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515The Structure of Spatial LocalizationPhilosophical 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
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436Spatial EntitiesIn Oliviero Stock (ed.), Spatial and Temporal Reasoning, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1997.Ordinary reasoning about space—we argue—is first and foremost reasoning about things or events located in space. Accordingly, any theory concerned with the construction of a general model of our spatial competence must be grounded on a general account of the sort of entities that may enter into the scope of the theory. Moreover, on the methodological side the emphasis on spatial entities (as opposed to purely geometrical items such as points or regions) calls for a reexamination of the conceptua…Read more
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6La struttura di uno strumento di scrittura collaborativa per la democrazia partecipataRivista di Estetica 36 (3): 59-79. 2007.Premessa Questo intervento si propone di presentare, in maniera sintetica ma—speriamo — ragionevolmente completa, un’idea in fondo abbastanza semplice: utilizzare alcuni strumenti di lavoro collaborativo in rete per la redazione di bozze o progetti di testi normativi (e in particolare di progetti di legge). Le potenzialità degli strumenti di rete nel favorire non solo una maggiore trasparenza nelle varie fasi di elaborazione dei testi normativi e una loro migliore reperibilità e accessibilità...
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11Understanding of elementary topological equivalencies is impaired by preconceptions about the topological structure of ordinary objects, so that the equivalencies turn out to be counterintuitive. Here I will discuss some of these preconceptions, namely the dominance of gestalt properties of the visual display of the configuration, the neglect of holistic properties, the dominance of transformations the preserve metric properties over those that preserve topological properties only, the assumptio…Read more
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1950 Years of Events: An Annotated Bibliography, 1947 to 1997Philosophy Documentation Center. 1997.This major bibliography offers a comprehensive overview of the recent literature on the nature of events and the place they occupy in our conceptual scheme. The subject has received extensive consideration in the philosophical debate over the last few decades, with ramifications reaching far into the domains of allied disciplines such as linguistics and the cognitive sciences. The starting point for this work is Hans Reichenbach's pioneering contribution on the logical form of action sentences, …Read more
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64The cognitive science of holes and cast shadowsTrends in Cognitive Sciences 10 (2): 54-55. 2006.
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5I defend a cognitive theory of pictures, according to which the central paradigm of our concept of a picture is the representational picture, i.e., the one which induces recognitional abilities in the perceiver. I show how to classify different pictorial styles in terms of their distance from the paradigm, and I criticize alternative accounts
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390False beliefs and naive beliefs: They can be good for youBehavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (6): 512-513. 2009.Naive physics beliefs can be systematically mistaken. They provide a useful test-bed because they are common, and also because their existence must rely on some adaptive advantage, within a given context. In the second part of the commentary we also ask questions about when a whole family of misbeliefs should be considered together as a single phenomenon
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291True and False: An ExchangeIn André Chapuis & Anil Gupta (eds.), Circularity, Definition, and Truth, Indian Council of Philosophical Research. pp. 365-370. 2000.Classically, truth and falsehood are opposite, and so are logical truth and logical falsehood. In this paper we imagine a situation in which the opposition is so pervasive in the language we use as to threaten the very possibility of telling truth from falsehood. The example exploits a suggestion of Ramsey’s to the effect that negation can be expressed simply by writing the negated sentence upside down. The difference between ‘p’ and ‘~~p’ disappears, the principle of double negation becomes tri…Read more
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Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
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Metaphilosophy |
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