PhD students clycles XL

Research project title: Transcendental Leib and its Anomalies: The Limit-Problem of ‘Madness’ and its Exclusion

Abstract: My project sets within the framework of a phenomenology of embodiment, starting from Husserl but taking into account contributions from other phenomenologists and cognitive sciences. Notably this project aims to investigate from a phenomenological standpoint the transcendental role of the living body (Leib) for the constitution of experience on the one hand and of the Self on the other, and the philosophical consequences of such intertwining between body and transcendentality. Firstly, (a) I will provide a thorough phenomenology of the bodily self and I will show the necessity of an embodied perspective for an adequate description of experience and the Self. More specifically, dwelling on the twofold transcendentality of the living body – both constitutive and auto-constitutive – I aim to enrich and broaden the Husserlian project of a transcendental phenomenological aesthetics. Secondly, (b) I will analyze the bodily constitution of normality and its possible normative implications: Thus, I will tackle the limit-problem of ‘madness’, especially focusing on modifications of corporeality related to the spectrum of schizophrenic disorder. While Husserl proceeded to a systematic exclusion of ‘mad-ness’ by considering it only ex negativo, I will argue that pathologies are not merely privative manners of experience, but that they rather lead to a general restructuration of experience itself. In conclusion, (c) I will discuss the consequences of such entwinement between self, body, and transcendentality. Indeed, I claim that a conception of the Self in terms of Bodily Self entails a reformulation of the concept of transcendentality in the direction of an analysis of its corporeal genesis.

Research project title: A «necessary evil»: science, techniques and economics of animal welfare in Italian animal husbandry (18th-19th centuries)

Abstract: Beginning in the mid-18th century, a concern for animal welfare emerged in Europe and intersected with various aspects of European and Italian society: it was part of a broader humanitarian trend, critical of public displays of cruelty to animals or of slavery, and intersected with urgent public hygiene problems arising from frequent zoonotic diseases. Moreover, thanks to the introduction of crop rotation and new breeding techniques, food production grew and improved all the time. From the second half of the 19th century, animal welfare in Northern Italy, thanks in part to the professionalization of veterinary medicine, became a scientific, rational, technological issue and finally in the hands of zootechnics. The goal, namely the optimization of breeds, moved from the need for more and better animal protein production that could cope with famines and that could provide good nutrition for soldiers. Thus, there was a need to ensure that the livestock were provided with space, facilities, forage, milking tools, and transport systems that were appropriate to the animal's character and inclinations. In short, a standard of welfare was sought that was as economical as possible but good enough to ensure steady and profitable production. In my research I intend to start from the case of cattle and pigs and analyze the following factors: the evolution of stalls, up to the introduction of concrete and cement in livestock farms, of feeding, of milking tools, the rise of artificial reproduction, the slaughter and transport of livestock and animal products; the agency of animals and their experiences and reactions to the tools used and the care practices implemented; workers in contact with livestock, the division into crafts performed by women and men, and the relationships, conflicts, and exchanges between farriers, stable masters, butchers, and veterinarians and zootechnicians.

Research project title: Developments and Opportunities of Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Industry

Abstract: This research focuses on the possibilities and applications of new technologies in the entertainment industry. The use of new software based on machine learning and NLP opens up opportunities in practices such as scriptwriting, production of visual effects, content personalization and script analysis. However, there is a lack of a consistent body of literature in the field. Even within the cultural industry, the rapid development of artificial intelligence necessitates a rethinking of traditional interaction frameworks due to the gap between the involved areas of study. The project aims to understand the inferential processes typical of machines, delving into the ongoing interaction between networks and society, exploring how new technologies can be leveraged for the benefit of entertainment. Consequently, the aim is to develop prototypes and models that optimize the application of intelligent tools in this specific area of research. This will involve investigating elements such as machine output construction, audience profiling through AI and identifying useful variables, through a semiotic methodology, that may be translated and utilized in computational processes. To achieve this, it will be necessary to examine the machine's ability to detect creativity, analyzing the relationship between output generation and the data set to which the machine is bound.

Research project title: Theses on cognition in the work of Mary Douglas

Abstract: While the paradigm of radical embodiment has offered formidable alternatives to the representationalist and “embrained” accounts provided by cognitivism, not enough attention has been paid to the fact that humans exist in essentially social environments. An excellent starting point, I propose in my thesis, can be found in the anthropological theory of Mary Douglas. Supported by a ferocious critique of individualism in the cognitive and social sciences, Douglas proposes that social organization and cognition are tied by a circular, self-reinforcing relationship. For Douglas, how individuals perceive, judge, and act on the world surrounding them is inextricably yet covertly tied to certain patterns (e.g., of categorization, causal ascription, and similarity) construed and cultivated by the social practices that said individuals inhabit from birth. Douglas has elaborated on the more specific mechanisms of how this happens, most notably by referring to Nelson Goodman’s philosophy. However, little deep engagement with her oeuvre is found among philosophers and empirical researchers in cognitive science. As I intend to show, much is to be gained in establishing a dialogue between Douglasian thought and the paradigm of radical embodiment, as both approaches prescribe a radical sense of situatedness as fundamental to all cognitive inquiry. Some topics where it may be of particular relevance include participatory sense-making, metaphor, perceptual learning, and affordances.

Research project title: “Embedding Global Citizenship Education in pre-service teacher education: challenges and opportunities for LGBTQIA+ inclusion across Italy, England, and the Nordics”

Abstract: This research examines the intersection of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) and secondary school teacher training, focusing on LGBTQIA+ inclusion as a core component of GCE. It aims to assess how GCE principles are integrated into teacher training programmes and how pre-service teachers perceive their preparedness to address LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the classroom. By analysing cultural and institutional factors, the study will explore how educational policies, curricula, and societal attitudes impact the adoption of inclusive practices. Drawing on GCE, Critical and Queer Theory, the study will focus on university contexts in Italy, England, and the Nordic countries, particularly Sweden and Finland. Using a qualitative case study approach, data will be collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis to identify barriers and opportunities in embedding GCE principles and LGBTQIA+ inclusion. The study seeks to contribute to the under-researched area of teacher education and LGBTQIA+ inclusion, offering recommendations to promote inclusive education and social justice through the integration of GCE principles in teacher preparation programmes.

Research project title: ADJUSTING LIBERTY: The history of Italian liberalsocialism and its present and future perspectives

Abstract: My research aims to investigate the philosophical matrix of Italian liberalsocialism, identifying and defining, within the complexity of their relationships and contrasts, the characteristics of its two “souls”. On the liberal front – drawing from the perspective of the “moral elevation” of man that was part of Spencer’s evolutionary positivism – it will be situated within the framework of Croce’s neoidealism (read, dialectically, in relation to Gentile’s neoidealism) and its focus on human action as distinct from the action of spirit. On the socialist front, however, it will delve into – against the backdrop of a materialistic but not deterministic reading of history and class struggle, one that does not reduce the superstructure to the base (Labriola) and within a perspective that sees reason as the unit of measure of civilization, where each person engages in dialogue with the reasons of others (Calogero) – the figure of Carlo Rosselli, in his constant movement between thought and action, recovering the declinations of socialism dismissed as “false” by scientific socialism, thus criticizing Marxism where it risks reducing human life to mere economics and imprisoning people, in their specificity and individuality, within social classes. Starting from the historical and political problem of the difficulty – if not the lack of will (at least in the second half of the 20th century, in the context and climate of the Cold War) – of placing the issue of liberal rights, civil but not only, within a framework, originally socialist, of wealth redistribution (and today also of resource redistribution) and of equality, not only formal but above all substantial, which would protect it from current individualistic or populist drifts, the reflection will focus on the prospect of political action through which these two demands can truly and fruitfully meet, going beyond the letter of the republican Constitution to become a political, economic-social and cultural program.

Research project title: Creativity of human and machinic instances. On the enunciation of aesthetic artifacts between plastic and digital

Abstract: The core of this research project in semiotics is the study of generative artificial intelligence analyzed within the different positions, opened by enunciation, that it occupies in the process of artistic production. The focus will therefore be on the pictorial-figurative enunciation produced by the machinic. The purpose of the investigation is composite: it seeks to study the peculiar semiotic subjectivity of the AI in order to be able to reflect, after articulating an archaeological reconnaissance, on its creative status. On the other hand, the aim is to articulate a correlative study between human and machinic enunciative praxis. In this light, the relationship between corporeality and materiality in the painting process will be considered, thus comparing the physical involvement of the human artist with the pictorial enunciation by artificial intelligence. Is in the interest of the research to highlight the differences both in relation to stereotypes and in relation to the heterogeneous materiality of the artifact (the plastic opposed to the digital, precisely), in order to observe the dynamics of a collaboration considered as a force within an aesthetic and distributed field. Also, another aim is to consider in what terms the machinic can be considered a subjective instance, an object-prosthesis, or a collaborative partner. To do so, the work will juxtapose semiotic studies with a cognitive and structural imprint (Unified Theory of Enunciation, 4E, Material Engagement Theory, Media Semiotics) with philosophical studies (contemporary aesthetics and pragmatism) with the aim of circumscribing and discriminating the residuality of the aesthetic in the figurative production of AI. Through semiotic analysis, a greater understanding of the aesthetic implications of the pictorial enunciation proper to the machinic is thus expected.

Research project title: Spinoza on the Multitude and Democracy

Abstract: The aim of this research project is to study Spinoza's concept of the multitude and his theory of democracy, focusing on three main aspects:

1.      An examination of democracy within the context of the ontology of the multitude
This research begins with Spinoza's unique understanding of the multitude, where the multitude is seen as an aggregation of composite and multiple forces. Affect marks the active and passive states of these forces—the capacity to affect and be affected. As such, democracy, as an organizational form and emotional tool that aligns most closely with this multiplicity, simultaneously impacts both the dimensions of force and affect, guiding them toward greater positivity and empowerment. In addition to transitioning from the multitude to a discussion of institutional frameworks, this research seeks to explore the forms of the multitude under different institutions, aiming to uncover the rich connotations contained within the concept of the multitude.

2.      An explanation as to how metaphysics implies a dimension of political theory
This research attempts to reveal the political dimension embedded within the metaphysical system elaborated in Spinoza's Ethics. Spinoza's metaphysics and political theory should not be regarded as two independent systems; rather, his metaphysical principles constitute the fundamental framework of the political world. This study aims to outline this dynamic and complex political picture.

3.      The position of Spinoza’s theory in the history of philosophy
By centering on the actuality and multiplicity inherent in power itself, and focusing on the development and enhancement of power, Spinoza has inspired the biopolitical tradition’s discussions on life and political forms, offering a critical perspective for evaluating existing political systems. However, this research seeks to highlight another constructive dimension of Spinoza’s theory beyond critique. For Spinoza, what normative theories and institutional forms can fully unleash the power of the multitude?

Research project title: Digital divide and social exclusion in the context of public administration. Ethnography and semiotic analysis of digital transition of Chambers of Commerce.

Abstract: The research project will explore the relation between digital divide and social exclusion, focusing on the one hand on policies of promotion of digital skills and on the other hand on narratives and meanings about digital inclusion, identifying reasons for marginalisation. The aim of the project will be the evaluation of effectiveness of the strategies adopted by public administration to improve digital alphabetisation and access with the purpose of reducing social inequalities. The project, co-funded by Art-ER S. cons. p. a., means to explore the digital transition of public administration through the framework of social science from one side analysing communication between institutions and citizens with semiotic methods and on the other side carrying out an ethnography of the relation between public administration and users of services starting from the case of the Chamber of Commerce.

Research project title: A dialogue between Walter Benjamin's philosophy and theatrical practice

Abstract: With central reference to Walter Benjamin's philosophical thought, the first part of the paper will analyse some theatrical examples close to the terms of politicisation of art with which the philosopher ends his essay on the Work of Art on the Age of Mechaical Reproduction. From the earliest examples of avant-garde theatre to its followers, we’ll study the new logics of staging and the special relationship between actors and audience, wich the new kind of theatre is able to offer. From Bertolt Brecht's epic theatre, Asja Lacis' proletarian children's theatre project, Mejerchol'd's biomechanics and Stanislavsky's theoretical reflection, Artaud's theatre of cruelty and Pirandello's dramaturgical and philosophical work. In the following part of the proposal I’ll focus on extending this research to the second half of the 20th century. From the Theater of the Absurd of Beckett, Ionesco - in which it is possible to extend philosophical reflection also to Sartre and Camus - to the Poor Theater of Grotowski, Peter Brook and the concept of the performative, which the German theorist Erika Fisher-Lichte still deals with today. Therefore, a comparison with some authors and models will be proposed, in whose work it is possible to highlight some repercussions of philosophical reflection. In conclusion, the aim of this project will be to take up these questions and construct a dialogue capable of broadening aesthetic reflection in contemporary debate. The intention of the project will be to place itself neither in favour of an exclusively philosophical reflection, nor purely theatrical, but in between. In this, the so-called images of thought, or Denkbild, typical of Benjamin's writing, will be useful for extending philosophical reflection into an open dialogue with a figurative and practising discipline such as theatre.

Research project title: The Mirror of Axolotl: A Phenomenological Reading of Art and the Human Condition

Abstract: This research project for the Doctorate in Philosophy, Science, Cognition and Semiotics, entitled ‘The Mirror of the Axolotl: A Phenomenological Reading about Art and the Human Condition’ seeks to establish and rethink the categories of art from a phenomenological perspective as a method. That is, to rethink our experience and reading of art and the art object as a different utility to other everyday objects in the world. This approach means that the work of art is capable of showing existential complexity in which the being is a participant in every moment. Starting from Sartrean phenomenology and with the articulation of a conceptual system of a theoretical-aesthetic type, we will proceed to the concrete analysis of various contemporary artists, each of whom in their own way within artistic activity such as sculpture, painting and film develop a contact with being; and then continue with the implications that this approach can result in the existence of the subject as being in the world. Therefore, a means is established whereby the subject is able to reflect its human condition in art, not as another object, but as a full existence of being-in-the-world. An existence that carries from creation, apprehension and review our essence. Therefore, this work could be described in three periods: the theorisation, application, and implications of the contemporary art-subject relationship within the recognition of an existential transcendence that would attempt to transcend the view of art exclusively from a historical approach as a work-of-art, if not as a work that transcends together with the concrete subject.

Research project title: Museum chronicles: the history of 20th century Physics in Rome through scientific collections, places, institutions and protagonists. A bridge between past and future for the preservation, dissemination, dialogue and orientation of new generations.

Abstract: Starting with the debate that began back in 1870 about the attempts to provide Rome with a Science Museum, the question has been raised as to whether it will ever come to a happy ending. The issue has been investigated by various professionals in the field, but is still open. Moreover, in the light of the complexity of the events, a tendency has emerged on the part of experts to focus on a specific historical period, without offering an organic overview. Added to this is the fact that some aspects of this story, about one hundred and fifty years long, have not yet been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, the present research project was conceived with the intention of providing an overview of the history of the events surrounding the planning and construction of a Science Museum in Rome, proposing a detailed and as exhaustive as possible focus on the scientific collections, places and institutions that have been the protagonists. In order to retrace this tale, it is essential to take a broader look at the rest of Italy and part of Europe, trying to reconstruct the museum chronicles that have followed one another from the last decades of the 19th century to the present day. In addition, by collecting interesting examples of past and present best practices, the aim is to gather a set of operational ideas to be dropped into a specific museum in the Roman context, the ‘Enrico Fermi’ Historical Museum of Physics.

Research project title: A Pearl Among the Stones: Edition, Translation, and Study of the Kanz al-tiǧār fī maʿrifat al-aḥǭār

Abstract: The research is part of the ERC project UseFool - Knowledge and manipulation of nature between usefulness and deception in the Arabo-Islamic tradition (9th–15th century) (consolidator grant agreement n. 101043939). The research will produce the editio princeps, English translation, and study of The treasure of merchants about the knowledge of the stones (Kanz al-tiǧār fī maʿrifat al-aḥǭār), a lapidarium compiled by Baylak al-QibǗāqī, a 13th-century Mamluk merchant. Through a detailed analysis of the text's sources and contents, the project aims to offer new insights into 13th-century technical knowledge of nature and its practical applications in craftsmanship. The Kanz al-tiǧār shows different streams of tradition, reflecting the influence of a complex network of sources, erudite and technical ones, including ancient, late antique, and contemporary Arabic works. These range from magical and astrological texts to technical compilations and encyclopaedic traditions. Mapping these sources will help trace the transmission of knowledge on the properties and manipulation of stones and minerals, contributing to a better understanding of the evolution of such traditions in the Mediaeval Arabo-Islamic milieu. The research will also explore the urban and socio-cultural dimensions reflected in the work, while also considering its economic and commercial aspects. Finally, the combination of textual analysis with laboratory replications of the artisanal techniques described in Kanz al-tiǧār will provide deeper insights with regard to material culture.