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79Local 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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1022What 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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782Between 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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S.G. Shanker, "Wittgenstein and the Turning Point in the Philosophy of Mathematics" (review)Epistemologia 11 (1): 163. 1988.
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195Idiolect 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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R. De Monticelli, "Dottrine dell'intelligenza. Saggio su Frege e Wittgenstein" (review)Epistemologia 6 (2): 360. 1983.
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398Sense 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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739Frege: 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
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P.A. French, T.E. Uehling Jr., H.K. Wettstein, "The Foundations of Analytic Philosophy" (review)Epistemologia 7 (2): 317. 1984.
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734Essentially Incomplete DescriptionsEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy 6 (2). 2010.In this paper I offer a defence of a Russellian analysis of the referential uses of incomplete (mis)descriptions, in a contextual setting. With regard to the debate between a unificationist and an ambiguity approach to the formal treatment of definite descriptions (introduction), I will support the former against the latter. In 1. I explain what I mean by "essentially" incomplete descriptions: incomplete descriptions are context dependent descriptions. In 2. I examine one of the best versions of…Read more
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20Competenza e competenzeIride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 329-397. 1998.Lexical Competence si presenta come una analisi dei diversi aspetti del del concetto di competenza semantica, con contributi originali sull'aspetto referenziale e sui problemi al margine tra filosofia e intelligenza artificiale. La pacata analisi del concetto di competenza lessicale porta a criticare tesi filosofiche sostanziali: le teorie oggettivistiche del significato alla Putnam tendono a ipostatizzare le norme semantiche, e le teorie naturaliste alla Chomsky tendono a dare poco o nessuno sp…Read more
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191Keeping track of individuals: Brandom's analysis of Kripke's puzzle and the content of beliefPragmatics and Cognition 13 (1): 177-201. 2005.This paper gives attention to a special point in Brandom
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36Wittgenstein in relation to our timesIn Rosaria Egidi (ed.), n Search of a New Humanism: the Philosophy of Georg Henrik von Wright, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1999.In "Wittgenstein in relation to his times" Von Wright1 poses a dilemma regarding the relationship between three wittgensteinian tenets: (i) the view that individual's beliefs and thoughts are entrenched in accepted language games and socially sanctioned forms of life (ii) the view that "philosophical problems are disquietudes of the mind caused by some malfunctioning in the language games, and hence in the way of life of the community". (iii) the "rejection of the scientific-technological civili…Read more
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A. Greco, "Introduzione alla simulazione come metodologia di ricerca in psicologia" (review)Epistemologia 13 (2): 350. 1990.
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42Selecting Presuppositions in Conditional Clauses. Results from a Psycholinguistic ExperimentFrontiers in Psychology 6. 2015.
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99Anatra all'arancia: il tema del contesto nella filosofia analiticaTeoria (1): 3-21. 2005.Questa conferenza offre una presentazione semplificata del concetto di contesto nella filosofia analitica,in particolare nella filosofia del linguaggio. E' semplificata perché tralascia una serie di discussioni rilevanti per fermarsi alle grandi linee che segnano l'emergenza del concetto di contesto in filosofia del linguaggio. Inoltre mi concentro su un aspetto particolare del dibattito: la linea di confine tra pragmatia e semantica e il ruolo che il concetto di contesto ha in questo dibattito,…Read more
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52Filosofia Del LinguaggioIn [introductory work], . 1989.- la prima parte dà una presentazione sommaria dei principali paradigmi di filosofia del linguaggio, mostrando alcune connessioni tra i principali autori di riferimento. Dovrebbe contenere il minimo indispensabile per avere una panoramica delle tematiche della filosofia del linguaggio e addentrarsi negli argomenti in modo più approfondito. La conoscenza dei contenuti di questa parte è un prerequisito per l’esame.
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49In quanto segue si d× in poche pagine un'idea del paradigma classico della logica assiomatica; Ë un richiamo alla terminologia e ai simboli che si useranno in seguito. I due successivi capitoli presentano i problemi ce hanno segnato la nascita del paradigma classico e un confronto con il paradigma tradizionale della logica aristotelica.
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L. Wittgenstein, "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics" (review)Epistemologia 2 (2): 436. 1979.
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29What Is Said and What Is Not: The Semantics/pragmatics Interface (edited book)Chicago University Press. 2013.This volume contains essays that explore explicit and implicit communication through linguistic research. Taking as a framework Paul Grice's theories on "what is said," the contributors explore a number of areas, including: the boundary between semantics and pragmatics; the concept of implicit communication; the idea of the logical form of our assertions; the notion of conventional meaning; the phenomenon of deixis, which refers to when an utterance require context in order to be understood full…Read more
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89Between saying and doing: Towards an analytic pragmatism – by Robert B. BrandomTheoria 75 (4): 366-369. 2009.No Abstract
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499Three alternatives on ContextIn Diego Marconi (ed.), Knowledge and Meaning, Mercurio. 2000.Context is a concept used by philosophers and scientists with many different definitions. Since Dummett we speak of "context principle" in Frege and Wittgenstein: "an expression has a meaning only in the context of a sentence". The context principle finds an extension in some of Wittgenstein's ideas, especially in his famous passage where he says that "to understand a sentence is to understand a language". Given that Wittgenstein believes that "the" language does not exist but only language game…Read more
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30Kenny's Wrong FormulaPhilosophical Investigations 40 (2): 170-172. 2017.Kenny’s book on Wittgenstein has been studied by hundreds of students. What happens when a student comes to the lecturer and says that Kenny’s formula for the number of truth-functions is wrong? You read the 2006 revised edition of the book and realise that the student is right and are ashamed at not having pointed this out to the class. Then you try to focus on which misunderstandings may lie behind the wrong formula. This is what we are trying to do in these short remarks.
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120Ragione E pratica sociale: L'inferenzialismo di Robert BrandomRivista di Filosofia (3): 467-486. 1999.Insieme a John McDowell, Robert Brandom è uno dei filosofi emergenti della reazione al naturalismo filosofico; seguace Wilfrid Sellars, è l'autore americano che più si avvicina al dialogo con la filosofia continentale e propone una rivalutazione di Kant e Hegel nella filosofia analitica. Già allievo di Richard Rorty, Brandom è diventuo famoso con la pubblicazione di Making it Explicit. Questo ponderoso volume di 900 pagine non ha avuto però ancora una sufficiente attenzione nel dibattito filosof…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 |