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53Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2011.This handbook offers a deep analysis of the main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation from both a logical-philosophical and legal perspective. These forms are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and the handbook accordingly divides in three parts: the first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the main general forms of reasoning and argumentation relevant for legal discourse. The third one looks at their application in …Read more
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16278 Handbook ofresearch methods on trustIn Fergus Lyon, Guido Möllering & Mark Saunders (eds.), Handbook of research methods on trust, Edward Elgar. 2012.
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11Lying as Pretending to Give InformationIn Herman Parret (ed.), Pretending to Communicate, De Gruyter. pp. 276-291. 1994.
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8For a Science-oriented, Socially Responsible, and Self-aware AI: beyond Ethical IssuesLaboratorio Dell'ispf 2022. 2022.
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11Purposiveness of Human Behavior. Integrating Behaviorist and Cognitivist Processes/ModelsCroatian Journal of Philosophy 22 (66): 401-414. 2022.We try not just to reconcile but to “integrate” Cognitivism and Behaviorism by a theory of different forms of purposiveness in behavior and mind. This also implies a criticism of the Dual System theory and a claim on the strong interaction and integration of Sist1 (automatic) and Sist2 (deliberative), based on reasons, preferences, and decisions. We present a theory of different kinds of teleology. Mere “functions” of the behavior: finalism not represented in the mind of the agent, not “regulati…Read more
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25All We Need Is Trust: How the COVID-19 Outbreak Reconfigured Trust in Italian Public InstitutionsFrontiers in Psychology 11 561747. 2020.The central focus of this research is the fast and crucial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its exceptionally serious consequences in terms of healthcare, state intervention and impositions, radical changes in people’s life, on a crucial psychological, relational, and political construct: trust. In this survey, addressed to 4260 Italian citizens, we tried to analyze and measure such impact, focusing on various aspects of trust. This attention to multiple dimensions of trust constitutes the k…Read more
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11The Goals of NormsIn Colin Aitken, Amalia Amaya, Kevin D. Ashley, Carla Bagnoli, Giorgio Bongiovanni, Bartosz Brożek, Cristiano Castelfranchi, Samuele Chilovi, Marcello Di Bello, Jaap Hage, Kenneth Einar Himma, Lewis A. Kornhauser, Emiliano Lorini, Fabrizio Macagno, Andrei Marmor, J. J. Moreso, Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, Antonino Rotolo, Giovanni Sartor, Burkhard Schafer, Chiara Valentini, Bart Verheij, Douglas Walton & Wojciech Załuski (eds.), Handbook of Legal Reasoning and Argumentation, Springer Verlag. pp. 173-190. 2011.Norms are tools for manipulating human conduct through the manipulation of our goals and choices. It is impossible to understand the efficacy and working of norms without a modeling of how Ns work in our mind and how do they cut or give us goals. They are built for that. Thus, a sophisticated ontology of goals is necessary. Ns also have goals and have “functions”: a different kind of goal. We do not understand and intend all the functions of Ns. The subject is not supposed or requested to unders…Read more
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79Contempt and disgust: the emotions of disrespectJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 48 (2): 205-229. 2018.Contempt and disgust share a number of features which distinguish them from other hostile emotions: they both present two distinct facets—a nonmoral facet and a moral one; they both imply a negative evaluation of the dispositional kind as well as disrespect towards the target of the feeling; and they trigger avoidance and exclusion action tendencies. However, while sharing a common core, contempt and disgust are in our view distinct emotions, qualified by different cognitive-motivational feature…Read more
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92Anger and Its CousinsEmotion Review 11 (1): 13-26. 2019.The widespread assumption that anger is a response to wrongdoing and motivates people to sanction it, as well as the lack of distinction between resentment and indignation, obscure notable differences among these three emotions in terms of their specific beliefs, goals, and action tendencies, their nonmoral or moral character, and the kinds of moral claim implied. We provide a cognitive-motivational analysis of anger, resentment, and indignation, showing that, while sharing a common core, they a…Read more
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41Augmented societies with mirror worldsAI and Society 34 (4): 745-752. 2019.Computing systems can function as augmentation of individual humans as well as of human societies. In this contribution, we take mirror worlds as a conceptual blueprint to envision future smart environments in which the physical and the virtual layers are blended into each other. We suggest that pervasive computing technologies can be used to create a coupling between these layers, so that actions or, more generally, events in the physical layer would have an effect in the virtual layer and vice…Read more
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70Intentions in the Light of GoalsTopoi 33 (1): 103-116. 2014.This paper presents a systematic analysis of the various steps of goal-processing and intention creation, as the final outcome of goal-driven action generation. Intention theory has to be founded on goal theory: intentions require means-end reasoning and planning, conflict resolution, coherence. The process of intention formation and intentional action execution is strictly based on specific sets of beliefs (predictions, evaluations, calculation of costs, responsibility beliefs, competence, etc.…Read more
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164A convention or (tacit) agreement betwixt us: on reliance and its normative consequencesSynthese 190 (4): 585-618. 2013.The aim of this paper is to clarify what kind of normativity characterizes a convention. First, we argue that conventions have normative consequences because they always involve a form of trust and reliance. We contend that it is by reference to a moral principle impinging on these aspects (i.e. the principle of Reliability) that interpersonal obligations and rights originate from conventional regularities. Second, we argue that the system of mutual expectations presupposed by conventions is a s…Read more
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60The plausibility of defensive projection: A cognitive analysisJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 33 (3). 2003.This paper provides an analysis of the cognitive processes implied in the ego defense known as projection. Projection is first placed in the context of the general cognitive processes of attribution and ascription. Then we address defensive projection, and identify its distinctive features. In particular, whereas general projection consists in the ascription of one's own mental attitudes to others, defensive projection implies one's rejection of the ascribed mental states, and ascription is a me…Read more
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83Artificial liars: Why computers will (necessarily) deceive us and each other (review)Ethics and Information Technology 2 (2): 113-119. 2000.In H-C interaction, computer supported cooperation andorganisation, computer mediated commerce, intelligentdata bases, teams of robots. etc. there will bepurposively deceiving computers. In particular, withinthe Agent-based paradigm we will have ``deceivingagents''''. Several kinds of deception will be present ininteraction with the user, or among people viacomputer, or among artificial agents not only formalicious reasons (war, commerce, fraud, etc.) butalso for goodwill and in our interest. So…Read more
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83Acceptance as a positive attitudePhilosophical Explorations 4 (2). 2001.We argue in favor of the adaptive value of acceptance and that it deserves a definite status within the 'positive paradigm'. Acceptance currently suffers from ambiguous connotations because of its lack of optimistic biases and its similarity to resignation. We endeavor to show that acceptance and resignation are distinct attitudes by exploring their relationships with various phenomena-frustration, disappointment, expectation, positive thinking, replanning, and accuracy. The resulting distinguis…Read more
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47From conventions to prescriptions. Towards an integrated view of normsArtificial Intelligence and Law 7 (4): 323-340. 1999.In this paper, a model of norms as cognitive objects is applied to establish connections between social conventions and prescriptions. Relevant literature on this issue, especially found in AI and the social sciences, will be shown to suffer from a dychotomic view: a conventionalistic view proposed by rationality and AI scientists; and a prescriptive view proposed by some philosophers of law (Kelsen 1934/1979, Hart 1961, Ross, 1958).In the present work, the attempt is made to fill the gap betwee…Read more
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Principles of limited autonomyIn J. Hintikka & R. Tuomela (eds.), Contemporary Action Theory, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1997.
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15Thinking as the Control of Imagination: a Conceptual Framework for Goal-Directed SystemsPsychological Research 73 (4): 559-577. 2009.This paper offers a conceptual framework which (re)integrates goal-directed control, motivational processes, and executive functions, and suggests a developmentalpathway from situated action to higher level cognition. We first illustrate a basic computational (control-theoretic) model of goal-directed action that makes use of internalmodeling. We then show that by adding the problem of selection among multiple actionalternatives motivation enters the scene, and that the basic mechanisms of execu…Read more
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111Hope: The power of wish and possibilityTheory and Psychology 20 (2): 251-276. 2010.This work proposes an analysis of the cognitive and motivational components of hope, its basic properties, and the affective dispositions and behaviors it is likely to induce. In our view current treatments of hope do not fully account for its specificity, by making hope overlap with positive expectation or some specification of positive expectation. In contrast, we attempt to highlight the distinctive features of hope, pointing to its differences from positive expectation, as well as from a sen…Read more
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52Through the agents' minds: Cognitive mediators of social actionMind and Society 1 (1): 109-140. 2000.Thesis: Macro-level social phenomena are implemented through the (social) actions and minds of the individuals. Without an explicit theory of the agents' minds that founds, agents' behavior we cannot understand macro-level social phenomena, and in particular how they work. AntiThesis: Mind is not enough: the theory of individual (social) mind and action is not enough to explain several macro-level social phenomena. First, there are pre-cognitive, objective social structures that constrain the ac…Read more
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139The role of beliefs in goal dynamics: prolegomena to a constructive theory of intentionsSynthese 155 (2): 237-263. 2007.In this article we strive to provide a detailed and principled analysis of the role of beliefs in goal processing—that is, the cognitive transition that leads from a mere desire to a proper intention. The resulting model of belief-based goal processing has also relevant consequences for the analysis of intentions, and constitutes the necessary core of a constructive theory of intentions, i.e. a framework that not only analyzes what an intention is, but also explains how it becomes what it is. We…Read more
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83Minds as social institutionsPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (1): 121-143. 2014.I will first discuss how social interactions organize, coordinate, and specialize as “artifacts,” tools; how these tools are not only for coordination but for achieving something, for some outcome (goal/function), for a collective work. In particular, I will argue that these artifacts specify (predict and prescribe) the mental contents of the participants, both in terms of beliefs and acceptances and in terms of motives and plans. We have to revise the behavioristic view of “scripts” and “roles”…Read more
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19No abstract available
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18Argumentation is a dialogical attempt to bring about a desired change in the beliefs of another agent – that is, to trigger a specific belief revision process in the mind of such agent. However, so far formal models of belief revision widely neglected any systematic comparison with argumentation theories, to the point that even the simplest argumentation structures cannot be captured within such models. In this essay, we endeavour to bring together argumentation and belief revision in the same f…Read more
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Self-awareness: notes for a computational theory of intrapsychic social interactionIn Giuseppe Trautteur (ed.), Consciousness: Distinction and Reflection, Bibliopolis. pp. 55--80. 1995.