas que são capazes de contemplar e apreciar a natureza como valiosa por si mesma, de reconhecê-la como um sistema de sistemas finalizados e de colaborar na sua preservação, que têm até perante ela genuínos sentimentos de admiração pela sua beleza, de respeito pela sua sublimidade e de gratidão pela sua exuberância e favores. Em suma, propomo-nos mostrar a nova atitude perante a natureza que se deixa pensar a partir da Crítica do Juízo, considerada esta obra na sua complexidade sistemática.The aim of this paper is to suggest how the kantian conception of aesthetic experience of nature can illuminate some demands posed by the actual ecological consciousness. Main topics of our exposition would be the reversible analogy Kant supposes between art and nature, the kantian concept of a "technic of nature", the recognised priority of aesthetic experience of natural beauty within kantian Aesthetics and the function that she plays in the whole architectonics of the Critique of Judgment, namely making possible the transition from aesthetic judgment of nature to the teleological appreciation and representation of nature as artist and as a great system of ends.

This work aims to be an investigation about the kantian idea of History and its relation to the Universal Political Perspective. At the same time the author revails an special review to the kantian’s concepts of Nature and Society in the way of life course and the humanity’s harmony. Finaly this human association, that is Society, appears as Philosophy of History under a hidden plan of Nature that reveals trough its own development.

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The consequentialist model in social sciences is based on the fact that the explanation of action is: a) motivated by the perspective of obtaining a goal (teleology); b) can also be motivated by prior awareness and judgment related to its feasibility; c) is retroactively motivated (teleonomy) by the consequences the action produces other than of attaining the goal itself. Weber and Pareto bring consequentialism permanently into sociology, though without the utilitarian option Scottish moralists originally applied to it. Weber proposes a formal «methodological» categorization which gives it a reduced level of abstraction and opens it to substantial typification. The model therefore becomes an essential cognitive component of action, profitably developed by contemporary social theory, and also aims to a pragmatic use of the discipline in terms of policy making, prediction and social projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]