This article explores the interplay between gendered practices, scientific naturalism, and the embodied dimension of sexual difference in the realms of life and knowledge. Drawing on Sini's thought of practices, it first examines the formation of certainties and truths, particularly in relation to naturalistic certainties. It then argues for the necessity of integrating the sexed dimension of experience into gender-blind practical thought, adopting Cavarero's symbolic perspective on sexual difference. Through Preciado's critique, the article analyzes the risks inherent in the concept of symbolic order, which remains genealogically rooted in the biological binary, raising the question of whether a queer symbolic can exist within symbolic binaristic certainties. This issue is examined in dialogue with Cavarero's methodology, which rethinks stereotypical certainties about femininity-such as maternity-while highlighting the dangers of reducing maternity to biological stereotypes, particularly in relation to the generative capacities of trans* people. The article then investigates the recent shift in Cavarero and Guaraldo's theorization of sexual difference to a naturalistic framework, as seen in its association with the abstract reproductive capacities of women. Engaging with Fausto-Sterling and Butler, it assesses the notion of biological certainty in relation to sexual dimorphism, revealing how scientific naturalism renders intersexed bodies invisible. Finally, the article proposes a queer approach to sexual difference, seeking to investigate it as a practical matrix of sexed experiences-that can be embraced or resisted-moving beyond a focus on adult reproduction and adopting an interactionist practical model that centers on the sexed becoming.
This paper explores the relationship between scientific authority and democratic legitimacy in contemporary Europe, focusing on Italy through data from the Demetra 2025 Survey "Gli italiani e la scienza tra pandemia e politica energetica". Although about 80% of Italians express confidence in science, this trust is fragile and uneven. Science is admired as a source of progress but also viewed with suspicion for its proximity to political and economic power. The study argues that legitimacy today depends less on scientific truth itself than on transparency, accountability, and citizen participation. Comparative analysis shows that countries with strong, independent scientific institutions enjoy more stable public trust, while systems relying on individual experts, as in Italy, experience more volatility. Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate emergency reveal how science becomes a key political actor, shaping and legitimizing public decisions. The authors propose a "new epistemic pact" between science and democracy-an institutional framework that ensures expert input without undermining democratic sovereignty. Strengthening autonomy, communication, and inclusion in scientific governance is presented as essential to rebuilding public trust and preventing future crises of legitimacy.
The paper investigates the political role of scientific modeling within emergency governance, focusing on the intertwined production of knowledge, legitimacy, and public trust. By employing Wendy Parker's adequacy-for-purpose framework, it contends that models derive their value not merely from predictive accuracy but from their practical capacity to guide decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. The example of nuclear energy demonstrates how modeling practices bring together technical, ethical, and political forms of reasoning, turning risk assessment into a vehicle for public accountability. Evidence drawn from the Rapporto Demetra 2025 and comparative analyses of European energy strategies indicates that legitimacy stems primarily from transparency and participatory processes rather than from epistemic authority alone. Ultimately, the paper suggests that nuclear regulation embodies a wider principle of "constitutionalized risk", in which uncertainty itself becomes a foundational component of democratic governance and collective learning.
This article explores Benjamin's concept of internal nature, highlighting its fundamental divergence from Habermas's notion of subjective nature. While Habermas perceives the lived body as something the subject must appropriate to achieve responsible authorship, Benjamin exposes the problematic origins of this appropriation. Through his examination of body ownership, Benjamin demonstrates that subjective nature arises not from autonomous self-reference but from the internalization of social constraints. His interpretation of Kafka illustrates why, in these circumstances, the body can manifest as a "source of strangeness." Rather than overcoming this strangeness through individual appropriation, Benjamin argues for understanding how it emerges from and potentially disrupts alienating social relations. In Kafka's "Nature Theater," Benjamin identifies a utopian model where performance facilitates a productive experience of self-estrangement. This model underpins his analysis of the "nature of the second degree" created by avant-garde cinema and epic theater as a "laboratory" where internal nature is revealed not as subjective nature, but as a space where social relations and their inherent conflicts are articulated.
This article reconsiders Marx's critique of alienation from nature as articulated in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, engaging with contemporary debates in political ecology. While many environmental theorists attribute the ecological crisis to a dualistic separation between nature and society, two contrasting positions emerge: one that dismisses nature as a meaningful category, and another that advocates for reclaiming the natural dimension of social life. I defend the latter stance by proposing a form of "critical naturalism" that interprets Marx's naturalism as inherently historical in three key ways. First, it finds its historical condition of possibility in capitalist development, which compels us to care about nature precisely to the extent that it devalues it. Second, it deals with an historical object: the human form of life, of which capitalism is a uniquely alienating configuration. Third, it raises a historical issue: the liberation of nature from its capitalist appropriation. By demonstrating how capitalism alienates both human and non-human nature by putting it to work, the article shows that confronting the ecological crisis requires reinventing socialism as a politics of nature.
