Lorenzo Magnani

I recently introduced the concept of eco-cognitive openness and situatedness to explain how cognitive systems—human or artificial—dynamically interact with their environments to generate information and creative outputs through abductive cognition. Humans display high eco-cognitive openness, integrating tools and cultural contexts through “unlocked strategies” that also enable exceptional creativity. By contrast, generative AI like LLMs operates via “locked strategies” based on pre-existing datasets with limited real-time interaction, which constrains higher creativity. Although LLMs surpass humans in many cognitive tasks, they lack the openness required for truly advanced abductive performance. Notably, most human cognition is repetitive and imitative—humans themselves often resemble “stochastic parrots.” In this sense, LLMs reveal human intellectual poverty more than they expose flaws in artificial intelligence. I will illustrate how LLMs can act as powerful enhancers of human performance while simultaneously threatening our most distinctive prerogative: creativity. Future human–AI collaboration could expand our eco-cognitive openness, but demands vigilant oversight to counter bias and so-called overcomputationalization. GenAI can serve as an epistemic mediator toward unlocked creativity only if humans maintain agency and embed its outputs in broader socio-cultural frameworks. My greatest concern is that ethical and legal safeguards will remain ineffective in practice, resulting in mere “ethics washing” and “law washing” without genuine enforcement.

My intention in this paper is to provide a consistent epistemological (applied and social) account of gossip, understood as broadly—basically moral—evaluative talk between two or more people, comfortably acquainted between each other, about an absent third party they are both acquainted with. The main target will be to analyze the connection between gossip and what I call interpersonal privacy. In this paper, I will show how some reasoning, though fallacious, can appear to be attractive and useful for beings like us, and extremely appropriate for gossip. I will look at the tension between viewing gossip as an individual-centered activity and one that is group-centered (and group-serving); however, this tension will be mitigated by the model I am using, which depicts gossip as epistemic synergy, in which individuals’ goals are to share and update a Knowledge-Base of social information while adhering to a synergetic Group Knowledge-Base, which is intended to represent the collective wisdom of the group. In the second part of the article, I will suggest that abduction is the best inferential tool for capturing such knowledge-assessments: by using a framework offered by the concept of abduction, I will illustrate the fundamental hypothetical character of gossip. This abductive approach will show how gossip undermines personal privacy, how its cooperative aims are privacy-hostile, and the specific role that gossiping plays in taking advantage of true but also false and fake private facts.

Starting from classical philosophical suggestions about the status of happiness recipes that suggest the optimal ways to reach it, I will soon illustrate the fundamental Kantian suggestion: “No one can coerce me to be happy in his way”, that is, an individual has the right to choose their own kind of happiness “provided he does not infringe upon that freedom of others to strive for a like end which can coexist with the freedom of everyone”. I will conclude that happiness (and even its very possibility) is constrained in a relational interplay in a collective of human beings. Thanks to the events that took place during the notorious “enclosures”, which violently expropriated peasants by destroying their homes and cottages during the so-called primitive accumulation of capitalism, I will provide a very clear example of the relational nature of happiness and even its potential to be jeopardized. The idea of a “moral bubble” will be proposed as an explanation for why some people fail to recognize the harm they create when they jeopardize the happiness of other humans. A study of the current predatory neoliberal capitalism’s peculiar propensity to make the majority of people unhappy will be the focus of the last section. The article interdisciplinarily aims at bridging philosophy, economics, sociology, and political theory, enriching the philosophical analysis with historical and contemporary contexts, and also providing the following critical engagement: the analysis of how dominant narratives and economic frameworks serve to mask violence, thus challenging readers at least to reconsider accepted truths about progress and prosperity.

The “origins” of (geometric) space is examined from the perspective of the so-called “conceptual space” or “semantic space”. Semantic space is characterized by its fundamental “locality” that generates an “implicit” mode of geometrizing. This view is examined from within three perspectives. First, the role that various diagrammatic entities play in the everyday life and pragmatic activities of selected ethnic groups is illustrated. Secondly, it is shown how conceptual spaces are fundamentally linked to the meaning effects of particular natural languages and these are very different from the global and universal aspects of Euclidean spaces. Thirdly, it is contended that these modes of creating body and culture-based spatial frameworks and related cosmogonies and cosmologies can be described as forms of “latent geometry” that initially appear unexplainable in any rational way. Nonetheless, and thanks to the deep mathematical reflections provided by René Thom, it is illustrated how the various ways of generating space can be further analyzed as distortions of mainstream spatialization furnished by Euclidean geometry that established the dominant universality of the ideas of space (and time).

This chapter will define the term overcomputationalism and explain how it relates to the concepts of pancognitivism, paninformationalism, and pancomputationalism and how they can affect the preservation of our free will (and to avoid the death of homo faber), as expressed by the Latin motto quisque faber suae fortunae, which was rediscovered by humanists in the 14th century and played a major role in the Italian Renaissance. I would like to bring the reader’s attention to a query that, in my opinion, captures many of the issues surrounding the aforementioned topic: would future eco-cognitive settings be computationally or humanly tailored? We will see how computational invasive “subcultures”, such as robots, bots etc., constitute challenges to human creativity, ownership of our own destinies, and epistemic rigor. To maximize the power of man to influence his own destiny, everyday, philosophical, and scientific knowledge about natural and artificial phenomena have to be protected. I will then go on to discuss two important roles performed by human knowledge and the necessity for their ongoing improvement. Human beings have increased their ability to track the outside world, and as a result, thanks to ethical knowledge, humans have learned to track the behavior of other humans with the intention of promoting collaboration and, as a result, free and conscious initiatives and proposals.

Scientific discourse is rife with passages that appear to be ordinary descriptions of systems of interest in a particular discipline. Equally, the pages of textbooks and journals are filled with discussions of the properties and the behavior of those systems. Students of mechanics investigate at length the dynamical properties of a system consisting of two or three spinning spheres with homogenous mass distributions gravitationally interacting only with each other. Population biologists study the evolution of one species procreating at a constant rate in an isolated ecosystem. And when studying the exchange of goods, economists consider a situation in which there are only two goods, two perfectly rational agents, no restrictions on available information, no transaction costs, no money, and dealings are done immediately. Their surface structure notwithstanding, no competent scientist would mistake descriptions of such systems as descriptions of an actual system: we know very well that there are no such systems. These descriptions are descriptions of a model-system, and scientists use model-systems to represent parts or aspects of the world they are interested in. Following common practice, I refer to those parts or aspects as target-systems. What are we to make of this? Is discourse about such models merely a picturesque and ultimately dispensable façon de parler? This was the view of some early twentieth century philosophers. Duhem (1906) famously guarded against confusing model building with scientific theorizing and argued that model building has no real place in science, beyond a minor heuristic role. The aim of science was, instead, to construct theories, with theories understood as classificatory or representative structures systematically presented and formulated in precise symbolic..

What role does language play in the process of building worldviews? To address this question, in the first section of this paper we will clarify what we mean by worldviews and how they differ, in our perspective, from cosmovisions. In a nutshell, we define worldviews as the biological interpretations agents create of the world around them and cosmovision the more general cultural-based reflections on it. After presenting our definition for worldview, we will also present the multi-shaped viewpoint that frames our analysis, adopting three concepts that can help us explain how agents construct and develop their worldviews: saliences, pregnances, and abduction. While the notions of saliences and pregnances will explain how agents recognize anomalies in their worldview, the concept of abduction will help us discuss how they can learn to approach, explain, and use these anomalies to get new skills and abilities. This other point will lead us to discuss the role of language in this process, which will be describe as an artifact that permits the agent to use abduction to “normalize” and exploit anomalies, being now the ultimate artifact to build, develop, and update their worldviews.

This book discusses how scientific and other types of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important and innovative changes in theories and concepts. Gathering revised contributions presented at the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning, held on October 24–26 2018 in Seville, Spain, the book is divided into three main parts. The first focuses on models, reasoning, and representation. It highlights key theoretical concepts from an applied perspective, and addresses issues concerning information visualization, experimental methods, and design. The second part goes a step further, examining abduction, problem solving, and reasoning. The respective papers assess different types of reasoning, and discuss various concepts of inference and creativity and their relationship with experimental data. In turn, the third part reports on a number of epistemological and technological issues. By analyzing possible contradictions in modern research and describing representative case studies, this part is intended to foster new discussions and stimulate new ideas. All in all, the book provides researchers and graduate students in the fields of applied philosophy, epistemology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence alike with an authoritative snapshot of the latest theories and applications of model-based reasoning.

Among the various perspectives offered by philosophical studies about the status of mathematics, Immanuel Kant’s ideas, in my opinion, are a valuable and essential fil rouge that can highlight in a satisfactory way how mathematics and cognition are tightly intertwined. In order to avoid outdated ontological views, Kant offers a philosophical anti-metaphysical framework for mathematics that serves as a fundamental defense of its function in higher-order cognitive activities and its ability to render the world rationally intelligible. Kant shows how the empirical world is transformed into a world of mathematical relations to the aim of having excellent knowledge results. I claim that it is Kantian philosophy of mathematics that has cleared the way for later research on the cognitive and epistemic benefits of mathematics. I will make use of this traditional viewpoint to offer a fresh perspective on some of the primary issues surrounding the matter: (1) the naturalization and historicization of mathematics, which demonstrates the close connection between the cognitive processes of discovery and application of mathematics and their historical development, (2) the emphasis on the cognitive benefits of mathematical modeling in research as a counterbalance to the current overzealous focus on big data management, as a competitive means of producing scientific results, (3) the absence of a mathematically sound cognitive schematic endeavor to produce scientific intelligibility, which frequently results in flimsy substitute “modeling” that is falsely claimed to be scientific.

Scientific models are no longer just seen as helpful tools for discovering new entities, rules, and theories or for elucidating existing ones in the present epistemological discussion: from the classical ones, as abstract entities and idealizations, to the more recent, as fictions, surrogates, credible worlds, missing systems, make-believe, parables, functions, epistemic actions, and revealing capacities. The discussion of these approaches illustrates some of their epistemological shortcomings while also making use of contemporary developments in cognitive research. With the aid of current findings from the fields of distributed cognition and ‘manipulative’ abductive cognition, the major goal is to review and critique fictionalism while also redefining the conventional notion of abstraction and ideality of models: all considerations take advantage of the intellectual framework of what I call ‘epistemic warfare’. In this perspective, the scientific enterprise is viewed as a difficult struggle for reaching rational knowledge in which it is necessary to distinguish between non-epistemic (such as fictions, falsities, and propaganda) and epistemic weapons (such as scientific models). Lastly, I will illustrate that adopting a perplexing blend of static and dynamic characteristics of the scientific enterprise is deceptive to assess the role-models in science. When seen from a static perspective, such as when they are included in a textbook, scientific models unquestionably seem fictional to epistemologists. Yet, when viewed from a dynamic perspective, I contend that their fictional nature vanishes.

In the literature currently published in the fields of philosophy and cognitive science, the role of models and model-based reasoning in moral cognition is essentially ignored or undervalued. I personally touched on this subject in my book, Understanding Violence. The Intertwining of Morality, Religion and Violence: A Philosophical Stance (Magnani 2011). Taking advantage of the role of models as moral artefactual mediators and of the concept of cognitive niche construction I will discuss many elements of moral cognition that are connected with them, also stressing the close relationship between morality and violence. Once the function of moral models as artefacts and their interpretation in terms of cognitive niches have been established, we will consider the following: how do they influence moral cognition and human morality (and maybe violent related events as well)?

InViolenceand philosophy thePhilosophyand violence paper “Philosophy – The luxurious supplement of violence”, Bevan Catley (2003) says In many of the growing number of accounts of workplace violenceWorkplace violence there Violenceworkplace exists a particular sense of certainty; a certain confidence in what violence “really” is. With these accounts, philosophy appears unnecessary – and even luxurious – in the face of the obvious and bloody reality of workplace violence. [...] one outcome is an absence of a sense of curiosity about the concept of violence in many typical commentaries on workplace violence.

An important research in the area of psychology that can enrich our perspective on the relationship between morality and violence concerns the so-called moral disengagement illustrated by Bandura (1999). The neglect of moral conduct is widespread in moral agents: moral standards, even if previously adopted as guidelines for self-sanctioning and to avoid self-condemnation or self-devaluation, are often contravened. The moral behavior, Bandura says, is both inhibitive – refraining from certain behaviour – and proactive – behaving according to that particular idea of humanity, which is embedded in the adopted moral standard.

TheViolenceand philosophy mainPhilosophyand violence problemViolenceand morality IMoralityand violence wantViolenceand religion toReligionsand violence address here is related to a kind of prosaicFaithand its pervertibility paradoxPervertibility of faith, whichMoral mediatorsreligions as everybodyReligionsas moral carriers knowsReligionsas moral mediators: onPunishment oneSacrificeand scapegoating sideScapegoatingand sacrifice religions are a way of explaining the genesis of violence – for example in terms of spiritual evasion, like in the case of KierkegaardKierkegaard, S.’s vision – and a way of escaping it but, at the same time, insofar as religions are carriers of moral views (and take part in their “secular” construction) they constitute a great part of those collective axiologies I illustrated in chapter four, which are possible triggers of punishment. Moral axiological systems are inclined to be the condition of possibility of conflicts that can lead to violent outcomes.

This book offers a philosophical account of violence, engaged with both empirical and theoretical debates in disciplines such as cognitive science, sociology, psychiatry, anthropology, political theory, evolutionary biology, and theology. The primary thesis is that violence is intertwined with morality and typically enacted for “moral” reasons. To show this, the book compellingly demonstrates how morality operates to trigger and justify violence and how people, in their violent behaviors, can engage and disengage with discrete moralities. The author’s fundamental account of language, and in particular its normative aspects, is particularly insightful as regards extending the range of what is to be understood as violence beyond the domain of physical harm. By employing concepts such as “coalition enforcement”, “moral bubbles”, “cognitive niches”, “overmoralization”, and “military intelligence”, the book aims to spell out how perpetrators and victims of violence systematically disagree about the very nature of violence. The author’s original claim is that disagreement can be understood naturalistically, described by an account of morality informed by evolutionary perspectives as well. This book helps us come to terms with the fact that we are intrinsically “violent beings”. To acknowledge this condition, and our stupefying capacity to inflict harm, is a responsibility we must face up to: such understanding could ultimately be of help in order to achieve a safer ownership of our destinies, by individuating and reinforcing those cognitive firewalls that would prevent violence from always escalating and overflowing. This second edition is thoroughly revised and integrated with two new chapters to cover new aspects of violence and its understanding, such as the role of looting finance in facilitating violent outcomes and the attack to scientific cognition and human creativity.

“Habit” is not an easy term in Peirce’s epistemology: on the one hand it often signifies the rule of action that is attained with the fixation of belief (1877) [EP 1: 109–123]; on the another hand, it is also described as an almost instinctual process that determines further reasonings, the element “by virtue of which an idea gives rise to another” (1873) [CP 7.354]. Stressing the apparently wide separation between these two traits of habit in the epistemic continuum between doubt and belief, we will be able to illustrate (a) a knowledge-based kind of habit, for the analysis of which we will also exploit Gibson’s concept of “affordance” (1950), which also plays a pivotal role in the justification of the agent’s own beliefs; and (b) an ignorance-based kind of habit, which will be proved as necessary for the beginning of thought, and which is at the base of the ampliative reasoning, condensed in another Peircean key topic (often qualified as “instinctual” in his writings): abduction.