Blood brotherhood andbromance in Taiwan cinema.Corrado Neri -forthcoming -Diogenes.detailsThe rejection of Mou Tun-fei’s End of Track (late 1960s), an ‘invisible’ film, never distributed, proves to what extent the themes it tackled (homosexuality, class difference, nihilism) were taboo for an entire generation. Banana Paradise (1980s) deals with the way two brothers in arms survive by usurping the identity of deceased comrades and eventually living in a society in exile tainted by the memory of the continent. Finally, Gf/Bf (2000s) develops themes that were once censored (homosexuality, democratization) and which resurface (...) through the lens of a love triangle. Despite their heterogeneity, these films allow us to draw a history of this fraternal relationship in ambiguous and dissonant contexts. Through three films from different periods, I trace the evolution over time of the representation of friendship between men, an evolution that reveals a ‘paradigm shift’ within Taiwanese society itself. (shrink)
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(1 other version)Motor representation in acting together.Corrado Sinigaglia &Stephen A. Butterfill -2022 -Synthese 200 (2):1-16.detailsPeople walk, build, paint and otherwise act together with a purpose in myriad ways. What is the relation between the actions people perform in acting together with a purpose and the outcome, or outcomes, to which their actions are directed? We argue that fully characterising this relation will require appeal not only to intention, knowledge and other familiar philosophical paraphernalia but also to another kind of representation involved in preparing and executing actions, namely motor representation. If we are right, motor (...) representation plays a central role in the story of acting together. (shrink)
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Stability in Liberal Epistocracies.Corrado Fumagalli -2023 -Social Epistemology 37 (1):97-109.detailsIn this article, I argue that stability is one of the enabling conditions for epistocratic arrangements to function well and justify their claim right to rule. Against this backdrop, I demonstrate that advocates of strategies to allocate exclusive decision-making power to knowledgeable citizens fail to demonstrate that in a context marked by the fact of pluralism, liberal epistocracies will be stable. They could argue that liberal epistocracies will be stable because epistocratic arrangements are better equipped than democratic decision-making bodies to (...) produce outcomes that approximate the common good. They could argue that liberal epistocracies will be stable because there is a shared meritocratic set of values and ideas. Furthermore, they could opt for two standard liberal strategies, such as overlapping consensus and modus vivendi. Yet, in all cases, the argument for the stability of liberal epistocracies is not persuasive. (shrink)
On a puzzle about relations between thought, experience and the motoric.Corrado Sinigaglia &Stephen A. Butterfill -2015 -Synthese 192 (6):1923-1936.detailsMotor representations live a kind of double life. Although paradigmatically involved in performing actions, they also occur when merely observing others act and sometimes influence thoughts about the goals of observed actions. Further, these influences are content-respecting: what you think about an action sometimes depends in part on how that action is represented motorically in you. The existence of such content-respecting influences is puzzling. After all, motor representations do not feature alongside beliefs or intentions in reasoning about action; indeed, thoughts (...) are inferentially isolated from motor representations. So how could motor representations have content-respecting influences on thoughts? Our aim is to solve this puzzle. In so doing, we shall provide the basis for an account of how experience links the motoric with thought. Such an account matters for understanding how humans think about action: in some cases, we have reasons for thoughts about actions that we would not have if we were unable to represent those actions motorically. (shrink)
ClaudiaBianchi - Review of Martin Gustafsson and Richard Sørli. The Philosophy of J. L. Austin.ClaudiaBianchi -2014 -Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 2 (6).detailsMartin Gustafsson and Richard Sørli. The Philosophy of J. L. Austin. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780199219759 Reviewed by ClaudiaBianchi.
Soma to germline inheritance of extrachromosomal genetic information via a LINE‐1 reverse transcriptase‐based mechanism.Corrado Spadafora -2016 -Bioessays 38 (8):726-733.detailsMature spermatozoa are permeable to foreign DNA and RNA molecules. Here I propose a model, whereby extrachromosomal genetic information, mostly encoded in the form of RNA in somatic cells, can cross the Weismann barrier and reach epididymal spermatozoa. LINE‐1 retrotransposon‐derived reverse transcriptase (RT) can play key roles in the process by expanding the RNA‐encoded information. Retrotransposon‐encoded RT is stored in mature gametes, is highly expressed in early embryos and undifferentiated cells, and becomes downregulated in differentiated cells. In turn, RT plays (...) a role in developmental control, as its inhibition arrests developmental progression of early embryos with globally altered transcriptomic profiles. Thus, sperm cells act as recipients, and transgenerational vectors of somatically derived genetic information which they pass to the next generation with the potential to modify the fate of the developing embryos. (shrink)
The analytic tradition in philosophy: background and issues.MichaelCorrado -1975 - Chicago: American Library Association.detailsAn introduction to the history of analytic philosophy, up to about 1975, together with discussion of the analytic treatment of epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and logical theory.
A Field of Veiled Continuities.Corrado Matta -2017 - Dissertation,detailsEmpirical educational research enjoys a methodological and theoretical debate that is characterized by a number of unresolved and lively debated controversies. This compilation thesis is an attempt to contribute to this debate using the toolbox of philosophy of science. -/- The thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four essays. In the introductory chapter I identify three methodological and theoretical controversies that are discussed within the field of educational research. These are: 1) the controversy concerning the scientific status of educational (...) research; 2) the controversy between cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning; and, 3) the controversy between realist and constructionist interpretations of theories of learning. -/- I provide in the essays a critical assessment of the claims behind each of these controversies, and argue for an alternative reconstruction of these issues. -/- In Essay I, I criticize a view about the interpretation of human action, labeled in the text as interpretivism. This view posits a sharp separation between the natural and social sciences, to the effect that the methods of the latter cannot be applied to the former. The first controversy seems to rest on this position. As I argue, the arguments in support of interpretivism are contradicted by actual research practice. I conclude that the interpretivistic claims lack support and that the general separation claim appears as problematic. -/- A further debate has fueled the first controversy, that is, the supposed distinction between qualitative and quantitative methods. In Essay II, I argue against this distinction. More specifically, I discuss the concept of empirical support in the context of qualitative methods (for short, qualitative support). I provide arguments that although there are two specific and non-trivial properties of qualitative support, there is no methodological separation between quantitative and qualitative methods concerning empirical support. -/- Considered together, the first two essays indicate two points of methodological continuity between educational research and other scientific practices (such as the natural sciences). I therefore conclude that the controversy concerning the scientific status of educational research rests in large part on unjustified claims. -/- Essay III focuses on the second controversy. In this article I argue that Suárez’ inferential approach to the concept of scientific representation can be used as an account of scientific representation in learning, regardless of whether learning is understood as a cognitive or social phenomenon. -/- The third controversy is discussed in Essay IV. Here, I discuss some ontological aspects of the framework of the actor-network theory. Reflecting on the use of this framework in the research field of Networked Learning, I argue that the assumption of an ontology of relations provides the solution for two puzzles about the ontology of networks. The relevance of my argument for the third controversy is that it suggests a point of connection between constructionist and realist interpretations of the ontology of learning. -/- The last two essays suggest two points of continuities between theoretical frameworks that have been and still are argued to be incompatible. (shrink)
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Mirror neurons: This is the question.Corrado Sinigaglia -2008 -Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (10-11):70-92.detailsDespite the impressive body of evidence supporting the existence of a mirror neuron (MN) system for action, the original claim regarding its crucial role in action understanding remains controversial. Emma Borg has recently launched a sharp attack on this claim, with the aim of demonstrating that neither the original version nor the subsequent revisions of the MN hypothesis tell us very much about how intentional attribution actually works. In this article I take up the challenge she issues in the title (...) of her paper (If Mirror Neurons are the Answer, What was the Question?) and argue that what MNs offer is not as Borg claims 'an extremely limited' picture of action understanding but rather an enriched picture that brings to light aspects of social cognition hitherto ignored in the mind-reading literature, showing how intentional motor components of action can shape social cognition prior to and apart from any forms of deliberate mentalizing. (shrink)
Slurs and appropriation: an echoic account.ClaudiaBianchi -2014 -Journal of Pragmatics 66:35–44.detailsSlurs are derogatory terms targeting individuals and groups of individuals on the basis of race, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The aim of my paper is to propose an account of appropriated uses of slurs – i.e. uses by targeted groups of their own slurs for non-derogatory purposes, as in the appropriation of ‘nigger’ by the African-American community, or the appropriation of ‘queer’ by the homosexual community. In my proposal appropriated uses are conceived as echoic, in Relevance Theory terms: (...) in-groups echo derogatory uses in ways and contexts that make manifest the dissociation from the offensive contents. I will show that the echoic strategy has interesting advantages over alternative theories, and especially over Anderson and Lepore’s deflationary strategy. (shrink)
A Marriage is an Artefact and not a Walk that We Take Together: An Experimental Study on the Categorization of Artefacts.Corrado Roversi,Anna M. Borghi &Luca Tummolini -2013 -Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4 (3):527-542.detailsArtefacts are usually understood in contrast with natural kinds and conceived as a unitary kind. Here we propose that there is in fact a variety of artefacts: from the more concrete to the more abstract ones. Moreover, not every artefact is able to fulfil its function thanks to its physical properties: Some artefacts, particularly what we call “institutional” artefacts, are symbolic in nature and require a system of rules to exist and to fulfil their function. Adopting a standard method to (...) measure conceptual representation (the property generation task), we have experimentally explored how humans conceptualise these different kinds of artefacts. Results indicate that institutional artefacts are typically opposed to social objects, while being more similar to standard artefacts, be they abstract or concrete. (shrink)
Non-pharmaceutical Interventions and Social Distancing as Intersubjective Care and Collective Protection.Corrado Piroddi -2022 -Asian Bioethics Review 14 (4):379-395.detailsThe paper discusses non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) as a collective form of protection that, in terms of health justice, benefits groups at risk, allowing them to engage in social life and activities during health crises. More specifically, the paper asserts that NPIs that realize social distancing are justifiable insofar as they are constitutive of a type of social protection that allows everyone, especially social disadvantaged agents, to access the public health sphere and other fundamental social spheres, such as the family and (...) civil society. (shrink)
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(1 other version)Through the Looking Glass: Self and Others.Corrado Sinigaglia &Giacomo Rizzolatti -2011 -Cosciousness and Cognition 20 (1):64-74.detailsIn the present article we discuss the relevance of the mirror mechanism for our sense of self and our sense of others. We argue that, by providing us with an understanding from the inside of actions, the mirror mechanism radically challenges the traditional view of the self and of the others. Indeed, this mechanism not only reveals the common ground on the basis of which we become aware of ourselves as selves distinct from other selves, but also sheds new light (...) on the content of our self and other experience, showing that we primarily experience ourselves and the others in terms of our own and of their motor possibilities respectively. -/- . (shrink)
The Food Allergy Risk Management in the EU Labelling Legislation.Corrado Rizzi,Gianni Zoccatelli,Barbara Simonato,Caterina Fratea &Federica Mainente -2017 -Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 30 (2):275-285.detailsFood allergy represents an increasing public health issue, and a large number of food control authorities have provided regulations aimed to minimize the risk of allergic reaction for sensitized consumers. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations together with the World Health Organization established the Codex Alimentarius Commission whose main goal is to protect the consumers’ health. To purse this task the Commission listed the foods and ingredients causing the most severe allergic reactions that should be labelled. It (...) has been reported that some cases of specific foods hypersensitivity display a different prevalence among different Countries. Thus, the European Union drew up a list of mandatory allergens longer than that provided by Codex Alimentarius. As a consequence of the complexity of the legal phraseology of the European Union and/or European Community the Regulations and/or Directives were differently translated in all EC/EU official languages determining possible misinterpretations of the legislation. Moreover, food labelling regulations were also established with the goal to promote the consumers’ conscious choice about what they eat. Starting from the case of the fermented beverages, we analysed the European legislative scenario concerning the allergen labelling of the last fifteen years, highlighting that mistranslations, misinterpretations and lack of information in the EU Regulations might lead to health and ethical issues. (shrink)
From Permanence to Total Availability: A Quantum Conceptual Upgrade.Massimiliano Sassoli deBianchi -2012 -Foundations of Science 17 (3):223-244.detailsWe consider the classical concept of time of permanence and observe that its quantum equivalent is described by a bona fide self-adjoint operator. Its interpretation, by means of the spectral theorem, reveals that we have to abandon not only the idea that quantum entities would be characterizable in terms of spatial trajectories but, more generally, that they would possess the very attribute of spatiality. Consequently, a permanence time shouldn’t be interpreted as a “time” in quantum mechanics, but as a measure (...) of the total availability of a quantum entity in participating to a process of creation of a spatial localization. (shrink)
Counterspeech and Ordinary Citizens: How? When?Corrado Fumagalli -2021 -Political Theory 49 (6):1021-1047.detailsCentral to the still-nascent normative literature on counterspeech is the widespread belief that citizens should engage discursively with haters and the effects of hate speech. It is also increasingly clear that discursive engagement with intolerant members of society should be understood as a continuous and extended series of different and connected actions. Much less has been said about the ways that attempts in persuasion and direct responses to hate speech relate to one another and about when specific counterspeech actions should (...) happen. This essay advances a more expansive and refined account of counterspeech, which is understood as a combination of continuous discursive engagement with intolerant members of society and acts of distancing from haters (shaming, correcting falsehoods, “Not in my name” campaigns, protests, and forms of discursive exit). After reconsidering discursive agency distribution (that is, who is an active participant, how, and when) around public hate speech, I show that continuous discursive engagement with intolerant members of society should be interrupted by visible acts of distancing when haters make hateful representative claims. (shrink)
Interpretivism and Causal Explanations.Corrado Matta -2015 -Philosophy of the Social Sciences 45 (6):543-567.detailsThis article criticizes a view about the interpretation of human action, labeled in the text as interpretivism. This view posits a sharp separation between the natural and social sciences, to the effect that the methods of the latter cannot be applied to the former. I criticize this standpoint by reconstructing a case of educational research. As I argue, the case I analyze indicates that the arguments in support of interpretivism are contradicted by what social researchers can actually achieve. I conclude (...) that the interpretivistic claims lack support and that the general separation claim appears as problematic. (shrink)
Conceptualizing institutions.Corrado Roversi -2014 -Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (1):201-215.detailsBeing part of the life of institutions requires a considerable amount of conceptual knowledge. In institutional settings, we must learn the relevant concepts to act meaningfully, and these concepts are internal in a peculiar way, namely, they are strictly relative to the rules of a given institution because they are constituted by those rules. However, institutions do not come out of nothing: They are inscribed in a social setting and this setting determines, at least in a broad sense, what is (...) the nature of the institution. Our social life therefore creates more or less defined contexts for meaningful institutional activities, and these contexts in their own turn involve concepts. In this paper, I address this question by distinguishing between three kinds of concepts relevant for an institution and trying to identify the different relations that these concepts have with constitutive rules. I then proceed to explain how this distinction can improve our understanding of practical reasoning in institutional context. (shrink)
Fra Leopold Ranke ed Eduard Gans. Un autografo inedito di Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy dalle lezioni rankiane del 1827 sulla Rivoluzione Francese.Corrado Bertani -2009 -Rivista di Storia Della Filosofia 64 (4):709-730.detailsBetween Leopold Ranke and Eduard Gans - Certain circumstances and stylistic considerations lead us to believe that the manuscript MS. 114 in the Mendelssohn Archive at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin is evidence of a course in "Contemporary History" held by Leopold Ranke at the city’s university in the summer term of 1827. The course was on the chronological history of the French Revolution. Ranke had already dealt with the same subject the year before, though in a less detailed manner. And (...) it was not until 1875 that he published a work on the period of the Revolution, but focussing solely on the war between the European powers in 1791-1792. Hence the importance of the new manuscript - in Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s own hand - which, previously, had been mistakenly connected with the teaching of the Hegelian jurist Eduard Gans. Mendelssohn attended his course on the French Revolution in the summer of 1828. (shrink)