Although philosophy of childhood has always played some part in philosophical discourse, its emergence as a field of postmodern theory follows the rise, in the late nineteenth century, of psychoanalysis, for which childhood is a key signifier. Then in the mid-twentiethcentury Philipe Aries’s seminal Centuries of Childhood introduced the master-concept of childhood as a social and cultural invention, thereby weakening the strong grip of biological metaphors on imagining childhood. Today, wh...

Anno 1724. Il pirata Morgan Sherwood sta solcando l’Atlantico diretto in Italia alla ricerca del famoso tesoro di Arenzano. Nei suoi incubi è tormentato da un demoniaco levriero grigio, rappresentazione della 'Greyhound', la minacciosa nave della Marina Britannica che gli sta dando la caccia. Preoccupato per la sua vita a causa di un presagio di morte, deciderà di scrivere una lettera alla figlia in cui svelerà chi è davvero. Morgan Sherwood non è infatti il suo vero nome. Attraverso i suo...

From a historical point of view the first studies on the response of the organism to stressful situations in general, and on the psychobiology of stress in particular, are probably those of Cannon and de la Paz, the physiologists who showed in 1911 that the adrenal medulla and the sympathetic system are involved in emergency situations. Cannon noted that the venous blood of cats frightened by barking dogs contained adrenaline, a response of the organism which was prevented by adrenalectomy...