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31Fragmenting Reality: An Essay on Passage, Causality and Time TravelBloomsbury. 2022.The growing interest in fragmentalism is one of the most exciting trends in philosophy of time and is gradually reshaping the contemporary debate. Providing an extensive interpretation of this view, Samuele Iaquinto and Giuliano Torrengo articulate a novel theory of the passage of time and argue that it is the most effective in vindicating the inherent dynamism of reality. Iaquinto and Torrengo offer the first full-range application of fragmentalism to a number of metaphysical topics, including …Read more
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4Social Objects. An Overview in the Light of Contemporary Social OntologyRivista di Estetica 57 3-10. 2014.The idea for this issue of the Rivista di Estetica comes from a conference that was held at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade, June 2011. The question that the speakers were asked to tackle was “What keeps society together?”. At least since John Searle’s 1995 book, The Construction of Social Reality, a popular answer to that question has been that collective intentionality lies at bottom of all manifestations of social reality – from interactions in informal groups to...
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143Purely Theoretical ExplanationsPhilosophia 49 (1): 133-154. 2020.This paper introduces a new kind of explanation that we describe as ‘purely theoretical’. We first present an example, E, of what we take to be a case of purely theoretical explanation. We then show that the explanation we have in mind does not fit neatly into any of the existing categories of explanation. We take this to give us prima facie motivation for thinking that purely theoretical explanation is a distinctive kind of explanation. We then argue that it can earn its keep via application to…Read more
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18Slurs and Semantic IndeterminacyPhilosophia 48 (4): 1617-1627. 2020.The analysis of the derogatory aspect of slurs has recently aroused interest among philosophers of language. A puzzling element of it is its erratic behaviour in embeddings, for instance negation or belief reports. The derogatory aspect seems sometimes to “scope out” from the embedding to the context of utterance, while at other times it seems to interact with the linguistic constructions in which the slur is implanted. I argue that slurs force us to maintain a kind of semantic indeterminacy whi…Read more
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158Materiality, Parthood, and PossibilityErkenntnis 87 1125-1131. 2022.This paper offers an argument in favour of a Lewisian version of concretism that maintains both the principle of material inheritance (according to which, if all the parts of an object x are material, then x is material) and the materiality-modality link (that is, the principle that, for every x, if x is material, then x is possible).
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188The Invisible Thin Red LinePacific Philosophical Quarterly 101 354-382. 2020.The aim of this paper is to argue that the adoption of an unrestricted principle of bivalence is compatible with a metaphysics that (i) denies that the future is real, (ii) adopts nomological indeterminism, and (iii) exploits a branching structure to provide a semantics for future contingent claims. To this end, we elaborate what we call Flow Fragmentalism, a view inspired by Kit Fine (2005)’s non-standard tense realism, according to which reality is divided up into maximally coherent collection…Read more
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100Nunc pro tunc. The Problem of Retroactive EnactmentsPhilosophia 46 (1): 241-250. 2018.In this paper, I present a problem for the realist with respect to the institutional sphere, and suggest a solution. Roughly, the problem lies in a contradiction that arises as soon as institutional contexts are allowed to influence the institutional profile of objects and events not only in the present, but also in the past. If such “retroactive enactments” are effective, in order to avoid contradiction the realist seems to have to accept the unpleasant conclusion that institutions can create a…Read more
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72Crimes and punishmentsPhilosophia 34 (4): 395-404. 2006.Every criminal act ought to be matched by a corresponding punishment, or so we may suppose, and every punishment ought to reflect a criminal act. We know how to count punishments. But how do we count crimes? In particular, how does our notion of a criminal action depend on whether the prohibited action is an activity, an accomplishment, an achievement, or a state?
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88Yet Another Confusion About Time TravelDisputatio 5 (35): 49-56. 2013.I argue that, contrary to an idea to be found in popularizations of time travel, one cannot more easily multiply oneself by taking younger versions of oneself back in time than by travelling back in time on one’s own. The reason is that the suggested multiplication of the traveller is, from a global perspective, only apparent.
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88The Metaphysics of the Thin Red LineIn Fabrice Correia & Andrea Iacona (eds.), Around the Tree: Semantic and Metaphysical Issues Concerning Branching and the Open Future, Springer. pp. 105-125. 2013.There seems to be a minimal core that every theory wishing to accommodate the intuition that the future is open must contain: a denial of physical determinism (i.e. the thesis that what future states the universe will be in is implied by what states it has been in), and a denial of strong fatalism (i.e. the thesis that, at every time, what will subsequently be the case is metaphysically necessary).1 Those two requirements are often associated with the idea of an objective temporal flow and the n…Read more
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12.3. «Esistere» ed «essere esistito»Rivista di Estetica 49 119-140. 2012.What do “existing” and “having existed” mean? The answer to this question depends radically on the metaphysical assumption that we are making about the nature of time. If we take the present to be privileged over other times, then “having existed” is bound to express a notion close to non-existence. If we think that the present has no ontological supremacy over what was and what will be, then the difference between “having existed” and “existing” is bound to be no deeper than the difference betw…Read more
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110Mettere a Fuoco Il Mondo. Conversazioni sulla Filosofia di Achille Varzi (Special Issue of Isonomia – Epistemologica) (edited book)ISONOMIA – Epistemologica. University of Urbino. 2014.Achille Varzi è uno dei maggiori metafisici viventi. Nel corso degli anni ha scritto testi fondamentali di logica, metafisica, mereologia, filosofia del linguaggio. Ha sconfinato nella topologia, nella geografia, nella matematica, ha ragionato di mostri e confini, percezione e buchi, viaggi nel tempo, nicchie, eventi e ciambelle; e non ha disdegnato di dialogare con gli abitanti di Flatlandia, con Neo e con Terminator. Tra le sue opere principali: Holes and Other Superficialities e Parts and Pl…Read more
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126The moving spotlight(s)Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 64 (7): 754-771. 2021.The moving spotlight account (MS) is a view that combines an eternalist ontology and an A-theoretic metaphysics. The intuition underlying MS is that the present time is somehow privileged and experientially vivid, as if it were illuminated by a moving spotlight. According to MS-theorists, a key reason to prefer MS to B-theoretic eternalism is that our experience of time supports it. We argue that this is false. To this end, we formulate a new family of positions in the philosophy of time, which …Read more
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153Flow FragmentalismTheoria 85 185-201. 2019.In this paper, we articulate a version of non-standard A-theory—which we call Flow Fragmentalism—in relation to its take on the issue of supervenience of truth on being. According to the Truth Supervenes on Being (TSB) Principle, the truth of past- and future-tensed propositions supervenes, respectively, on past and future facts. Since the standard presentist denies the existence of past and future entities and facts concerning them that do not obtain in the present, she seems to lack the resour…Read more
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109The Worst and the Best of PropagandaDisputatio 1 (51): 289-303. 2018.In this paper we discuss two issues addressed by Stanley in How Propaganda Works: the status of slurs (Section 1) and the notion of positive propaganda (Section 2). In particular, in Section 1 we argue contra Stanley that code words like ‘welfare’ are crucially different from slurs in that the association between the lexical item and an additional social meaning is not as systematic as it is for slurs. In this sense, slurs bring about a special kind of propagandistic effect, even if it typically…Read more
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118Time Travel and the Immutability of the Past within B-Theoretical ModelsPhilosophia 47 (4): 1011-1021. 2019.The goal of this paper is to defend the general tenet that time travelers cannot change the past within B-theoretical models of time, independently of how many temporal dimensions there are. Baron Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98, 129–147 offered a strong argument intended to reach this general conclusion. However, his argument does not cover a peculiar case, i.e. a B-theoretical one-dimensional model of time that allows for the presence of internal times. Loss Pacific Philosophical Quarterly…Read more
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8Filosofia del FuturoRaffaello Cortina. 2018.Scopo del volume è offrire un’introduzione accessibile e rigorosa ai più recenti sviluppi di una fondamentale branca della filosofia del tempo: la filosofia del futuro. Vengono presentate e discusse alcune delle domande chiave del dibattito contemporaneo, ad esempio: il futuro è già scritto o esistono molti cammini alternativi che il tempo è in grado di imboccare? "Esistere" significa semplicemente essere presenti o ci sono veri e propri oggetti futuri? Siamo davvero liberi di scegliere quali az…Read more
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6James Harrington, Time: A Philosophical Introduction, London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 304 pp., $23.00 , ISBN 978‐1472506474 (review)Dialectica 71 (4): 628-631. 2017.
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109Perspectival Tenses and Dynamic TensesErkenntnis 83 (5): 1045-1061. 2018.As far as our experience goes, we live in a dynamic present. Those two phenomenal features of experience—presentness and dynamism—are obviously connected. However, how they are connected is not obvious at all. In this paper, I criticise the view according to which the former can explain the latter, which I call sophisticated representationalism. My criticism will be based on an ambiguity in the notion of tense found in the philosophical literature, that between the perspectival understanding and…Read more
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141Time travel and coincidence-free local dynamical theoriesSynthese (11): 4835-4846. 2020.I criticize Lockwood’s solution to the “paradoxes” of time travel, thus endorsing Lewis’s more conservative position. Lockwood argues that only in the context of a 5D space-time-actuality manifold is the possibility of time travel compatible with the Autonomy Principle (according to which global constraints cannot override what is physically possible locally). I argue that shifting from 4D space-time to 5D space-time-actuality does not change the situation with respect to the Autonomy Principle,…Read more
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60The Modal DimensionHumana Mente 4 (19): 105-120. 2011.Space and time are two obvious candidates as dimensions of reality. Yet, are they the only two dimensions of reality? Famously, David Lewis maintained the doctrine of
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67Presentism and the Sceptical ChallengeManuscrito 39 (4): 101-116. 2016.Even hard-core metaphysicians should admit that certain disputesmay indeed turn out not tobe substantive. The debate between presentism and eternalism has recently come undersceptical attack. The aim of the paper is to argue that a certain approach to presentism is indeedin danger of succumbing to the sceptic, and thus a no-go for the presentist.
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9Perspectival truth and perspectival realismIn François Récanati, Isidora Stojanovic & Neftalí Villanueva (eds.), Context Dependence, Perspective and Relativity, Mouton De Gruyter. 2010.
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1Introduction: Time and Time ExperienceTopoi 34 (1): 133-136. 2015.Temporal aspects dwell both in the world around us and at the core of our experience of it. Reality, thought, and language all seem to be imbibed in temporality at some level or another. It is thus not surprising that philosophers who have to face the problems of understanding time have resorted to tools from different spheres of investigation, and often at the points of overlap of these areas. Metaphysics, philosophy of physics and science in general, philosophy of language, phenomenology, phil…Read more
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6Dalla Fiat al web. Che cosa una ontologia sociale basata sui documenti permette di spiegareRivista di Estetica 60 54-62. 2015.Nel 2009, prendendo le mosse da articoli e libri pubblicati negli anni precedenti, Maurizio Ferraris proponeva la “documentalità”, una ontologia sociale che, a differenza della received view basata sull’intenzionalità collettiva, individuava il fondamento degli oggetti sociali negli atti iscritti. Prendendo come spunto due oggetti sociali tipicamente torinesi – il capoluogo piemontese è il luogo di nascita del filosofo – e cioè la casa automobilistica Fiat e l’Università di Torino, in questo bre…Read more
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95Time and Simple ExistenceMetaphysica 13 (2): 125-130. 2012.Sceptics about substantial disputes in ontology often argue that when two philosophers seem to disagree on a quantified claim, they are actually equivocating on the notion of existence that they are using. When temporal elements play a central role, as in the debate between presentists and eternalists, the hypothesis of an equivocation with respect to existence acquires more plausibility. However, the anti-sceptic can still argue that this hypothesis is unjustified.
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Universitat Autònoma de BarcelonaRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |