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80Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Natural Philosophy (edited book)Springer. 2022.This volume emphasizes the diversity and fruitfulness of early modern mechanism as a program, as a concept, as a model. Mechanistic study of the living body but also of the mind and mental processes are examined in careful historical focus, dealing with figures ranging from the first-rank (Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Cudworth, Gassendi, Locke, Leibniz, Kant) to less well-known individuals (Scaliger, Martini) or prominent natural philosophers who have been neglected in recent years (Willis, Steno,…Read more
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43Monadology, Materialism and Newtonian Forces: The Turn in Kant’s Theory of MatterQuaestio 16 167-189. 2016.Kant elaborated his dynamical theory of matter in two quite different systematic accounts, the first in the Monadologia physica, the second in the Dynamics chapter of the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. In this paper I investigate the transition from the monadological to the “continuum” dynamical theory of matter, whose exact timing and motives are not explicitly clarified in Kant’s writings. I locate Kant’s turn around the middle 1760s, presenting Kant’s abandonment of his ow…Read more
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41The rise of XVIIthcentury natural philosophy determines a significant break with the tradition and enthe idea of a new beginning of scientific investigation grounded on mathematics and experiment; at the same time, the diffusion of printed books represents an essential factor for the dissemination of the new philosophy. The ideal of the book, as an expression for this new philosophy, results from the speculation about the correspondence between the language and structure of the philosophical boo…Read more
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34History of physics and the Platonic legacy: a problem in Marburg Neo-KantianismBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (4): 671-693. 2021.In this article, I argue that the interpretation of Kant's a priori in Marburg neo-Kantianism involved a historiographical problem concerning the Platonic interpretation of the history of exact sci...
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28To give an account of intentionality in terms of the concepts and methods of natural science has been considered as a crucial step towards a naturalization of mental phenomena in general, and as such it has been pursued by a large number of naturalist philosophers and cognitive scientists. Starting from the late 1960s the problem has been addressed in very different, reductionist and antireductionist ways . The development of these philosophical programs has benefited from the contemporary techn…Read more
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26“Physiological Kantianism” and the “organization of the mind”: a reconsiderationIntellectual History Review 1-22. forthcoming.
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24“Stahl Was Often Closer to the Truth”: Kant’s Second Thoughts on Animism, Monadology, and HylozoismHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11 (2): 660-678. 2021.In the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics (1766), Kant remarks that Stahl, with his admission of immaterial forces for the explanation of organisms, was “closer to the truth than Hoffmann and Boerhaave, to name but a few,” although the latter adopted a “more philosophical method.” This puzzling statement is very significant for the understanding of Kant’s reception of animism, as it documents Kant’s reaction to the issues raised by the Leibniz-Stahl controversy and his …Read more
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21Reconsidering the ignorabimus: du Bois-Reymond and the hard problem of consciousnessScience in Context 33 (1): 1-18. 2020.ArgumentIn this paper I present an interpretation of du Bois-Reymond’s thesis on the impossibility of a scientific explanation of consciousness and of its present importance. I reconsider du Bois-Reymond’s speech “On the limits of natural science” (1872) in the context of nineteenth-century German philosophy and neurophysiology, pointing out connections and analogies with contemporary arguments on the “hard problem of consciousness.” Du Bois-Reymond’s position turns out to be grounded on an epis…Read more
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19The Systematical Role of Kant’s Opus postumum. “Exhibition” of Concepts and the Defense of Transcendental PhilosophyCon-Textos Kantianos 1 156-177. 2015.Kant’s admission of a “gap” in the philosophical system of criticism, which his unpublished project of the “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics” would have been meant to fill, has been the object of controversy among scholars. This article reconsiders the problem by connecting the manuscripts with the operation of “exhibition” of concepts, which already had a systematic role in the 1780s, concluding that the new project was intended to provide not a reform,…Read more
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16Lambert, Kant and Solidity: a Matter of MethodIn Hans-Peter Nowitzki, Enrico Pasini, Paola Rumore & Gideon Stiening (eds.), Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777): Wege Zur Mathematisierung der Aufklärung, De Gruyter. pp. 211-230. 2022.
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11The End of Matter? On the Early Reception of Relativity in neo-Kantian PhilosophyIn Chiara Russo Krauss & Luigi Laino (eds.), Philosophers and Einstein's Relativity: The Early Philosophical Reception of the Relativistic Revolution, Springer Verlag. pp. 67-87. 2023.In his article La fin de la matière (1906) Henri Poincaré reported that according to many physicists “matter does not exist”, but he immediately added: “this discovery is not conclusive”. This caution was not shared by many philosophers, who swiftly saluted both special and general relativity as the sources of a new conception of physical objects. In my talk I will focus on Marburg neo-Kantianism (Cohen, Natorp and Cassirer) with its characteristic thesis of a progressive “dissolution” of matter…Read more
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3Review of Michael Friedman, Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, xix + 646 pp., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013 (review)Con-Textos Kantianos 3 437-445. 2016.
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1Demonstrative and Non-Demonstrative Reasoning in Mathematics and Natural Science (edited book)Edizioni dell'Università di Cassino. 2006.
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Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Philosophy (edited book)Springer. 2022.Table of Contents 0. Introduction Part I. Life and mechanism 1. Guido Giglioni (Macerata) Scaliger Bacon Harvey: A Trajectory in the Early Modern History of Vegetative Life 2. Andreas Blank (Klagenfurt) Jacob Schegk on Plants, Medicaments, and the Question of Emergence 3. Oana Matei (Arad/Bucharest) Particles, universal spirit, and seeds: John Evelyn's theory of matter in Elysium Britannicum 4. Luca Tonetti (Bologna) Stimulus and fibre theory in Giorgio Baglivi’s medicine: A reassessment 5. Anto…Read more
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Università degli Studi Roma TreDipartimento di Filosofia, Comunicazione e SpettacoloAssociate Professor
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
History of Western Philosophy |
Other Academic Areas |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
History of Western Philosophy |
Other Academic Areas |