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7Winning with mētis: embodied virtues in sport practice, from Odysseus to MaradonaSport, Ethics and Philosophy 1-19. forthcoming.The Greek word mētis (μῆτις) traditionally refers to a particular form of wily intelligence associated with the arts of deception (dolos) and the knowledge of tricks (kerdē), subterfuges, and traps. Mētis evokes innovative and ground-breaking solutions, based on the capability to understand, anticipate, and possibly violate the others’ expectations. Most importantly, mētis presupposes practical wisdom, or prudence (phrόnesis), a dispositional quality that underpins all the virtues that deserve t…Read more
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17Dreyfus is right: knowledge-that limits your skillSynthese 202 (3): 1-69. 2023.Skilful expertise is grounded in practical, performative knowledge-how, not in detached, spectatorial knowledge-that, and knowledge-how is embodied by habitual dispositions, not representation of facts and rules. Consequently, as action control is a key requirement for the intelligent selection, initiation, and regulation of skilful performance, habitual action control, i.e. the kind of action control based on habitual dispositions, is the true hallmark of skill and the only veridical criterion …Read more
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4“I See You” through a Glass DarklyIn George A. Dunn (ed.), Avatar and Philosophy, Wiley. 2014-09-02.Avatar, a passionate movie about empathy, features characters who, in various ways, are able to experience the world through the eyes of another or, as the saying goes, to “put themselves into another's shoes”. But, concealed beneath a surface of ecological pantheism, a contradiction lies at the heart of the movie's portrayal of empathy. On the one hand, in ordinary empathy access to another person's mind is mediated by our perception of her unique embodied identity. On the other hand, Avatar in…Read more
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5SAMCRO and The Art of Motorcycle MaintenanceIn George A. Dunn & Jason T. Eberl (eds.), Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy, Wiley. 2013-09-05.Jax Teller, Clay Morrow, and the other members of SAMCRO are first and foremost bikers and mechanics who fix bikes. Many bikers experience riding as therapeutic, since a good ride can help a suffering soul to forget the worries of life. Martin Heidegger argues that practical skills, such as the ones Tig needs to repair bikes, are the most fundamental form of knowledge. Many bike owners don't feel confident when they have to do repairs and finally face the dreaded encounter with the un‐ready‐to‐h…Read more
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1388Sympathy for Dolores: Moral Consideration for Robots Based on Virtue and RecognitionPhilosophy and Technology 33 (1): 9-31. 2019.This paper motivates the idea that social robots should be credited as moral patients, building on an argumentative approach that combines virtue ethics and social recognition theory. Our proposal answers the call for a nuanced ethical evaluation of human-robot interaction that does justice to both the robustness of the social responses solicited in humans by robots and the fact that robots are designed to be used as instruments. On the one hand, we acknowledge that the instrumental nature of ro…Read more
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30A Taste of Armageddon: A Virtue Ethics Perspective on Autonomous Weapons and Moral InjuryJournal of Military Ethics 21 (1): 19-38. 2022.Autonomous weapon systems could in principle release military personnel from the onus of killing during combat missions, reducing the related risk of suffering a moral injury and its debilita...
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498Wax On, Wax Off! Habits, Sport Skills, and Motor IntentionalityTopoi 40 (3): 609-622. 2020.What role does habit formation play in the development of sport skills? We argue that motor habits are both necessary for and constitutive of sensorimotor skill as they support an automatic, yet inherently intelligent and flexible, form of action control. Intellectualists about skills generally assume that what makes action intelligent and flexible is its intentionality, and that intentionality must be necessarily cognitive in nature to allow for both deliberation and explicit goal-representatio…Read more
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184Mind-upload. The ultimate challenge to the embodied mind theoryPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (3): 425-448. 2017.The ‘Mind-Upload’ hypothesis, a radical version of the Brain-in-a-Vat thought experiment, asserts that a whole mind can safely be transferred from a brain to a digital device, after being exactly encoded into substrate independent informational patterns. Prima facie, MU seems the philosophical archenemy of the Embodied Mind theory, which understands embodiment as a necessary and constitutive condition for the existence of a mind and its functions. In truth, whether and why MU and EM are ultimate…Read more
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19Can a robot invigilator prevent cheating?AI and Society 35 (4): 981-989. 2020.One of the open questions in Educational robots is the role a robot should take in the classroom. The current focus in this area is on employing robots as a tool or in an assistive capacity such as the invigilator of an exam. With robots becoming commonplace in the classroom, inquiries will be raised regarding not only their suitability but also their ability to influence and control the morality and behaviour of the students via their presence. Therefore, as a means to test this cross-section o…Read more
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The Seminal Speculation of a Precursor: Elements of Embodied Cognition and Situated AI in Alan TuringIn Vincent C. Müller (ed.), Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence, Springer. 2016.
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22Traces of a computational mindRevue de Synthèse 124 (1): 43-59. 2003.L'image de l'écriture est singulièrement fréquente dans des explications cognitivistes du fonctionnement de l'esprit, non seulement comme métaphore mais également comme paradigme conceptuel: la machine de Turing, en particulier, montre un isomorphisme structural complet avec l'utilisation de l'écriture alphabétique. La machine de Turing effectue exactement les mêmes opérations effectuées par un homme écrivant avec le stylo et le papier et cela dépend de deux raisons: 1. il a été conçu dans l'ima…Read more
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12Pointing As An Instrumental Gesture: Gaze Representation Through IndicationHumana Mente 6 (24). 2013.We call those gestures “instrumental” that can enhance certain thinking processes of an agent by offering him representational models of his actions in a virtual space of imaginary performative possibilities. We argue that pointing is an instrumental gesture in that it represents geometrical information on one’s own gaze direction, and provides a ritualized template for initiating gaze coordination and joint attention. We counter two possible objections, asserting respectively that the represent…Read more
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11Pointing: A Gesture that Makes Us Special?Humana Mente 6 (24). 2013.We call those gestures “instrumental” that can enhance certain thinking processes of an agent by offering him representational models of his actions in a virtual space of imaginary performative possibilities. We argue that pointing is an instrumental gesture in that it represents geometrical information on one’s own gaze direction, and provides a ritualized template for initiating gaze coordination and joint attention. We counter two possible objections, asserting respectively that the represent…Read more
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9La crisi delle scienze e la neurofenomenologia come missione filosoficaRivista di Estetica 37 3-8. 2008.Spero che mi si perdonerà lo slancio con cui, in queste pagine, sottolineerò gli aspetti militanti del pensiero neurofenomenologico, concedendomi toni che potrebbero apparire enfatici o retorici, e che potrebbero forse non rispecchiare la sensibilità degli altri contributori di questo volume, ma che ritengo più che mai opportuno usare, anche per onestà intellettuale, essendo implicitamente chiamato a dichiarare, in questa curatela, la mia opinione sulla funzione reale della neurofenomenologia...
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35Introduction: when embodied cognition and sport psychology team-upPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (2): 213-225. 2015.I.One of the main undertakings of the embodied approach to cognition is to spell out effectively the intuition that our body shapes what our mind can do . This endeavor is motivated—among other things – by the deep sense of awe that cognitive scientists experience in front of the sophistication, flexibility, and variability that can be reached by the motor abilities of well-trained humans. In particular, excellence in sporting skills inspires embodied cognition by exhibiting tangible evidence th…Read more
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12Verso una genealogia del cervello attraverso la riflessione di E. Husserl ed E. PaciComprendre. forthcoming.
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Introduzione. La crisi delle scienze e la neurofenomenologia come missione filosoficaRivista di Estetica 37. 2008.
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23Empatia e neuroni specchio. Dalle neuroscienze cognitive alla Quinta Meditazione cartesianaRivista di Estetica 37 43-65. 2008.Premessa Questo lavoro documenta una significativa convergenza tra la dottrina fenomenologica dell’empatia sviluppata da Edmund Husserl e la teoria della simulazione incarnata, suggerita dal funzionamento dei neuroni specchio nei primati (si farà riferimento ai lavori più recenti di Vittorio gallese). Posticipiamo, riservandola ad altra sede, la discussione fondazionale che risulterebbe indispensabile per giustificare un’analisi comparativa di questo tipo, limitandoci a constatare per il mome...
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34Enactive Cognition at the Edge of Sense-Making: Making Sense of Non-Sense (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2014.The enactive approach is a growing movement in cognitive science that replaces the classical computer metaphor of the mind with an emphasis on biological embodiment and social interaction as the sources of our goals and concerns. Mind is viewed as an activity of making sense in embodied interaction with our world. However, if mind is essentially a concrete activity of sense-making, how do we account for the more typically human forms of cognition, including those involving the abstract and the p…Read more
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107Constructing the space of action: From bio-robotics to mirror neuronsWorld Futures 65 (2). 2009.This article distinguishes three archetypal ways of articulating spatial cognition: (1) via metric representation of objective geometry, (2) via somatosensory constitution of the peripersonal environment, and (3) via pragmatic comprehension of the finalistic sense of action. The last one is documented by neuroscientific studies concerning mirror neurons. Bio-robotic experiments implementing mirror functions confirm the constitutive role of goal-oriented actions in spatial processes.
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28When the twain meet : Could the study of mind be a meeting of mindsIn James Williams (ed.), Postanalytic and Metacontinental: Crossing Philosophical Divides, Continuum. pp. 125. 2010.
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24Handbook of Embodied Cognition and Sport Psychology (edited book)MIT Press. 2019.The first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. This landmark work is the first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists that considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. With twenty-six chapters by leading researchers, the book connects and integrates findings from field…Read more
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