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40Etica e giustificazione: Wittgenstein e l'influenza di MooreIn R. M. Carcaterra (ed.), Le ragioni del conoscere e dell'agire. Scritti in onore di Rosaria Egidi,, . 2006.Nel febbraio 1912 Wittgenstein venne ammesso al Trinity College con Russell come supervisor, e iniziò a seguire le lezioni di Moore. E’ probabile che leggesse il libretto di Moore, Ethics, pubblicato al suo arrivo a Cambridge, o che ritrovasse nelle lezioni di Moore alcune delle suggestioni presenti nel libro. Ma dopo il Tractatus Wittgenstein dedicò poco spazio alle riflessioni sull’etica e quel poco in un periodo ristretto di tempo, agli inizi degli anni ‘30, dalla Conferenza sull’etica2 alle …Read more
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52Wittgenstein, Olismo Ed Esperimenti MentaliParadigmi 2. 2008.In questo articolo parlo della influenza di Einstein su Wittgenstein a partire da alcuni problemi che si pongono all’olismo. L’olismo è stato spesso collegato a Wittgenstein, almeno in forma di “olismo locale”. L’olismo è però soggetto a due tipi di paradossi: il paradosso della comunicazione per l’olismo semantico e il paradosso del relativismo concettuale per l’olismo epistemologico. Dopo aver presentato brevemente i due paradossi, confronto le risposte di Davidson, in difesa dell’olismo, con …Read more
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52Context and contractIn Paolo Bouquet, Luciano Serafini & Richmond H. Thomason (eds.), Perspectives on Contexts, Center For the Study of Language and Inf. 2008.The main point of the paper is the claim that a strong notion of cognitive context can answer the needs of a representation of dialogue context, with a higher generality than the "normative" notion suggested by Gauker. I will discuss some well known claims in the literature about communication and context, and I will suggest giving a central role to the notion of contract or semantic bargaining and to the normative constraints of indexicals and anaphora.
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122Kripke's puzzle about beliefteaching material. 1998.A traditional argument is often used against Mill's theory of names (the meaning of a name is exhausted by its referent). Mill's theory implies transparency of proper names (coreferring proper names are substitutable salva veritate); but examples like Frege's and Quine's show that proper names are not transparent in belief contexts. This could be thought to be a reductio ad absurdum of Mill's theory. In " A puzzle about Belief" (1979; 1988) Kripke builds up an argument which aims to show that th…Read more
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1648The Influence of Einstein on Wittgenstein's PhilosophyPhilosophical Investigations 33 (4): 360-379. 2010.On the basis of historical and textual evidence, this paper claims that after his Tractatus, Wittgenstein was actually influenced by Einstein's theory of relativity and, the similarity of Einstein's relativity theory helps to illuminate some aspects of Wittgenstein's work. These claims find support in remarkable quotations where Wittgenstein speaks approvingly of Einstein's relativity theory and in the way these quotations are embedded in Wittgenstein's texts. The profound connection between Wit…Read more
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A. Bonomi, "Le immagini dei nomi. Il significato e le sue raffigurazioni: modelli semantici, universi narrativi, rappresentazioni mentali" (review)Epistemologia 12 (1): 167. 1989.
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348Sense and ProofIn Marcello D'Agostino, Federico Laudisa, Giulio Giorello, Telmo Pievani & Corrado Sinigaglia (eds.), New Essays in Logic and Philosophy of Science, College Publications. 2010.In this paper we give some formal examples of ideas developed by Penco in two papers on the tension inside Frege's notion of sense (see Penco 2003). The paper attempts to compose the tension between semantic and cognitive aspects of sense, through the idea of sense as proof or procedure – not as an alternative to the idea of sense as truth condition, but as complementary to it (as it happens sometimes in the old tradition of procedural semantics).
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38Propositional attitudes towards presuppositionsPragmatics and Cognition 22 (3): 291-308. 2014.According to the Common Ground account proposed by Stalnaker, speakers involved in a verbal interaction have different propositional attitudes towards presuppositions. In this paper we propose an experimental study aimed at estimating the psychological plausibility of the Stalnakerian model. In particular, the goal of our experiment is to evaluate variations in accepting as appropriate a sentence that triggers a presupposition, where different attitudes are taken towards the presupposition requi…Read more
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24Significato, uso, procedureLingua E Stile (2): 87-99. 1992.In this paper we give some theoretical links between the wittgensteinian strategy of language-games and the strategy followed by students in Artificial Intelligence in the seventies. We refer also to the interpretation given by Dummett and Prawitz to the Wittgenstein's slogan of "meaning as use", showing the link of this ideas with the needs of Artificial Intelligence. We sustain that the concept of "procedure" as developed in early Artificial Intelligence is still one of the main attempt, reali…Read more
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73Objective and cognitive contextIn P. Brezillon & P. Bouquet (eds.), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Springer. 1999.In what follows I consider the apparent contrast between two kinds of theories of context: a theory of objective context - exemplified in the works of Kaplan and Lewis - and a theory of subjective context -exemplified in the works of McCarthy and Giunchiglia. I consider then some difficulties for the objective theory. I don't give any formalization; instead I give some theoretical points about the problem. A possible result could be the abandon of the double indexing for a development a multi-co…Read more
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500Dummett and Wittgenstein's Philosophy of MathematicsIn Brian F. McGuinness & Gianluigi Oliveri (eds.), The Philosophy of Michael Dummett, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 113--136. 1994.
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81Local holismIn P. Bouquet (ed.), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 290--303. 2001.This paper is devoted to discuss a general tendency in contextualism which is known as "radical contextualism". In the first part I state the well known paradox of semantic holism, as discussed in philosophy of language: if meaning is holistic there is no possibility to share any meaning. In the second part I present the different answers to this paradox, from atomism to different forms of holism. In the third part I give a criticism of the traditional interpretation of Wittgenstein as a support…Read more
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1053What Happened to the Sense of a Concept Word?ProtoSociology 30 6-28. 2013.In this paper I shall outline a short history of the ideas concerning sense and reference of a concept-word from Frege to model theoretic semantics. I claim that, contrary to what is normally supposed, a procedural view of sense may be compatible with model theoretic semantics, especially in dealing with problems at the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. A first paragraph on the paradox of the concept horse will clarify the attitude concerning the history of ideas that I assume in this p…Read more
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827Between Knowing How and Knowing ThatLiber Amicorum Pascal Engel. 2014.I wonder whether the idea of knowing how as kind of knowing that with a peculiar mode of presentation really helps in the debate between philosophers and scientists.
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198Idiolect and contextIn L. E. Hahn (ed.), Library of Living Philosphers: the Philosophy of Michael Dummett, Open Court. 2007.In this paper I will compare some of Dummett and Davidson’s claims on the problem of communication and idiolects: how can we understand each other if we use different idiolects? First I define the problem, giving the alternative theses of (I) the priority of language over idiolects and (II) the priority of idiolects over language. I then present Dummett's claims supporting (I) and Davidson's claims supporting (II).
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S.G. Shanker, "Wittgenstein and the Turning Point in the Philosophy of Mathematics" (review)Epistemologia 11 (1): 163. 1988.
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R. De Monticelli, "Dottrine dell'intelligenza. Saggio su Frege e Wittgenstein" (review)Epistemologia 6 (2): 360. 1983.
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428Sense and Linguistic Meaning: a Solution to the Kirkpe-Burge ConflictParadigmi 23 (3). 2013.In this paper I apply a well known tension between cognitive and semantic aspects in Frege’s notion of sense to his treatment of indexicals. I first discusses Burge’s attack against the identification of sense and meaning, and Kripke’s answer supporting such identification. After showing different problems for both interpreters, the author claims that the tension in Frege’s conception of sense (semantic and cognitive) accounts for some shortcomings of both views, and that considering the tensio…Read more
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793Frege: Two theses, two sensesHistory and Philosophy of Logic 24 (2): 87-109. 2003.One particular topic in the literature on Frege’s conception of sense relates to two apparently contradictory theses held by Frege: the isomorphism of thought and language on one hand and the expressibility of a thought by different sentences on the other. I will divide the paper into five sections. In (1) I introduce the problem of the tension in Frege’s thought. In (2) I discuss the main attempts to resolve the conflict between Frege’s two contradictory claims, showing what is wrong with some …Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Gottlob Frege |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Gottlob Frege |
Complex Demonstratives |
Demonstratives, Misc |