This volume serves as a reference on the field of cognitive semantics. It offers a systematic and original discussion of the issues at the core of the debate in semiotics and the cognitive sciences. It takes into account the problems of representation, the nature of mind, the structure of perception, beliefs associated with habits, social cognition, autism, intersubjectivity and subjectivity. The chapters in this volume present the foundation of semiotics as a theory of cognition, offer a semiotic model of cognitive (...) integration that combines Enactivism and the Extended Mind Theory, and investigate the role of imagination as the origin of perception. The author develops an account of beliefs that are associated with habits and meaning, grounded in Pragmatism, testing his Narrative Practice Semiotic Hypothesis on persons with autism spectrum disorders. He also integrates his ideas about the formation of the theory of mind with a theory of subjectivity, understood as self-consciousness which derives from semiotic cognitive abilities. This text appeals to students, professors and researchers in the field. (shrink)

In this paper, I will deal with the way linguistics and semiotics focus on person and subjectivity in language. I start from two different meanings of the “person” word and from Benveniste and Latour’s theories of enunciation. Later, I deal with the problem of subjectivity in language and I connect it to two different views: Benveniste’s idea that subjectivity is grounded on the “I” and Guillaume’s idea of a primacy of the “he”. Starting from the Iliad and from the semiotic (...) idea of subject, I take side for Guillaume and Latour’s theory: it is the delocutive structure of the “he” which, in language, expresses subjectivity, namely the capacity of the subject to make himself the object of his reflections and of his words. (shrink)

Understanding social cognition referring to narratives without relying on mindreading skills has been the main aim of the Narrative Practice Hypothesis proposed by Daniel Hutto and Shaun Gallagher. In this paper, I offer a semiotic reformulation of the NPH, expanding the notion of narrative beyond its conventional common-sense understanding and claiming that the kind of social cognition that operates in implicit false belief task competency is developed out of the narrative logic of interaction. I will try to show how experience (...) is shaped through meaning by the structure of narrativity and the way this can account for how narrative competencies do not just depend on language acquisition, but permeate the interactive competencies of pre-linguistic children and some social non-human animals. Developing during primary and secondary intersubjectivity and rooted in the semiotic ability to deceive and manipulate others, semiotic narrativity is the key bridge that leads us to mind and beliefs starting from basic perceptions, emotions and embodied enactive interactions. I will test my Narrative Practice Semiotic Hypothesis on Autism spectrum disorders, where social cognition skills don’t work properly, connecting NPSH to the Social Motivation Theory of Autism. I will finally answer some criticisms towards the original NPH, connecting its semiotic reformulation to early mindreading in infants and to some very recent experiments by Krupeneye et al. and Buttelmann et al. about false beliefs understanding in primates. (shrink)

1. Eco and Pragmatism Pragmatism was one of the greatest influences on Umberto Eco’s intellectual adventure. This influence can be seen not only in his philosophical work, but also in many of the ideas hidden behind his novels, which, as Eco himself had recently admitted by authorising the Library of Living Philosophers to extensively cover such a topic in the volume dedicated to him, are an important part of his philosophy. Or, perhaps, Eco’s novels should be called a “non-philosophy” that,...

In this paper, we try to build a semiotics of stereotypes through the key idea of enunciation. We investigate stereotypes of Persons with Disabilities in the context of social media networks (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) by adopting a semiotic perspective. The mainstream idea about stereotypes is that they are necessarily something negative, that must be avoided to maximize inclusivity and fairness. However, in our view, stereotypes are the background of our perception of the world, and we cannot escape from them, because (...) when we leave behind a stereotype, it is only for adopting a new one built on a different basis. Therefore, it is crucial to understand stereotypes and the way they are expressed, since they are one of the enunciating instances that circulate in the space of the Encyclopedia. Through a semiotic point of view, we will follow how stereotypes transform, showing the way they change the modes of existence of meanings, shifting between the virtualized, the potentialized, the actualized, and the realized. Analyzing a huge corpus of social network messages built by the partners of the European project MeMe (Me & the Media: Fostering Social Media Literacy competences through Interactive Learning Settings for Adults with Disabilities), we will show how the advent of social media affected the research field of disability studies. Later, we will point out the variations of the classic stereotypes that have been addressed in the new participatory context of social media through the semiotic theory of enunciation. (shrink)

System is a key word for semiotics and linguistics and is a key word also in Umberto Eco’s thought and philosophy. However, Eco always tries to find new words in order to express in a proper way his own idea of system. These new words are also new ways of thinking and rethinking the very core of his own philosophy and semiotics, which remains somehow stable during the years. Through these five words – summa, structure, code, encyclopaedia and rhizome – (...) this paper aims at outlining an image of the evolution of Umberto Eco’s thought and philosophy. (shrink)

Meeting 5G high bandwidth rates, ultra-low latencies, and high reliabilities requires of network infrastructures that automatically increase/decrease the resources based on their customers’ demand. An autonomous and dynamic management of a 5G network infrastructure represents a challenge, as any solution must account for the radio access network, data plane traffic, wavelength allocation, network slicing, and network functions’ orchestration. Furthermore, federation among administrative domains (ADs) must be considered in the network management. Given the increased dynamicity of 5G networks, artificial intelligence/machine learning (...) (AI/ML) solutions are strong candidates able to learn, and take quick provisioning decisions upon fast changes in network conditions. Therefore, this chapter presents an analysis of the state-of-the-art solutions for 5G networks’ management, where AI/ML solutions are discussed and compared with traditional methods. Additionally, the chapter provides a technology overview of both standards, and existing solutions regarding the 5G network management, and directions toward the integration of AI/ML in 5G networks. (shrink)

Il tema del soggetto e dell’identità è uno dei più importanti della filosofia moderna e la destrutturazione di esso il tratto tipico di molta filosofia europea di fine ’800 e inizio ’900. Si pensi alla scuola del sospetto, come la definì Paul Ricœur, ovvero a Nietzsche, la psicanalisi ed al marxismo, ma anche, più recentemente, al post-strutturalismo. Successivamente l’argomento, dalla fine del postmoderno in poi, è stato trattato sempre meno in ambito continentale. È invece diventato sempre...

In Cognitive Semiotics. Integrating Signs, Minds, Meaning and Cognition, Claudio Paolucci proposes cognitive semiotics as a fundamental component of a theory of human cognition that considers the “semiotic system” as co-constitutive of cognitive processes in action. His work takes its cue from the classical linguists and semioticians interpreted within the broader theoretical framework of cognition in action that links radical enactivism and classical pragmatism. He aims to bridge the gap bet...

Kant’s Critique of Judgment represents one of the most important texts in modern philosophy. However, while its importance for 19th-century philosophy has been widely acknowledged, scholars have often overlooked its far-reaching influence on 20th-century thought. This book aims to account for the various interpretations of Kant’s notion of aesthetic judgment formulated in the last century. The book approaches the subject matter from both a historical and a theoretical point of view and in relation to different cultural contexts, also exploring in (...) an unprecedented way its influence on some very up-to-date philosophical developments and trends. It represents the first choral and comprehensive study on this missing piece in the history of modern and contemporary philosophy, capable of cutting in a unique way across different traditions, movements and geographical areas. All main themes of Kant’s aesthetics are investigated in this book, while at the same time showing how they have been interpreted in very different ways in the 20th century. With contributions by Alessandro Bertinetto, Patrice Canivez, Dario Cecchi, Diarmuid Costello, Nicola Emery, Serena Feloj, Günter Figal, Tom Huhn, Hans-Peter Krüger, Thomas W. Leddy, Stefano Marino, Claudio Paolucci, Anne Sauvagnargues, Dennis J. Schmidt, Arno Schubbach, Scott R. Stroud, Thomas Teufel, and Pietro Terzi. (shrink)

En este trabajo nos proponemos acercarnos a la noción del conocimiento simbólico en la obra de Gottfried Leibniz, rastreándola en diversos textos de su autoría en que se encuentra diseminada. Comenzamos con la importante distinción entre idea y concepto, que separa el planteo de nuestro autor de las formulaciones de otros como Descartes, Malebranche y Spinoza. Seguimos con la clasificación de los tipos de conceptos que el filósofo de Leipzig lleva acabo, en la que divide a los conceptos simbólicos de (...) los intuitivos. Abordamos después las ventajas epistemológicas que presenta el pensamiento simbólico frente al pensamiento verbal, analizando sus funciones cognitivas y su rol en diferentes tipos de sistemas semióticos. Continuamos asentando el simbolismo epistemológico dentro de una teoría general de la representación, que sostiene cierto isomorfismo entre las esferas del lenguaje, el pensamiento y la realidad. Finalmente, fundamentamos ontológicamente esta analogía representativa estructural en la noción leibniziana de expresión y la vinculamos con el perspectivismo monadológico, poniendo de relieve su cercanía con algunos planteos fenomenológicos y hermenéuticos de nuestros días. (shrink)

The vision of an art masterpiece is associated with brain arousal by neural processes occurring quite spontaneously in the viewer. This aesthetic experience may even elicit a response in the motor areas of the observers. In the neurorehabilitation of patients with stroke, art observation has been used for reducing psychological disorders, and creative art therapy for enhancing physical functions and cognitive abilities. Here, we developed a virtual reality task which allows patients, by moving their hand on a virtual canvas, to (...) have the illusion of painting some art masterpieces, such as The Creation of Adam of Michelangelo or The birth of Venus of Botticelli. Twenty healthy subjects and four patients with stroke performed this task and a control one in which they simply colored the virtual canvas. Results from User Satisfaction Evaluation Questionnaire and the NASA Task Load Index highlighted an appropriate level of usability. Moreover, despite the motor task was the same for art and control stimuli, the art condition was performed by healthy subjects with shorter trajectories and with a lower perception of physical demand. In experiment 2, only the patients treated with artistic stimuli showed a reduction in the erroneous movements performed orthogonally to the canvas. This finding reminds the so-called Mozart effect that improves the performance of subjects when they listen to classic music. Thus, we called this improvement in the performance when interacting with an artistic stimulus as Michelangelo effect. (shrink)

We present sequent calculi for normal modal logics where modal and propositional behaviours are separated, and we prove a cut elimination theorem for the basic system K, so as completeness theorems both for K itself and for its most popular enrichments. MSC: 03B45, 03F05.

We develop cut-free calculi of sequents for normal modal logics by using treesequents, which are trees of sequences of formulas. We introduce modal operators corresponding to the ways we move formulas along the branches of such trees, only considering fixed distance movements. Finally, we exhibit syntactic cut-elimination theorems for all the main normal modal logics.

The author traces the main outlines of the scientific work and teaching of the late Professor Giuliano Marini, who was a distinguished member of the Scientific Board of the «Archivio di storia della cultura» since its foundation in 1988.

The Italian translation of writings by W. von Humboldt recently edited by G. Moretto and F. Tessitore makes it possible to obtain a picture of Humboldt’s philosophy more complete than those which have been for a long time dominating. The results of Tessitore’s researches, which are summarized in his Introduction, underline the most fundamental aspects of Humboldt’s thought, i.e. the pivotal role played in it, as in Schiller’s, by an anthropology based on the ideas of force, energy and individuality; and (...) a vision of history, hostile to the apriorism and the teleological bent of the philosophy of history originating in Kant and carried on by Schelling, Fichte, Hegel, and centering on the notion of an individuality irreducible to any abstract and deterministic scheme, which inaugurates that historicistic conception of philosophy and life which has to be regarded as the other great current of thought born in the Goethezeit, alternative to the idealist one. (shrink)