•  34
    Review of: Diego Marconi, Lexical Competence, MIT Press (review)
    Iride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 24. 1998.
    A critical notice of Diego Marconi's book 'Lexical Competence'.
  •  8
    La philosophie du Son
    with Jérôme Dokic
    We discuss the distinction between the sensory modalities; the metaphysics of sounds; and the structure of sound space. We defend a physicalist conception of sounds, without accepting the identification of sounds with sound-waves in the medium. Sounds, we hold, are events in resonating objects. We evaluate the two main accounts of orientation in perceptual space: relationism and absolutism. We then address Strawson's problem of whether the logical space of sounds could be spatial in the full sen…Read more
  •  76
    How can you be surprised? The case for volatile expectations
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (1-2): 171-183. 2007.
    Surprise has been characterized has an emotional reaction to an upset belief having a heuristic role and playing a criterial role for belief ascription. The discussion of cases of diachronic and synchronic violations of coherence suggests that surprise plays an epistemic role and provides subjects with some sort of phenomenological access to their subpersonal doxastic states. Lack of surprise seems not to have the same epistemic power. A distinction between belief and expectation is introduced i…Read more
  •  1
    The so-called "virtual world" is often described with the help of metaphors derived from ordinary discourse on perception and action. This should not be surprising, since virtual objects were partly conceived on the basis of these metaphors. Yet, it is not a given that these metaphors are appropriate; one might need to begin using different concepts and eventually to invent new ones, more appropriate to the phenomena they describe. It might even happen, as I shall show, that these new concepts w…Read more
  • Jérome Dokic, Lo spazio del suono
    Rivista di Estetica 38 (3). 1998.
  •  428
    Foreword to ''Lesser Kinds''
    The Monist 90 (3): 331-332. 2007.
    This issue of The Monist is devoted to the metaphysics of lesser kinds, which is to say those kinds of entity that are not generally recognized as occupying a prominent position in the categorial structure of the world. Why bother? We offer two sorts of reason. The first is methodological. In mathematics, it is common practice to study certain functions (for instance) by considering limit cases: What if x = 0? What if x is larger than any assigned value? Physics, too, often studies the (idealize…Read more
  •  232
    All the Things You Are
    with Achille C. Varzi
    In Gabriele Usberti (ed.), Modi dell’oggettività, Bompiani. 2000.
    An imaginary dialogue between Andrea Bonomi and Gonzalo Pirobutirro (the main character of Gadda’s novel La cognizione del dolore) aiming to challenge Bonomi’s tenet that a work of fiction defines a domain of objects which is closed with respect to the actual world.
  •  546
    The Structure of Spatial Localization
    Philosophical Studies 82 (2). 1996.
    What are the relationships between an entity and the space at which it is located? And between a region of space and the events that take place there? What is the metaphysical structure of localization? What its modal status? This paper addresses some of these questions in an attempt to work out at least the main coordinates of the logical structure of localization. Our task is mostly taxonomic. But we also highlight some of the underlying structural features and we single out the interactions b…Read more