•  4
    Aesthetic Value of Immoral Fictions
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 24 (70): 53-63. 2024.
    Can one have an aesthetically valuable experience of fiction that takes an immoral perspective? Some have argued that one can. However, some important objections have been raised against this idea. Two objections are: that the immorality involved is confined to fictional reality, and that the aesthetic value of immoral fiction is dictated by a pluralistic attitude that not everyone accepts. My aim is to respond to these challenges and to argue, on the basis of two examples, that even an unlimite…Read more
  •  12
    Suppose that fictional objects are abstract objects dependent for their existence and their identity on the creative intentions of their authors. Is an author who intends to create indeterminately identical fictional objects committed to incoherent created objects? My claim is that she is not so committed. I argue that indeterminate identity is an ambiguous notion, allowing for an incoherent interpretation and for at least three coherent ones; and I show that if an author of fiction applies cohe…Read more
  •  17
    Kathleen Stock, Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation, and Imagination, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2017, 222 pp (review)
    Aisthesis: Pratiche, Linguaggi E Saperi Dell’Estetico 12 (2): 195-197. 2019.
  •  24
    Fictional Content
    Disputatio 11 (54): 255-269. 2019.
    It is usually taken for granted that a necessary condition for knowing that P is the truth of P. It may therefore be claimed that if we assume that we gain some kind of knowledge through fiction (let us call it fictional knowledge) of P*, then P* should be true—in at least a certain sense. My hypothesis is that this assumption grounds the different ways adopted by philosophers for attributing truth-conditions to fictional sentences. My claim in this work is that fictional sentences do not have t…Read more
  •  10
    Recensione di S. Caputo, C. Barbero, Significato. Dalla filosofia analitica alle scienze cognitive (review)
    Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia 11 (1): 145-147. 2020.
  •  16
    La vaghezza
    Carocci. 2008.
    Quanti granelli di sabbia ci vogliono per fare un mucchio? In che istante si cessa di essere bambini? Quanti soldi ha il meno povero tra i poveri? E' ovvio che a domande del genere non siamo in grado di dare una risposta precisa. E in questo fatto ovvio e apparentemente innocuo si annida il germe di un paradosso, noto fin dall’antichità e chiamato Sorite. Oggi i filosofi sono tornati a occuparsi del problema e, nel tentativo di venirne a capo, hanno scoperto di dover affrontare alcune profonde q…Read more
  •  18
    Cosa sono i personaggi e gli oggetti fittizi? E soprattutto: esistono almeno in un qualche senso? Per rispondere a queste domande i filosofi, dalla metà del ‘900 fino ai nostri giorni, hanno proposto teorie interessanti e originali. Il libro si propone di ripercorrere questo dibattito con un atteggiamento critico e di proporre alla fine una caratterizzazione delle entità fittizie diversa da quelle presenti nella letteratura filosofica.
  •  15
    A couple of doubts are raised concerning Hofweber’s internalist view of our talk about properties. The first doubt relates to the argument used in support of the internalist view of talk about properties: I suspect that one of the premises of the argument is not granted and therefore that the argument’s conclusion is undermined. My second doubt concerns a claimed consequence of Hofweber’s internalist view, i.e. conceptual idealism. It seems to me that conceptual idealism is incompatible with the…Read more
  •  17
    McTaggart, Lewis and the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics
    In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), God, Time, Infinity, De Gruyter. pp. 163-170. 2018.
    McTaggart’s Paradox has been considered a special case of Lewis’s Problem of Temporary Intrinsics (see Craig (1998), Rea (2003) and Rettler (2012)). I argue instead that the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics cannot simply be applied to the Problem of the passage of time and therefore that McTaggart’s Paradox cannot be a special case of the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics. This observation is relevant in order to point out the difference between the change in objects or events over time (i.e. the s…Read more
  •  14
    4.3. Vaghezza ontologica senza scetticismo
    Rivista di Estetica 49 273-280. 2012.
    Ontic vagueness is defended by appealing to a realist and objectivist perspective. First, ontic vagueness is distinguished from epistemic vagueness and semantic vagueness. Subsequently, the realist approach to semantics adopted by David Lewis and more recently by Theodor Sider is presented. It is argued that, contrary to what has been maintained by both Lewis and Sider, ontic vagueness is compatible with the realist perspective they endorse.
  • Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence Time (review)
    Epistemologia 26 (1): 182-182. 2003.
  •  89
    Vague fictional objects
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63 (2): 158-184. 2020.
    ABSTRACTI propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fi…Read more
  • Temporal Becoming: CAN WE DO WITHOUT IT?
    Philosophical Writings 28 (1). 2005.
    Università degli Studi di Milano.I propose to consider the paradox of temporal becoming using conceptual instruments derived from Lewis’ definition of intrinsic change. I will show that there are two possible solutions to this paradox, that the two solutions are conceptually incompatible and that they both solve the paradox at the cost of doing without temporal becoming. The problem I want to raise is: how should we consider temporal becoming? I suppose that, given these premises, the most obvio…Read more
  •  173
    Vague Objects Without Ontically Indeterminate Identity
    Erkenntnis 74 (3): 351-362. 2011.
    The supporter of vague objects has been long challenged by the following ‘Argument from Identity’: 1) if there are vague objects, then there is ontically indeterminate identity; 2) there is no ontically indeterminate identity; therefore, 3) there are no vague objects. Some supporters of vague objects have argued that 1) is false. Noonan (Analysis 68: 174–176, 2008) grants that 1) does not hold in general, but claims that ontically indeterminate identity is indeed implied by the assumption that t…Read more
  •  12
    Vagueness and Omniscience
    In Miroslaw Szatkowski (ed.), God, Truth, and Other Enigmas, De Gruyter. pp. 89-96. 2015.
    We commonly recognize vague predicates when we do not find boundaries to their extension. Would an omniscient being find it equally impossible to establish such boundaries? I will argue that if a semantic theory of vagueness like supervaluationism is correct, we cannot answer the question. The reason is that, under this assumption, cooperative behaviour is not possible for an omniscient being.
  •  98
    Weatherson argues that whoever accepts classical logic, standard mereology and the difference between vague objects and any others, should conclude that there are no vague objects. Barnes and Williams claim that a supporter of vague objects who accepts classical logic and standard mereology should recognize that the existence of vague objects implies indeterminate identity. Even though it is not clearly stated, they all seem to be committed to the assumption that reality is ultimately constitute…Read more
  •  12
    Normative Rules for Indeterminacy
    In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Theistic Beliefs: Meta-Ontological Perspectives, De Gruyter. pp. 129-136. 2018.
    Williams (2012) recently proposed the Normative Silence model of Indeterminacy in order to account for a single phenomenon running through all cases of indeterminacy and to reach consensus on the correct epistemic attitude to adopt towards borderline cases of paradigmatically vague predicates. Williams’s Normative Silence model says there is no general normative rule governing God’s and humans’ belief attitudes towards indeterminacies. I claim instead that human rationality and philosophical inq…Read more
  •  65
    Informative Identities: A Challenge for Frege's Puzzle
    Dialectica 70 (4): 513-530. 2016.
    Frege's puzzle about identity sentences has long challenged many philosophers to find a solution to it but also led other philosophers to object that the evidential datum it is grounded on is false. The present work is an elaboration of this second kind of reaction: it explains why Frege's puzzle seems to resist the traditional objection, giving voice to different and more elaborated presentations of the evidential datum, faithful to the spirit but not to the letter of Frege's puzzle. The final …Read more
  • Predicati vaghi e coerenza cognitiva
    Rivista di Estetica 44 (26): 303-314. 2004.
    Vague predicates and cognitive coherence I intend to offer an analysis of vagueness and of the sorites paradox, adopting the notion of cognitive coherence and arguing in disfavour of semantic coherence which has been frequently adopted by philosophers as a relevant criterion to approach the sorites paradox. According to the semantic method what is relevant is what determines the truth value of assertions with vague predicates, while according to the cognitive method it is essential to consider …Read more
  •  32
    Comments on Zimmerman
    Dialectica 59 (4): 459-462. 2005.
    Dean Zimmerman focuses on the debate between a serious‐tenser B‐theorist and an eternalist A‐theorist concerning truth and truth‐conditions of tensed propositions. According to Zimmerman, the only way for the A‐theorist to distinguish herself from the B‐theorist is to argue for the non‐relative truth of tensed propositions denying some aspects of the doctrine of temporal parts. I claim instead that the A‐theorist can argue for the non‐relative truth of tensed propositions adopting tensed truth‐c…Read more
  •  3
    La teoria manipolativa della causalità e il problema della retrocausazione
    Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 6 (1): 80-96. 2007.
    The main purpose of the article is to show that the assumption of a power or force which connects cause and effect is an essential characteristic of our concept of cause. The article is divided in two parts. In the first one I present the criteria of the Agency Theory of Causality which I appreciate as correct. I show why, according to my point of view, this theory assumes the idea of force connecting cause and effect, and I propose that the idea originates in the experience of “being compelled…Read more
  •  40
    Paolo Casalegno's Good Points
    Dialectica 66 (2): 215-219. 2012.
    Most philosophers who had the opportunity to meet Paolo Casalegno (1952-2009) have been impressed by his sharp acumen, his passion for discussing philosophy and his human and intellectual generosity. I had the chance more than others to appreciate his qualities and benefit from them: we worked in the same university in Milan for many years and we had many occasions to discuss philosophy and other non-philosophical topics. I owe a debt of gratitude to him and, together with Paolo’s friends and co…Read more
  •  78
    God’s silence
    Philosophical Studies 157 (2): 287-298. 2012.
    Vagueness manifests itself (among other things) in our inability to find boundaries to the extension of vague predicates. A semantic theory of vagueness plans to justify this inability in terms of the vague semantic rules governing language and thought. According to a supporter of semantic theory, the inability to find such a boundary is not dependent on epistemic limits and an omniscient being like God would be equally unable. Williamson (Vagueness, 1994 ) argued that cooperative omniscient bei…Read more