Conferences & Workshops

Conferences & Workshops

Next Events

Marking The Mark of the Mental
International Final Conference PRIN Project 2017P9E9NF
May 29 – June 1 2023, Turin
Palazzo Badini Confalonieri, via Verdi 10, II floor
https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=mef7aa26cc202c039124c4aa03b6810c1

Programme

May 29, afternoon
14.30-16.00
Alfredo Tomasetta (IUSS Pavia) A Theory of Phenomenal For-me-ness
16.00-17.30
Katalin Farkas (CEU), Are Character Traits Mental?
17.30-18.00
Coffee break
18.00-19.30
Andrea Pace Giannotta (Bergamo), Phenomenal Intentionality and Process Ontology

May 30, morning
9.00-10.30
Laura Gow (Liverpool) Apparent Relationality as the Mark of the Mental (online)
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Kevin Mulligan (Geneva and Lugano), On the Difference between the Mental and the Psychological

May 30, afternoon
14.30-16.00
Tuomas Pernu (East Finland), No Marks of the Mental without Marks of the Physical
16.00-17.30
Gianfranco Soldati (Fribourg), Intentionality: a Natural Mark of the Mental?
17.30-18.00
Coffee break
18.00-19.30
Tim Crane (CEU), Unconscious Intentionality (online)

May 31, morning
9.00-10.30
Guillaume Frechette (Lisbon and Zurich), Intentionality As the Salient Mark of the Mental.
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Mark Textor (King’s College London), Marks of the Mental: Brentano and Beyond

May 31, afternoon
14.30-16.00
Michelle Montague (Austin), Brentano on Relations
16.00-17.30
Elisabetta Sacchi and Alberto Barbieri (S. Raffaele Milan), In Defence of a sui generis Disjunctivist Account of the Mark of the Mental
17.30-18.00
Coffee break
18.00-19.30
Arnaud Dewalque (Liège), Three Cambridge Arguments for Experientialism

June 1, morning
9.00-10.30
Sam Coleman (Hertfordshire), Consciousness is Neither Necessary Nor Sufficient for Mentality
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Alberto Voltolini (Turin), The Experiential Copula as the Mark of the Mental

The Structure of Intentionality
January 27, 2023
Aula di Antica, Palazzo Nuovo, via S. Ottavio 20 2nd floor, Turin

or join online:
https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=mef7aa26cc202c039124c4aa03b6810c1

Program

Morning
9-10.15 am
Hamid Taieb (Humboldt University Berlin)
Relational Intentionality in the History of Philosophy: An Overview

10.15-11.30 am
Andrew Thomas (University of Durham)
A New Look at Semantic Instrumentalism

11.30-11.45 am Coffee Break
11.45am-1pm
Mohammad Saleh Zarepour (University of Manchester)
Intentionality Primitivism Reconsidered

Afternoon
3pm-4.15pm
Stefania Centrone (FernUni Hagen)
Conceptions of Intentionality

4.15-5.30pm
Andrea Marchesi (University of Rome I)
The Liar, Intentionality, and Parthood

5.30-5.45 pm Coffee Break
5.45-7pm
Alberto Voltolini (University of Turin)
Full-blown Relationality

How the Senses Present the World

20-21 June 2022
Palazzo Badini-Confalonieri, via Verdi 10, Turin
Online: https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=meddc47a9afeef79bb8522ec74dfa4dc8
No need to register, but email giulia.martina@unito if you are planning to join in person

Programme

June 20
9:30 (brief introduction)

9:40 - 11:00 Nick Young (University of Milan)
Hearing Sad Speech in Minor Melodies

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-12:50 Elvira Di Bona (University of Turin)
How Audition Is Temporal

12:50-14:50 Lunch break

14:50-16:10 Louise Richardson (University of York)
Grief, Smell, & the Olfactory Air of a Person (joint work with Becky Millar)

16:10-16:40 Break

16:40-18:00 Giulia Martina (University of Turin)
Smelling Things (joint work with Matthew Nudds)

19:30 Dinner

June 21st
9:40 - 11:00 Mark E. Kalderon (University College London)
Perceptual Pragmatism and Objectivity

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-12:50 Fabrizio Calzavarini (University of Bergamo)
The Empirical Status of Semantic Perceptualism

12:50-14:50 Lunch break

14:50-16:10 Robert Briscoe (Ohio University)
Perception and Pictorial Representation

16:10-16:40 Break

16:40-18:00 Alberto Voltolini (University of Turin)
Presentation, Positional Presence, and Presentification

19:30 Dinner

Formerly Anglo-German Now Global Picture Group Workshop

February, 16-17 2022

Department of Psychology, Palazzo Badini-Confalonieri, Aula Magna (ground floor), via Verdi 10, Turin

Programme

Feb 16, morning

9.45am-11.15am
Regina-Nino Mion (Tallinn)
Husserl on Depiction

11.15am-11.30am
Coffee break

11.30am-13.00pm
John Kulvicki (Dartmouth College)
Recording, Playing back, and Representing (Recording of the talk)

Feb 16, afternoon

3.00pm-4.30pm
Ludger Schwarte (Düsseldorf)
On Paint and the Epistemology of Colour (Recording of the talk)

4.30pm-4.45am
Coffee break

4.45pm-6.15pm
Michael Morris (Sussex)
Phenomenological Arguments in the Philosophy of Representation (Recording of the talk)

Feb 17, morning

9.45am-11.15am
Eva Schürmann (Magdeburg)
Pictures as Depictions of Ideas

11.15am-11.30am
Coffee break

11.30am-13.00pm
Robert Hopkins (NYU)
The Birth of an Icon

Feb 17, afternoon

3.00pm-4.30pm
Lambert Wiesing (Jena)
From the Fictionality of Images to the Illusion of Digital Photography (Recording of the talk)

4.30pm-4.45am
Coffee break

4.45pm-6.15pm
Alberto Voltolini (Turin)
The Flag Problem (Recording of the talk)

Imagining, Understanding, and Knowing
Turin, January 27-28, 2022
This is a hybrid event. However, due to Covid19 restrictions, the audience is NOT allowed to participate in person. To attend the workshop, click here.

27 January

9.00 Registration

9.30-9.45 Opening remarks: Alberto Voltolini & Carola Barbero on behalf of the MUMBLE Research Group

Chair: Carola Barbero

09.45-11.00 María José Alcaraz León (Murcia), Experiential Modalities of Fictional Worlds

11.00-11.30 Break

11.30-12.45 Wolfgang Huemer (Parma), How to Imagine Another’s Perspective

12.45-14.45 Lunch Break

Chair: Alberto Voltolini

14.45-16.00 Ingrid Vendrell Ferran (Heidelberg), Imaginative Acquaintance with Other Minds

16.15-17.30 Iris Vidmar Jovanović (Rijeka), The People We End Up Being: Aesthetic Cognitivism and Immoral Art

28 January

Chair: Fabrizio Calzavarini

10.00-11.15 Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham), Understanding Delusions

11.15-11.45 Break

11.45-13.00 Anna Ichino (Milan), Conspiracy Theories and Make-Believe

13.00-15.00 Lunch Break

Chair: Matteo Plebani

15.00-16.15 Jukka Mikkonen (Helsinki), On the Challenges in the Empirical Study of Literary Cognition

16.30-17.45 Marta Benenti (San Raffaele - Milan), Climate Fictions as Thought Experiments

Past Events

Narrations, Confabulations, and Conspiracies
XXVI Convegno nazionale della Società di Filosofia del Linguaggio
Turin, June 21-22, 2021

Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham)
John Gibson (University of Louisville)
Elisabetta Gola (University of Cagliari)
Françoise Lavocat (The New Sorbonne University, Paris)
Dario Mangano (University of Palermo)
Pietro Perconti (University of Messina)
Isabella Pezzini (La Sapienza University of Rome)
Stefano Traini (University of Teramo)
Ugo Volli (University of Turin)
Sandro Zucchi (University of Milan)

21 giugno, mattina / June 21, morning

10-10.15 Saluto della Presidente della Società / SFL President’s Greeting
10.15-11.15 Pietro Perconti (Messina) “A Liberal Perspective on Narratives”
11.15-12.15 Anna Maria Lorusso (Bologna) “Fake news e cospirazioni: tra rumors e grandi narrazioni”

21 giugno, pomeriggio / June 22, afternoon

15-16 Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham) “Are Conspiracy Theories like Delusions?”
16-17 Alessandro Zucchi (Milan) “The Three Barbers Revisited”

17.00-17.30 pausa caffè virtuale / virtual coffee break

17.30-18.30 Ugo Volli (Turin) “I complotti sono storie”

22 giugno, mattina / June 22, morning

10-11 Dario Mangano (Palermo) “Il valore al tempo del Covid”
11-12 Françoise Lavocat (New Sorbonne University, Paris) “È la narrazione cospiratoria?”

22 giugno, pomeriggio / June 22, afternoon

15-16 Elisabetta Gola (Cagliari) “Narrazioni e metafore: processi di costruzione di immaginari letterari e scientifici”
16-17 Stefano Traini (Teramo) “Segreti, complotti e teorie semiotiche”
17.00-17.30 pausa caffè virtuale / virtual coffee break
17.30-18.30 John Gibson (Louisville) “Storied Selves & Worded Worlds”
18.30-20 Assemblea dei Soci SFL / SFL members Assembly

Abstracts

Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham)
Are Conspiracy Theories like Delusions?

Conspiracy theories are often likened to clinical delusions, and correlations have been found between conspiracist thinking and paranoia. In this paper, the similarities and differences between conspiracy theories and persecutory delusions are discussed. There is only a partial overlap between their surface features and aetiology. Moreover, when it comes to downstream effects, persecutory delusions are typically characterised by severe disruption to one’s life, whereas conspiracy theories do not seem to be psychologically harmful for the individual. The similarities between conspiracy theories and clinical delusions suggest that they are both ‘unshakeable’ and can become central to a person’s identity, but do not support the pathologisation of conspiracy theories.

John Gibson (Louisville)
Storied Selves & Worded Worlds
It is common to claim that fictional characters and the worlds they inhabit are in part constituted by the narratives that present them to appreciation. The question I explore here is how the employment of narrative in fictional contexts can show us something about how we too constitute a sense of our selves and ascribe structure and significance to social and cultural reality. I argue that what I will call thick narratives reveal a distinctive kind of meaning that is imaginative, not propositional, at root. Understanding the function of thick narratives, I claim, shows us something important about the nature of meaning in the context of fictional art and its broader epistemic and ethical significance.

Elisabetta Gola (Cagliari)
Narrazioni e metafore: processi di costruzione di immaginari letterari e scientifici

Le narrazioni e le metafore sono legate almeno da una duplice relazione: da un lato presentano diverse similarità, che le rende due meccanismi che entrano in gioco nella nostra mente per apprendere e comunicare contenuti “di verità”, inclusi quelli scientifici. D’altra parte, le metafore entrano nella narrazione, talvolta attraverso gli archetipi, a definire immaginari che esorcizzano paure (come nelle distopie), come un vaccino, oppure offrendoci esperienze già vissute dai personaggi nelle storie letterarie, offrendo così una cura. In entrambi i casi le metafore mediano l’esperienza del soggetto rispetto al nuovo contesto. Nella relazione esploreremo queste interazioni, portando alcuni casi esemplificativi e proponendo una revisione delle teorie della metafora più consolidate alla luce di queste necessità esplicative e del fatto che la nostra mente (e le sue possibilità argomentative) sembra funzionare più su base narrativa che logico-razionale.

Françoise Lavocat (Paris)
È la narrazione cospiratoria?

In questa presentazione, ritornerò prima sulla nozione di confabulazione, basata sul lavoro di un neuroscienziato, Armin Schnider. Mostrerò che la confabulazione non è solo un sintomo di una malattia psichiatrica, ma anche un'indicazione della fragilità del nostro apparato cognitivo, e in particolare dei processi di memoria. La tendenza alla confabulazione viene poi invocata per argomentare la nostra presunta incapacità di distinguere tra fatto e finzione. La sfiducia in questa capacità può portare alla considerazione che potremmo essere personaggi del film Matrix, per così dire, cervelli in una vasca.
In una seconda fase, considererò e discuterò le tesi che considerano la narrazione come uno strumento di falsificazione della realtà, con obiettivi più o meno determinati e identificati, in particolare quelle di Roland Barthes, Hayden White e Christian Salmon. L'imperialismo attuale della narratività (messo in evidenza, in particolare, da Raphaël Baroni), al servizio dell'idea che siamo fatti di narrazioni, circondati da narrazioni e modellati da narrazioni, sostiene una visione particolarmente disforica della narratività, che approfitta anche di un'indistinzione tra fatto e finzione.
Nella terza parte, cercherò di mettere queste tesi (che contesto) in prospettiva con la storia delle narrazioni dei disastri, in particolare delle pandemie, il che mi porterà a identificare alcuni dei motori delle correnti cospirative antiche e contemporanee. Mi chiederò fino a che punto le narrazioni, o almeno certe forme di narrazioni, siano intrinsecamente falsificanti. Mostrerò anche che il cospirazionismo contemporaneo (uno dei cui motti è quello di ingiungerci di "Svegliarci!" proprio come fa l'eroe di Matrix...) approfitta di un confondersi generalizzato del fatto e della finzione.

Anna Maria Lorusso (Bologna)
Fake news e cospirazioni: tra rumors e grandi narrazioni

L'idea dell'intervento è quella di mettere a confronto e distinguere la categoria di fake news e quella di cospirazioni, in funzione di due diversi modelli narrativi: il modello del pettegolezzo (per le fake news) e quello delle grandi narrazioni (per le cospirazioni). In entrambi i casi si tratta di vedere la funzione illocutiva di questi due "generi discorsivi" come essenzialmente non dichiarativa (il che li assolve, o almeno alleggerisce, dalla questione della verità) e piuttosto performativo-identitaria; ma si tratterà anche di vederne delle differenze (l'instabilità narrativa delle fake news-pettegolezzo, ad esempio, a fronte del manicheismo strutturante delle cospirazioni) e le possibili dinamiche di transizione dall'una all'altra.

Dario Mangano (Palermo)
Il valore al tempo del Covid

La questione del valore è centrale sia in linguistica sia in semiotica. È pensando il valore come prioritario rispetto alle entità di un qualunque codice espressivo che si è potuto concepire un approccio non ontologico ai linguaggi ma anche ripensare il concetto di narrazione pervenendo al paradigma della narratività. Le conseguenze di questo gesto teorico tuttavia non sono affatto esaurite, perché se è vero che “soltanto il fatto sociale può creare un sistema linguistico” (Saussure) le trasformazioni che occorrono nel primo si riverberano inevitabilmente sul secondo e viceversa, in modo tale una teoria dei linguaggi in quanto teoria del valore è anche una teoria della società. Da qui la centralità dell’analisi che, sola, consente di restituire una natura sistematica tanto ai fenomeni linguistici quanto a quelli sociali.
Data questa premessa, esiste uno specifico genere comunicativo che nella moderna società dei consumi ha assunto su di sé l’onere di articolare l’universo valoriale condiviso: la pubblicità. Considerato inizialmente un prodotto culturale semplice, quasi banale nel suo modo di dare valore ai prodotti di consumo, mercé l’analisi il testo pubblicitario si rivelato essere un oggetto di senso affatto complesso, capace di rivelare l’articolazione profonda dei sistemi valoriali di un’epoca. Se la pubblicità funziona è perché è in grado di contribuire a costruire precisi immaginari all’interno dei quali, prima ancora dei prodotti, sono appunto i valori a trovare posto, e dunque senso.
Se il discorso di marca accompagna ormai le nostre vite al punto da non distinguerlo nemmeno più dagli altri che intessono la semiosfera, può accadere talvolta che un sommovimento culturale scuota il sistema al punto da scompaginarlo radicalmente. È nel momento in cui il meccanismo si inceppa che i suoi ingranaggi diventano visibili e con essi il loro funzionamento. Un simile terremoto è avvenuto il 9 marzo 2020.
Fino al fatidico giorno d’inizio del lockdown questa stessa parola era del tutto ignota alla gran parte degli italiani, e forse proprio per questo è stata preferita a “confinamento”. Dalla sera alla mattina tutto si è fermato: le automobili hanno smesso di circolare, le attività commerciali hanno chiuso e nelle città ha preso corpo un silenzio irreale. Se il mondo dello spettacolo si è fermato insieme a tutto il resto, così non è stato per quello della pubblicità che ha subito cominciato a produrre nuovi commercial a più non posso. Nel giro di pochi giorni ogni break pubblicitario è cambiato. Pasta, biscotti, automobili, assicurazioni, perfino la carta igienica non è più stata quella che avevamo imparato a conoscere. Il Covid ha dato ai brand ciò che non nient’altro avrebbe potuto dargli: una Grande Narrazione tutta nuova, perfettamente adatta alla postmodernità. Una narrazione che tocca all’analisi decostruire per rivelare i meccanismi di costruzione del valore che la innervano.

Pietro Perconti (Messina)
A Liberal Perspective on Narratives

In my talk I want to focus on the thesis of the ubiquity of narratives, that is, the thesis that narratives are everywhere, and their moral correlate, that is, the thesis that a non-narrative life is not worth living. I am not suggesting that stories are not an important way of making sense of our lives, nor that they are not one of the most common ways of representing what happens to us, both in the eyes of others and in our own eyes. However, I will argue for a more liberal view that life is not poorer in the absence of narratives, just different. In particular, I will propose three personality styles: in addition to the narrative style, there is also an episodic personality style, based on individual episodes rather than the overall meaning of biographies, and a sentimental personality style, based on non-conceptual experiences and non-linguistic resources for experiencing things in the world. Finally, some consequences of this liberal way of thinking about narratives are considered, especially in ethics and clinical psychology.

Stefano Traini (Teramo)
Segreti, complotti e teorie semiotiche

Nel mio intervento partirò dalle riflessioni di Umberto Eco, il quale descrive il ragionamento complottistico come una forma anomala di semiosi basata su uno slittamento incontrollato e deviante del senso. A seguire proverò a proporre una “semiotica del complotto” di matrice più metodologica e analitica. Il complotto sarà l’oggetto di studio attraverso il quale mettere alla prova le teorie semiotiche, evidenziandone potenzialità e limiti.
Secrets, Conspiracies and Semiotic Theories
The starting point for my speech is an observation of Umberto Eco, who described conspiracy theories as an anomalous form of semiosis based on an uncontrolled and deviant slippage of meaning. Then, I will try to propose a more rigorously methodological and analytical “semiotics of conspiracy”. Conspiracy theories thus become a subject for study on which semiotic theories can be tested, highlighting their potential and their limits.

Ugo Volli (Turin)
I complotti sono storie

Da qualche anno si manifesta una grande attenzione giornalistica ma anche scientifica per le cosiddette “teorie del complotto”, spesso messe in relazioni con concetti come “fake news” e “postverità”. E certamente per molti fenomeni recenti, dal Covid alle elezioni americane alla Brexit si sono avanzate spiegazioni “complottistiche”. Ma il termine “teorie” è inadeguato a queste attribuzioni. Esse infatti non formulano principi generali, non giustificano le loro affermazioni, ma si presentano come constatazione di fatti. Si tratta piuttosto di narrazioni, che sfruttano alcuni meccanismi caratteristici delle strutture narrative. La relazione si propone di illustrare questi meccanismi e di esemplificarne l’uso analizzando alcuni casi topici di complottismo, innanzitutto i Protocolli dei Savi di Sion.
Plots Are Stories
For some years there has been a great journalistic but also scientific attention to the so-called "conspiracy theories", often related to concepts such as "fake news" and "post-truth". And certainly for many recent phenomena, from Covid to the American elections to Brexit, "conspiracy" explanations have been advanced. But the term "theories" is inadequate for these attributions. In fact, they do not formulate general principles, they do not justify their statements, but are presented as statements of facts. Rather, they are narratives, which exploit some characteristic mechanisms of narrative structures. The report aims to illustrate these mechanisms and to exemplify their use by analyzing some topical cases of conspiracy, first of all the Protocols of the Elders of Sion.

Alessandro Zucchi (Milan)
The Three Barbers Revisited

In the talk, I revisit Lewis Carroll’s story of the three barbers and I compare different narratives about what is going on in the story.

New Themes in the Philosophy of Perception
Turin, June 16-17, 2021

This event has been realized thanks to the financial contribution of the Dipartimento di Eccellenza ‘Filosofia e Scienze dell’Educazione’.

Link: https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=mb4e07874c576fd5587f7007f8a8785fc
PW: RGfM4jeSB53

June 16 (CEST time)

Chair: Matteo Plebani (Turin)
10-11:30am Carola Barbero (Turin)
Reading (a Literary Work)
(Recording of the talk)

Reading starts with an act of perception, but rapidly moves into an area concerning the recognition of written words. Concerning word recognition two aspects, functioning simultaneously and working in parallel are the phonological – converting groups of letters into sounds – and the lexical one – giving access to a mental dictionary of the meaning of words. But what does the act of reading consist in? According to Peter Kivy – who sees literary works as performances – there is a parallel between reading texts and reading scores. Does this parallel hold? Another question is the one concerning reasons for reading. When we read we are interested in understanding what signs stand for and we also activate memory, perception, problem solving, and reasoning, and our attention is devoted in identifying those characteristics of texts which help categorizing them as works of a specific genre. Readers play a central role: without them and their activity, there wouldn’t be anything more than a page full of black spots. As they read and understand, they propositionally imagine what they read and at a further level, they may also imagine objectually and simulatively. Those objects coming into being thanks to words and that we imagine are similar to what Roman Ingarden sees as a skeleton, needing the experience of reading to be appropriately concretized.

Chair: Andrea Tortoreto (Turin)
11:45-13:15 Keith Wilson (Oslo)
The Perspectival Character of Experience
(Recording of the talk)

Perceptual experience is permeated by situation-dependent features such as spatial perspective, lighting, auditory, tactual and other environmental conditions. How should we explain the distinctive contribution of these features to the qualitative character of experience? In this talk I offer a realist view of perspectival features according to which they are (1) mind-independent relations between the perceiver and the elements presented, and (2) partially constitutive of the phenomenal character of perception.

break

Chair: Giulia Martina (Turin)
3-4:30pm Elvira Di Bona (Turin)
Solving Problems through Timbre
(Recording of the talk)

What do we hear when having an auditory experience? Do we commonly hear only pitch, loudness, and duration, or we can also hear the object and the event which are involved in the production of sound? I argue that when having an auditory experience, we can auditorily perceive both the object and the event which are involved in the production of sound because sound has a multidimensional audible quality named timbre. Timbre allows, indeed, the perception of some features of the sounding object and the event in which it is involved when producing a sound.

Chair: Fabrizio Calzavarini (Bergamo)
4.45-6.00pm Susanna Siegel (Harvard)
The Phenomenal Public
(Recording of the talk)

Can we perceive the public, or can we only imagine it? Which modes of mentality for grasping the public
in mass society facilitate democracy, and which modes anti-facilitate democracy? I argue that it is possible to perceive the public, but that these modes of mentality are more susceptible to anti-democratic
modes of politics than they are to democratic ones.

June 17 (CEST time)

Chair: Marta Benenti (Milan)
10-11.30am Anna Daria Drożdżowicz (Oslo)
Hearing the Speaker’s Voice and the Voice-Face Analogy

For humans, vocal sounds are among the most prevalent and salient sounds in the auditory environment. Voice perception is a remarkable capacity that commonly allows us to recognize a speaker's emotional state and their identity. Because of this, in the empirical literature, voice is often described as the auditory face of a speaker. But is the voice-face analogy useful for philosophical work on voice perception? In this talk I will first briefly discuss two types of information (beyond strictly linguistic information) that are typically conveyed in the speaker’s voice. Next, I will explore the analogy between voice and face. I will look at selected similarities and differences in the information they provide and how they do so, thereby suggesting some prospects and limitations for the use of the analogy in the philosophy of perception.

Chair: Alice Morelli (Turin)
11.45-1.15pm Alessandro Bertinetto (Turin)
Improvising Perception (of Improvisation)
(Recording of the talk)

The talk focuses on the relationship between perception and improvisation. Moving from the question of whether improvisation is a perceptual quality of a performance (as argued by Hamilton 2000)– that is, of whether perception can reliably detect the improvisational state of a performance– I will explore the idea that a perception capable of grasping the improvisational status of a performance is, as it were, also improvisational, as some scholars suggest (Iyer 2004).
Approaching this idea in a normative sense, it could then be argued that the right perception of an improvisation is itself improvisational, thereby offering a cue to support the thesis of the improvisationality of the mind proposed by some 4E cognition theorists by adding a fifth E: that of Extemporaneity (Torrance, Schumann 2019). Drawing on an ongoing joint work with Alfredo Paternoster, the heuristic hypothesis I will suggest is this: perceptual cognition can still be considered as improvisation – albeit a constrained improvisation – even rejecting that mind is a dynamic system, and instead accepting, for example, a theory such as Clark’s predictive model (Clark 2016). It could therefore turn out that a properly trained perception can reliably detect the improvisational status of a performance by grasping the extemporaneousness of the perceptive "performance" itself.

break

Chair: Vera Tripodi (Turin)
3-4.30pm Alberto Voltolini (Turin)
Perceiving Aesthetic Properties
(Recording of the talk)

It is hardly disputable that at least some aesthetic properties are perceivable. Such properties are high-order ones. Unlike other aesthetic properties, which perhaps are only experienceable, they are perceivable, insofar as they supervene on other high-order properties that are perceivable as well. The difference between such kinds of high-order properties has only to do with how the perceptually relevant holistic form of attention (distributed over properties and focused on objects) that concerns them is respectively mobilized (in an interested vs. a disinterested way).

Chair: Elvira Di Bona (Turin)
4.45-6.00pm Krisztina Orban, Julia Peters, Hong Yu Wong (Tübingen)
The Significance of Expression
(Recording of the talk)

In this talk we will explore the significance of expression for understanding mindedness. We will consider a range of basic cases of expressive behaviours. This will allow us to sketch a new account of expression which distinguishes it from other forms of mindedness. We suggest that expression is a basic form of mindedness that manifests the emotional and social character of mind.

Latest News on Fiction
Turin, May 7, 2021
link: https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=m2705ee739a155b3d980d538e0c80ab2d

Morning start 10am CET (9am London, 5am New York)

Chair: Elvira Di Bona (Turin)
10am-10.45am Gregory Currie (York), “Fictionalism about learning from fiction”
10.45am-11am discussant Carola Barbero (Turin)
11am-11.30am public discussion
(Recording of the talk)

11.30am-11.45am break

Chair: Alice Morelli (Turin)
11.45am-12.30pm Stefano Predelli (Nottingham), “Stories with no names: an introduction to Radical Fictionalism”
12.30pm-12.45pm discussant Matteo Plebani (Turin)
12.45pm-13.15pm public discussion
(Recording of the talk)

Afternoon start: 3pm CET (2pm London, 10am New York)

Chair: Giulia Martina (Turin)
3pm-3.45pm Catharine Abell (Oxford), “Reasons to be realist: external talk about fictional entities”
3.45pm-4pm discussant Alberto Voltolini (Turin)
4pm-4.30pm public discussion
(Recording of the talk)

4.30pm-4.45pm break

Chair: Vera Tripodi (Turin)
4.45pm-5.30pm Jonathan Gilmore (CUNY), "Evaluative attitudes and imaginative immersion"
5.30pm-5.45pm discussant Marta Benenti (S. Raffaele, Milan)
5.45pm-6.15pm public discussion
(Recording of the talk)

Anglo-German Picture Group Webinar
June 30, 2020, 5-8 pm
https://unito.webex.com/unit/j.php?MTID=m09c23e81572d56721fbaa3402e822442

Emmanuel ALLOA (Fribourg): Jasper’s Dilemma
John KULVICKI (Dartmouth): Depicting

Stephen Yablo (MIT, Cambridge MA)
Webinar Lectures on Aboutness and Subject Matter
(Video)
November 20, 2020, 5:00-7.00 pm (CET), Turin

"Aboutness: the Basics"

Aboutness is supposed to be the relation sentences bear to their subject matters. But what is S's subject matter? It is made up of S's ways of being true or false. Why believe in ways, when our toolkit already contains possible worlds? An "inference to the best explanation" is sketched. Reviewing a number of would-be analyses in terms of worlds, we find that (i) though tempting, they fail, and (ii) every one can be fixed, or anyway improved, by putting ways in where the worlds were.

November 27, 2020, 5:00-7.00 pm (CET), Turin

"Ways: the Basics"

Unfortunately none of this tells us what a "way for S to be true" really is. They can't be minimal sufficient conditions of truth, for minimal conditions are unavailable in many cases ("There are infinitely many stars" is Kratzer's example). Following Lewis on "world where S is true," we dodge the problem by splitting it inj two: (i) determining which set-of-ways proposition S expresses, and (ii) counting s a way for S to be true if s belongs to the set. (ii) is trivial, and (i) is a job for someone else (the metasemanticist). In effect then we treat the notion as primitive. Still something needs to be said about which primitive is intended. An exceedingly subtle four-part checklist is suggested.

December 4, 2020, 5:00-7.00 (CET) pm, Turin

"Insolubilia"

Ways and subject matter are unleashed on a bunch of puzzles and paradoxes: the Sorites, the Liar, Hempel's paradox of the ravens, Kripke's dogmatism paradox, Makinson's paradox of the preface, and the puzzle of logical omniscience.

***Intentionality* and Consciousness
Turin, December 17-18 2020, 5pm-8pm (CET)
https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=mf28012931ccc6e1f25dfce3b30c04786

Tim Crane (CEU Budapest)
How Intentionality and Consciousness are not Connected

Abstract: In this talk I describe one popular approach to the understanding of the relationship between consciousness and intentionality. At the heart of the analytic account of intentionality is what I call the propositional attitude project. The propositional attitude project, despite being widely accepted, is inadequate in its own terms — because of non-propositional intentionality — and also inadequate as the basis for linking consciousness and intentionality. In the background to the resistance to the intentionalst explanation of consciousness is a conception of consciousness which derives from behaviourism. If we are to understand the connection between intentionality and consciousnesss we must give up both the propositional attitude project and the behaviourist conception of consciousness.

Uriah Kriegel (Rice University, Houston)
The Structure of Phenomenal Justification

Abstract**: Can a conscious experience justify you in believing something purely in virtue of what it is like for you to have that experience? Some philosophers certainly think so, defending what I will call phenomenal dogmatism:

(PD) For some experience E and belief B, (i) E provides immediate prima facie epistemic justification for B and (ii) E does so in virtue of (some of) E’s phenomenal properties.

Something like PD is defended by Pryor (2000), Huemer (2001), and following them many others. But PD is also the target of various objections. Some come from Bayesian probability theory, some from the psychology of cognitive penetration, some from broadly Sellarsian reflections on what it takes to justify, and some from other sources. Here I want to consider an objection that may be put as follows: What is so special about perceptual phenomenology that only it can immediately justify beliefs, while other kinds of phenomenology – including quite similar ones – remain ‘epistemically inert’? This objection has been aired a number of times in the recent literature (e.g., Ghijsen 2014, Siegel and Silins 2015, Teng 2018). The reason I want to consider this objection in particular is not that I think it is specially formidable, but because of where the response to the objection will lead us: a deeperunderstanding of the general phenomenon of phenomenal justification– the very idea of justification in virtue of phenomenology.

Pietro Perconti (University of Messina)
Mindreading Priority Account: From an Intentionalist Point of View

Abstract: According to the common sense view, self-consciousness is the climax of human cognition. This provides the ordinary feeling of being special thanks to the faculty of self-consciousness. But we may doubt how much nature cares about our satisfying feeling of being self-conscious. What if self-consciousness has any top role in human cognition (whatever it means)? In particular, is self-consciousness really prior to mindreading?, or the opposite? Name the first thesis "Self-Consciousness Priority Account" (SCPA) and the other "Mind Reading Priority Account" (MRPA). While MRPA is also the view that mindreading evolved prior to self-consciousness, SCPA is the claim that self-consciousness evolved prior to mindreading. In my talk I will argue for the moderate Mindreading Priority Account: Non-conceptual mindreading is prior to self-consciousness, but conceptual mindreading depends on conceptual self-consciousness.

Martine Nida-Ruemelin (University of Fribourg)
Does Consciousness require pre-reflective self-awareness?

Abstract: two senses of pre-reflective self-awareness are sometimes conflated in contemporary literature (a) awareness of one’s own experience while undergoing the experience and (b) awareness of oneself in undergoing an experience. I will propose an account of (a), primitive awareness, and argue that having an experience and being primitively aware of having it coincide. I will suggest that (b), pre-reflective self-awareness (in the restricted sense in which it is an awareness the subject has of itself) is most likely present in any conscious subject undergoing experiences which exhibit what I will call basic intentionality. For an experience to exhibit basic intentionality is for it to have a subject-object-structure.

60 Volt Workshop in onore di Alberto Voltolini

Turin April 16, 2021
15:00-18:00 (CEST)

link: https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=mc394fdb9f3378caaae02b55dc4be7a22

15:00 | Diego MARCONI (Turin)
Hotel Wittgenstein

15:30 | Pasquale FRASCOLLA (Naples, Federico II)
Alberto metafilosofo

16:00 | Alberto VOLTOLINI (Turin)
Commenti e risposte

16:20 | break

16: 30 | Sandro ZUCCHI (Milan, Statale)
Indeterminatezza in opere di finzione e non

17:00 | Roberto CASATI (Paris, CNRS-EHESS)
Mappe e immagini

17:30 | Alberto VOLTOLINI (Turin)
Commenti e risposte