•  63
    This paper engages in the interpretative effort of elucidating the causes and the scope of Hume’s alleged retraction of his views on personal identity.The part of the Appendix concerned with personal identity includes positive and negative aspects. In the first part of the paper, I will begin by examining the statements of the theory with which Hume is still clearly satisfied. I will compare those to the earlier exposition of the question in T I.4.6 in order to provide a working account of Hume’…Read more
  •  22
    The aim of this thesis is to defend a reading of Descartes’ theory of sensory perception in which, against a widespread interpretation, the mind is not a passive receiver of inputs from the environment, but an active decoder of neural information that contributes to the representational content of ideas. I call this the ‘mental activity thesis’ and, in the overall picture, I identify it as one of the philosophical implications of the seventeenth-century scientific revolution. Within Descartes’ d…Read more
  •  88
    Descartes on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27 (6): 1113-1134. 2019.
    ABSTRACTDescartes did not use the terms ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ qualities, but a similar distinction emerges from his texts: certain qualities of objects are intrinsic pr...