Research Program

 

PRIN (PROGRAMMI RICERCA SCIENTIFICA DI RILEVANTE INTERESSE NAZIONALE)

 

FILOSOFIA E NATURALIZZAZIONE DEL MENTALE. NUOVE PROSPETTIVE SULLA CONOSCENZA E LA NATURA UMANA (COORDINATORE SCIENTIFICO NAZIONALE SANDRO NANNINI)

REALTA', COSCIENZA, CORPOREITA'. IMPLICAZIONI EPISTEMOLOGICHE E ONTOLOGICHE DEI PROGETTI DI NATURALIZZAZIONE (RESPONSABILE UNITA' DI RICERCA DI FIRENZE PAOLO PARRINI)

 

Description

The project consists of three main parts: (1) an epistemological section; (2) a section devoted to the phenomenology and the philosophy of mind; (3) a section concerning semantics and the cognitive sciences.
(1) The first part aims to individuate the various epistemological components intervening in our cognitive processes: truthfulness and objectivity, analysed with particular attention to the possible connection between a naturalized interpretation and a relativistic understanding of these concepts; the notion of 'a priori', in connection with both the recent epistemic conceptions of the analiticity, and the theory of a relativized a priori; the analysis of the contrast between scientific realism and anti-realism, with a special focus on both, Carnap's theses concerning the ontological commitment connected to the acceptance of a scientific theory, and the 'constructive empiricism' elaborated by Bas van Fraassen (compared and contrasted with recent forms of structural realism). The aim is that of establishing which epistemological concepts could find a naturalistic counterpart, and which, on the contrary, cannot undergo a naturalistic approach.
(2) The second part deals with aspects concerning phenomenology and several paradigmatic topics in the philosophy of mind. The aim is that of investigating: the different phenomenological definitions of consciousness and subjectivity, from the perspective of a (supposed) naturalized understanding of them; the ontological problem concerning the status of mental states; the methodological difficulties concerning the individuation of instruments (introspection, phenomenological reflection, and so on) adequate for the knowledge of these states; the status of psychiatric taxonomies; the function of body in order to constitute the external world. The general goal of this part is that of elaborating an anti-reductionist and anti-eliminativist stance, that is a conception which aims to save the ontological and epistemological status of the qualitative elements.
(3) The third section of this project explores the connections among semantics, cognitive sciences, and the naturalistic perspectives. On the one hand, the aim is that of applying peculiar categorial instruments of analysis to the so called cognitive semantics. On the other, we will investigate various gestaltic aspects of our sensorimotoric structure, which emerge at a linguistic level. The goal is that of elaborating a theory within which epistemological and ontological aspects are entwined in a naturalistic framework, called therefore ‘entwined naturalism’. At the same time the anti-reductionist character of this 'entwined naturalism' does differentiate this project from other naturalistic project