-
3Logic and Abduction: Cognitive Externalizations in Demonstrative EnvironmentsTheoria 22 (3): 275-284. 2009.In her book Abductive Reasoning Atocha Aliseda stresses the attention to the logical models of abduction, centering on the semantic tableaux as a method for extending and improving both the whole cognitive/philosophical view on it and on other more restricted logical approaches. I will describe the importance of increasing logical knowledge on abduction also taking advantage of some ideas coming from the so-called distributed cognition where logical models are seen as forms of cognitive external…Read more
-
Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics volume 25 (edited book)Springer. 2016.
-
27Logic and AbductionTheoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 22 (3): 275-284. 2007.In her book Abductive Reasoning Atocha Aliseda (2006) stresses the attention to the logical models of abduction, centering on the semantic tableaux as a method for extending and improving both the whole cognitive/philosophical view on it and on other more restricted logical approaches. I will provide further insight on two aspects. The first is re-lated to the importance of increasing logical knowledge on abduction: Aliseda clearly shows how the logical study on abduction in turn helps us to ext…Read more
-
96Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery (edited book)Kluwer/Plenum. 1999.The book Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery, aims to explain how specific modeling practices employed by scientists are productive methods of ...
-
66Theoretical considerations on cognitive niche constructionSynthese 194 (12): 4757-4779. 2017.Cognitive niche theories consist in a theoretical framework that is proving extremely profitable in bridging evolutionary biology, philosophy, cognitive science, and anthropology by offering an inter-disciplinary ground, laden with novel approaches and debates. At the same time, cognitive niche theories are multiple, and differently related to niche theories in theoretical and evolutionary biology. The aim of this paper is to clarify the theoretical and epistemological relationships between cogn…Read more
-
24Violence HexagonLogica Universalis 10 (2-3): 359-371. 2016.In this article I will show why and how it is useful to exploit the hexagon of opposition to have a better and new understanding of the relationships between morality and violence and of fundamental axiological concepts. I will take advantage of the analysis provided in my book Understanding Violence. The Intertwining of Morality, Religion, and Violence: A Philosophical Stance. Springer, Heidelberg/Berlin, 2011) to stress some aspects of the relationship between morality and violence, also rewor…Read more
-
Designing Human Interfaces. The Role of AbductionIn L. Magnani & R. Dossena (eds.), Computing, Philosophy and Cognition, College Publications. pp. 131--146. 2005.
-
31Medical diagnostic reasoning: Epistemological modeling as a strategy for design of computer-based consultation programsTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 14 (1). 1993.The complexity of cognitive emulation of human diagnostic reasoning is the major challenge in the implementation of computer-based programs for diagnostic advice in medicine. We here present an epistemological model of diagnosis with the ultimate goal of defining a high-level language for cognitive and computational primitives. The diagnostic task proceeds through three different phases: hypotheses generation, hypotheses testing and hypotheses closure. Hypotheses generation has the inferential f…Read more
-
59Conjectures and manipulations. Computational modeling and the extra- theoretical dimension of scientific discoveryMinds and Machines 14 (4): 507-538. 2004.Computational philosophy (CP) aims at investigating many important concepts and problems of the philosophical and epistemological tradition in a new way by taking advantage of information-theoretic, cognitive, and artificial intelligence methodologies. I maintain that the results of computational philosophy meet the classical requirements of some Peircian pragmatic ambitions. Indeed, more than a 100 years ago, the American philosopher C.S. Peirce, when working on logical and philosophical proble…Read more
-
23Knowledge as DutyProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 10 289-294. 2008.This paper aims at presenting a concise treatment of some key themes of my recent book Morality in a technological world. Knowledge as duty (Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). In recent times, non-human beings, objects, and structures – for example computational tools and devices - haveacquired new moral worth and intrinsic values. Kantian tradition in ethics teaches that human beings do not have to be treated solely as “means”, or as “things”, that is in a merely instrumen…Read more
-
15Reasoning through doing. Epistemic mediators in scientific discoveryJournal of Applied Logic 2 (4): 439-450. 2004.
-
13Abducing personal data, destroying privacyIn Mireille Hildebrandt & Katja de Vries (eds.), Privacy, due process and the computational turn, Routledge. pp. 67. 2013.
-
45Philosophy and Cognitive Science Ii: Western & Eastern Studies (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2015.The status of abduction is still controversial. When dealing with abductive reasoning misinterpretations and equivocations are common. What did Peirce mean when he considered abduction both a kind of inference and a kind of instinct or when he considered perception a kind of abduction? Does abduction involve only the generation of hypotheses or their evaluation too? Are the criteria for the best explanation in abductive reasoning epistemic, or pragmatic, or both? Does abduction preserve ignoranc…Read more
-
Abduction and chance discovery in scienceInternational Journal of Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Engineering 11 273--279. 2007.
-
24Naturalizing the logic of abductionLogic Journal of the IGPL 24 (4). 2016.I will analyse some properties of abduction that are essential from a logical standpoint. When dealing with the so-called ‘inferential problem’, I will opt for the more general concepts of input and output instead of those of premisses and conclusions, and show that in this framework two consequences can be derived that help clarify basic logical aspects of abductive reasoning: (i) it is more natural to accept the ‘multimodal’ and ‘context-dependent’ character of the inferences involved, (ii) in…Read more
-
1On the representational role of the environment and on the cognitive nature of manipulationsIn L. Magnani & R. Dossena (eds.), Computing, Philosophy and Cognition, . pp. 227--242. 2005.
-
64Morality in a Technological World: Knowledge as DutyCambridge University Press. 2007.The technological advances of contemporary society have outpaced our moral understanding of the problems that they create. How will we deal with profound ecological changes, human cloning, hybrid people, and eroding cyberprivacy, just to name a few issues? In this book, Lorenzo Magnani argues that existing moral constructs often cannot be applied to new technology. He proposes an entirely different ethical approach, one that blends epistemology with cognitive science. The resulting moral strateg…Read more