PhD students cycles XXXIX

Research project title: The Water of Bodies: Edition, Translation and Study of the Arabic Tradition of Pseudo-Galen on Urine

Abstract: This 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). It aims to produce the first critical edition and translation of the Arabic uroscopy texts attributed to the Greek physician Galen and known under the title Ǧawāmiʿ kitāb fī al-bawl wa-dalāʾil (Compendium of the Book on Urine and its Signs). These compendia have survived in various manuscripts, both as treatises and tree diagrams, accompanied by a rich illustrative apparatus of diagrams and flasks. The research will analyze the transmission and influence of these texts in the Arabo-Islamic medical tradition, focusing on three main aspects: the material culture of uroscopy, with particular attention to diagnostic instruments and counterfeiting techniques; the daily medical practice of popular physicians operating in medieval city streets; and the literature of deception related to the examination of patients' urine. Through an approach combining philological edition of manuscripts, experimental replication of adulteration procedures, and comparative study of textual blocks in Arabic, Greek, and Latin traditions, the project aims to map the sources of these compendia and reconstruct their textual history and impact on medical practice and material culture in the medieval Arabo-Islamic world.

Research project title: The Critique of Language and Representation: Elements of Critical Art and Aesthetics of Subtraction, from Deleuze to Carmelo Bene

Abstract: My present research project deals with the problem of the critique of representation and language, as a philosophical problem and as foundation of “critical” art forms. This problem raises questions of political nature – the relationship of art with society – and theoretical ones – the relationship of aesthetics with language. In this sense, the project addresses the possibility of developing an interdisciplinary field of analysis that can account for a certain number of tendencies, poietic practices and theoretical formulations that, in the history of art and philosophy, have contributed to the constitution of “counter-languages” capable of countering the dynamics of representation. This field of analysis could be designated as “aesthetics of subtraction”, having as its main points of reference on the one hand contemporary French philosophy, in the philosophical project of Gilles Deleuze in particular, and on the other hand contemporary and critical expressions of theatre, cinema and literature, starting from the figure of Carmelo Bene. The aim of the research, therefore, is to verify the critical and political scope of art and its works, inherent in the “subtractive” regime of deconstruction of the languages of art and of language in a broader sense, resulting from a clearly identifiable critical poetic will. The questions of language and style are therefore central in the definition of these critical paths, removed from the aesthetic uniformity of the spectacular regime and from the dominant forms of subjectivation of representation.

Research project title: An active inference account of user-social media interactions

Abstract: My PhD research lies at the intersection of computational modeling, phenomenology and cognitive science. I leverage the principles of Active Inference to understand human behavior in digital contexts. Specifically, I develop models to simulate and analyze user interactions on social media platforms, providing insights into cognitive and affective processes. I am now acquiring hands-on skills in psychological research methodologies, particularly in the acquisition and preprocessing of EEG data. Overall, in my work, I am to address fundamental questions about cognition and decision-making in digital interactions. I am specifically interested in leveraging Active Inference for human flourishing, so as to improve humans’ day to day experience. On the side, I am interested in applying machine learning and neural networks to any kind of brain data (EEG/fMRI), hence always looking for collaboration with domain experts. I also have a philosophical background and enjoy deep theoretical discussion, I am a convinced supporter of 4E-cognition.

Research project title: The configuration of actors in urban digital twins: an interdisciplinary approach between semiotics and STS

Abstract: My research is concerned with the practices of configuration and representation of actors in the context of urban knowledge infrastructures, through a methodology that intersects Science and Technology Studies with Semiotics. More specifically, my object of study are urban digital twins, i.e. virtual replicas of a series of physical as well as social phenomena and processes capable of providing simulations that support city governance. Urban digital twins are thus a complex network of human and non-human actors, databases, algorithms, interfaces and sociopolitical and cultural dynamics. In order to investigate the trajectories of meaning that unfold in this network, on the one hand I rely on the STS, in particular the ANT, so as to follow step by step the transformations, translations and delegations that lead from the ‘physical’ city to the ‘digital’ model (and vice versa). At the same time, semiotic analysis proves essential in the investigation of the processes of classification, emergence, inclusion and invisibilisation of urban actors. Indeed, at the heart of this interdisciplinary relationship is the semiotic concept of enunciation and its reinterpretation in Bruno Latour's Little Philosophy of Enunciation (1998) and An Inquiry into Modes of Existence (2014). Given this methodological approach, my research questions are as follows: how does the translation process of urban phenomena within the digital twin configure a set of roles and identities for urban actors? Who is represented, and who is excluded? Given the increasing pervasiveness of artificial intelligence, how is agency distributed among the human and non-human actors of the digital twin? What discursive and narrative strategies are woven, and what past, present and future imaginaries? Finally, what forms of experience do the virtual worlds of digital twins open up through their user interfaces, between optimisation and playful potential?

Research project title: Play and Creativity: An Interdisciplinary Perspective across Semiotics, Aesthetics, and Cognitive Sciences

Abstract: Play has always existed in a liminal space—between rule and purposelessness, fun and competition, the child’s playful activity and serious economic structure. Various currents of analysis have emerged: a psychological and sociological perspective highlighting its importance in development and its fundamental role in structuring experience and social behaviour; and a semiotic approach to play and creativity, which has primarily focused on combinatory and linguistic aspects. This research aims to serve as an interdisciplinary junction, interstitial and straddling, like the object it observes, across semiotics, ethology, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and cognitive sciences. It seeks to outline a diverse field of study that refocuses attention on practices, processes, materials, and environments. If play is an enunciational labyrinth, suspended between chance and necessity, then creativity is the element that renders its meanings—both aesthetic and linguistic—boundless. Moving beyond the idea of creativity as mere combinatorics, this study will establish its aesthetic and material foundations. In doing so, we will propose a dynamic definition of creativity, detached from myths of product, originality, effectiveness, and the structures of sanction and purpose. The focus will be on the potential aspects of creativity, particularly its inconclusiveness, as an essential continuum for the emergence of creative forms. It is in that precarious phase of exploration—where discovery and wonder prevail—that different modes of co-enunciations layer themselves. Across environments, materials, gestures, norms, and habits, we will outline the cartography of an ecology of creative meaning. The interplay between play and creativity will be examined within teaching and education, adopting a semiotic and pragmatist perspective. This approach seeks to integrate and expand the meanings of an object of study that, rather than being a fixed entity, is a predicate, a process, and a practice.

Research project title: The Influence of Context on Abstract Concept Representation

Abstract: The brain appears to effortlessly grasp the meaning of words. However, uncovering the mechanisms behind this remarkable ability remains a complex challenge for psycholinguists. According to the embodied cognition paradigm, understanding a word like “cat” involves activating brain areas similar to those engaged when perceiving an actual cat. However, this theory becomes significantly more problematic when dealing with abstract concepts like “philosophy,” which lack stable perceptual referents and fail to produce consistent neural activation patterns. Instead, the neural representation of abstract concepts is highly context-dependent and influenced by individual differences and cultural factors. Given this complexity, advancing our understanding of abstract concepts requires integrating insights from behavioral experiments, neuroimaging, and computational techniques such as semantic vector models and large language models (LLMs). In this PhD project, I aim to explore the role of “context” in abstract concept representation from three complementary perspectives. Firstly, using psycholinguistic paradigms such as free-listing tasks, I explore the types of contextual information associated with various subtypes of abstract concepts. Additionally, I assess how individual factors, such as the vividness of imagery, influence task performance. Secondly, I investigate how EEG components elicited in response to concepts are modulated by the sentence context. Finally, I compare how LLMs perform compared to humans on behavioral tasks to assess to what extent LLMs can be used as a reliable source of information on human linguistic faculties.

Research project title: Investigating spatial knowledge at the interface of Language and Cognition

Abstract: The name of my project is ‘Investigating spatial knowledge at the interface of Language and Cognition’. The goal of my research is to study the relation between language and cognition. I am particularly interested in the unique ways in which words and sentences can contribute to spatial representations, thus providing us with evidence that language drastically changes the way in which we make sense of the world around us, by enhancing our perception and ability to act in it. More specifically, I aim to study how the semantics of prepositions can influence the way in which sentences impact subsequent perceptual experience of images and pictures. From this point of view, prepositions offer valuable tools for this enterprise because their semantics is relatively simpler compared to that of conceptual words, and thus provide us with a more controllable environment for testing hypotheses about the language-cognition interface. To investigate these relations I deploy the tools of cognitive science in particular, behavioral studies. I aim to use tasks like picture verification, visual search and others to see how sentences with the same meaning but different spatial prepositions can lead to different behavior in subsequent nonlinguistic tasks. If indeed subtle differences in the semantics of prepositions lead to divergence in the way people behave, then we can argue that these linguistic items play a central role in interactions between linguistic and cognitive systems.

Research project title: The figures that are. Subject and perception in post-Eco cognitive semiotics

Abstract: The research is dedicated to investigating subject and perception within the disciplinary framework of cognitive semiotics. The main theoretical reference for the study, following the legacy of concepts and issues left by Umberto Eco, is the work of Claudio Paolucci, according to whom perception is a “hallucination controlled by the world”, in which a plurality of instances shapes the percept through networks of «priors and interpretants». The research presents a conceptual apparatus, that is both economical and heuristic, centered on the notion of “figura”, through which it shall be possible to account for the processes that enable prior knowledge to be plastically exercised to interpret future phenomena. Building on Eco’s idea that the subject is closely tied to the semiotic configurations she produces, the relationship between figurae and subjectivity emerges as of paramount importance to the analysis, that one could encapsulate in the Italian formula “le figure che sono” – a formula that must be read in the light of Peirce’s caveat against identifying interpreters and interpretants, and that plays with the Italian verb “sono”, which can signify both the third person plural (“they are”) and the first person singular (“I am”). The analysis then aims to frame the issue primarily in terms of individual and collective memory: by exploring the most recent scientific discoveries and the latest theoretical proposals on the topic, it seeks to assess the plausibility, limitations, and directions of the models here developed in relation to the characteristics of the transformations that continuously occur within the encyclopedic patrimony in which subjects are situated and distributed.

Research project title: The Phenomenalistic Roots of J.S. Mill’s Psychologism

Abstract: The aim of this research is to determine the essential characteristics that define the psychologistic logic within the thought of J.S. Mill. Starting from the definition of logic provided by Mill in the opening passages of the System of Logic, it is argued that the equivalence between the fields of logic and psychology presupposes Mill’s reception of a specific phenomenalist epistemology. This epistemology conceives the subject as a passive receptor (sensibility) in relation to the object, understood as the cause of the subject’s modifications and, consequently, of the appearance of reality as a phenomenon. Furthermore, the study seeks to demonstrate how this configuration of the subject-object relationship reflects a conceptualization of the mind-reality relationship that finds its historical-philosophical foundation in Hobbesian epistemology in particular, and more broadly in the tradition of British modern philosophy. Following this line of inquiry, it will become evident that Mill’s psychologism results from the legacy of an epistemological framework that adopts a concept of phenomena rooted in the history of modern philosophy. This framework underpins an anti-transcendental conception of logic, understood specifically as the analysis of the psychological operations of the empirical subject. Therefore, the investigation aims to highlight the significance of J.S. Mill’s philosophy for the following reason: although the historical influence of Mill’s thought – both in its acceptance and rejection (most notably through the critiques of Frege and Husserl) – has been acknowledged, a comprehensive reconstruction of Mill’s position within the context of modern historical-philosophical discourse remains lacking.

Research project title: Citizen Science: analysis, methods, educational aspects, practical application, and outreach

Abstract: Since Citizen Science is practiced in numerous fields and various scientific disciplines, it is employed in different areas of intervention and activity. Given the countless fields in which Citizen Science can be used, lending itself to an interdisciplinary approach that spans the social, philosophical, and scientific worlds, this project aims to investigate and analyze the impacts that Citizen Science can have on people's daily lives, both from an educational and learning perspective, as well as from a methodological and scientific knowledge standpoint for non-experts, in connection with its nature as a producer of scientific knowledge with its own methods and epistemological principles. The project includes an applied component, which involves activities focused on outreach, awareness, and education targeted at citizens and schools. What is intended to be tested is the extent to which such outreach, awareness, and education activities can be carried out by each individual Citizen Scientist in their daily lives, both in adulthood and during the higher secondary school phase. This work also aims to delve deeper into and explore the methodologies and fields in which Citizen Science is applied. An investigation into this discipline, which can be employed on a broad scale with various applications, will seek to acquire both the characteristics that define its specific epistemological status and its usefulness as a means of connection, interaction, and cooperation between philosophical, social, and scientific disciplines, due to its role as a new way of viewing the relationship between science and society. Finally, the project aims to investigate the level of scientific knowledge within society, meaning how much Citizen Science takes into account people's actual knowledge, what methodologies are used in Citizen Science, how it works, and what impacts it has on society and individuals, with the goal of identifying strategies for spreading Citizen Science

Research project title: Population health and climate science: overlaps, interactions, and communal benefits of their integration

Abstract: In my PhD project I work on some related questions in philosophy of medicine, philosophy of climate science, and general philosophy of science, such as:

1.    What uncertainty and inductive risk are, and how to manage them, in population health and climate sciences?

2.    Should we embed some considerations from population health in our reasoning about climate, through approaches such as Health in All Policies, Planetary Health, or One Health?

3.    Which is the legitimate role for non-epistemic (social, moral, political) values in population health and climate science?

4.    Can a better understanding of this role help build trust in science and enhance our communication of scientific findings?

To tackle these questions with an interdisciplinary approach, I am collaborating with philosophers of medicine, epidemiologists and physicians from PhilHead – Italian Network for Philosophy of Health and Disease – and climate scientists from ItaliaMeteo, the Italian National Agency for Meteorology and Climatology, where I am currently doing a research internship. In my thesis, I will argue for joint philosophical treatment of some issues from the fields of population health and climate sciences. I will start by tackling some issues concerning the role and legitimacy of non-epistemic values in population health research and policies. I will then focus on some issues in climate modeling, such as the management of uncertainty and the relationship between climate services providers and users. I will then discuss some foundational issues in philosophy of science such as the legitimate role for non-epistemic values, I will identify some criteria for their legitimate use in population health and climate sciences, and I will argue that there are substantial benefits in integrating considerations from population health into climate change scientific research and policies.

Research project title: Philosophy, Pragmatism and Transactional Disorders: from Harry Stack Sullivan to an Alternative Viewpoint on Psychiatry

Abstract: Harry Stack Sullivan is often an overlooked figure in the vast landscape of 20th-century psychiatry; yet his contribution was both groundbreaking and innovative, as he sought to place interpersonal interaction at the center of understanding mental health. His contribution to psychiatry stands out for its bold departure from some of the fundamental assumptions of classical psychoanalysis, a discipline toward which Sullivan never sought to conceal his profound intellectual debt. He began his career by rigorously adhering to its tenets but soon discovered, in practice, that many of the therapeutic strategies conceived by psychoanalysis proved inadequate for the treatment of certain patients. Therefore, it is possible to observe, by tracing the internal evolution of Sullivan’s thought and following the thread of its theoretical development, how the assimilation of psychoanalytic teachings became progressively less sterile and more open to change: that change which would open the psychoanalytic method to the treatment, not of the subject of mental disorder, but of the individual within its relational context. Sullivan gradually developed a highly innovative perspective that fostered a dynamic and socio-environmental understanding of psychopathology, aimed at shedding light on the dysfunctionality of certain interpersonal transactions. His focus on the relational dimension strongly emerged from his clinical experience. In this context, he consolidated his clinical-therapeutic approach, based on direct observation of patients’ behavior and interaction within real situational contexts, where the physician actively participates in the therapeutic process. This work aims to restore the centrality of Harry Stack Sullivan’s figure, highlighting the groundbreaking nature of his psychiatric thought as well as his philosophical significance, starting from his contribution to a broader dialogue with other fields of knowledge. This openness to intellectual hybridization demonstrated the aspiration to understand human beings in the complexity of their interactions and the historical-cultural juncture in which they live.

Research project title: Artificial Intelligence and Democracy

Abstract: This research aims to investigate the effects of AI on the moral dimension of democracy, namely, the state of intersubjective relationships that structure the democratic public sphere. Using Rahel Jaeggi’s immanent critical approach as a preliminary reference, the research is divided into three parts. First, the normative structure guiding the analysis will be developed, focusing on the concept of a democratic public sphere and its ethical-moral connotations. Second, discrepancies between the normative idea of the public sphere and its actual state in light of AI’s pervasive presence will be examined. Specifically, the following applications will be studied: AI that mediates human relationships, as exemplified by deepfakes; AI that replaces the interaction partner, as seen in chatbots; and AI that manipulates the process of selecting interaction partners, as seen in algorithmic recommendation systems. Finally, the normative ideals of the democratic public sphere themselves will be critically questioned to the extent that they may have caused the same normative discrepancy.