My research focuses on skepticism, justification, and normativity of knowledge.
I am particularly interested in engaging with the contemporary debate in analytic epistemology through the lenses of historical engagements with the main varieties of skepticism. Of particular relevance for my research are the epistemological reflections coming from the stands of German Idealism (Kant and Hegel), the later Wittgenstein, Pyrrhonism, Sellars, and Descartes. After my Graduate Studies my interests have increasingly been devoted to issues in Social Epistemology. I am currently heading a social epistemology reading group with the faculty and graduate students of the Philosophy Department of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IUSS) in Pavia. The focus of my research in social epistemology hinges around the questions of the relationship between epistemic and dialectical prowess of arguments, the conviction/persuasion dichotomy, the relationship between epistemic injustice and the theory of recognition, and group knowledge. A foray of my research beyond epistemic matters concerns the possibility of revising the factivity condition of knowledge by adopting a deflationist, socially based conception of truth.
Having obtained my BA and MA in Italy and Germany, my formation has been within the canon of what is called "Theoretical Philosophy" broadly conceived. This means that my resarch on epistemological topics also touches upon issues concerning meaning, perceptual content, inter-subjecivity, and normativity.
In my PhD Thesis I defend Epistemological Skepticism arguing that it is mistaken to conceive it as a foe to be defeated or as a philosophical disease. It is additionally problematic to conceive it as a problem based merely on possible falsity of our beliefs due to uneliminated error-scenarios. Skepticism is rather the rational side of epistemological theorizing. This verdict is developed and defended via an engagement with the Cartesian form of skepticism and its reception in contemporary analytic epistemology. The thesis investigates the Closure-based formulation of the problem and rejects recent objections to it. Then it investigates those neo-Moorean positions that reject a priori the engagement with the skeptical problematic. It is shown that they can't retract themselves from the skeptical problematic without collapsing into a form of arbitrary position. The thesis establishes thereafter that the problem of skepticism concerns a general philosophical problem about the positive epistemic merit enjoyed by out beliefs. This pertains to any proposed epistemological theory, in the form of the Underdetermination problem and the connected neutrality of reasons which ensues. This supports the idea that at the heart of the skeptical problem lies a semantic problem about epistemic normativity and the evidence our empirical experience provides us with. Skepticism raises an issue about non-arbitrarily establishing the epistemic validity of our reasons for beliefs. On this score, the thesis ultimately defends a neo-Pyrrhonian concept of knowledge and justification, which understands them as intersubjective practices instituted by self-recognizing rational agents. This implies integrating the anti-foundationalist and dialectical instance of philosophical skepticism, consequently relinquishing the link between knowledge and subject-independent truth. This proposal is achieved via an analysis of the main variety of normative skepticis, Wittgenstein's rule-following problem and by proposing a skeptical solution based on Hegel's Self-Consciousness chapter in the Phenomenology of Spirit.
My thesis can be found here
My current research draws from the results of my doctoral dissertation and is aimed at construing an account of knowledge and justification understood as intersubjective practices. It defends a social externalism on justification based on a default-and-challenge structure of warrant. It endorses dialectical foundationalism while rejecting epistemological realism and foundationalism. It accepts the lesson of skepticism in rejecting the idea of self-validating, self-authenticating epistemic evidence. It avoids the problem of arbitrariness by tying the validity of our epistemic normativity to our joint activity of defending and challenging the reasons we offer to other epistemic agents. This is then applied to topics in both classical and social epistemology, with potentially revisionary outcomes such as a revision of the factivity condition on knowledge, the rejection of basic knowledge, and the establishment of epistemic authority as supervening on intersubjective epistemic interactions, eschewing epistemic reductionism.
I have furthermore extensive competence and interest in
I am particularly interested in engaging with the contemporary debate in analytic epistemology through the lenses of historical engagements with the main varieties of skepticism. Of particular relevance for my research are the epistemological reflections coming from the stands of German Idealism (Kant and Hegel), the later Wittgenstein, Pyrrhonism, Sellars, and Descartes. After my Graduate Studies my interests have increasingly been devoted to issues in Social Epistemology. I am currently heading a social epistemology reading group with the faculty and graduate students of the Philosophy Department of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IUSS) in Pavia. The focus of my research in social epistemology hinges around the questions of the relationship between epistemic and dialectical prowess of arguments, the conviction/persuasion dichotomy, the relationship between epistemic injustice and the theory of recognition, and group knowledge. A foray of my research beyond epistemic matters concerns the possibility of revising the factivity condition of knowledge by adopting a deflationist, socially based conception of truth.
Having obtained my BA and MA in Italy and Germany, my formation has been within the canon of what is called "Theoretical Philosophy" broadly conceived. This means that my resarch on epistemological topics also touches upon issues concerning meaning, perceptual content, inter-subjecivity, and normativity.
In my PhD Thesis I defend Epistemological Skepticism arguing that it is mistaken to conceive it as a foe to be defeated or as a philosophical disease. It is additionally problematic to conceive it as a problem based merely on possible falsity of our beliefs due to uneliminated error-scenarios. Skepticism is rather the rational side of epistemological theorizing. This verdict is developed and defended via an engagement with the Cartesian form of skepticism and its reception in contemporary analytic epistemology. The thesis investigates the Closure-based formulation of the problem and rejects recent objections to it. Then it investigates those neo-Moorean positions that reject a priori the engagement with the skeptical problematic. It is shown that they can't retract themselves from the skeptical problematic without collapsing into a form of arbitrary position. The thesis establishes thereafter that the problem of skepticism concerns a general philosophical problem about the positive epistemic merit enjoyed by out beliefs. This pertains to any proposed epistemological theory, in the form of the Underdetermination problem and the connected neutrality of reasons which ensues. This supports the idea that at the heart of the skeptical problem lies a semantic problem about epistemic normativity and the evidence our empirical experience provides us with. Skepticism raises an issue about non-arbitrarily establishing the epistemic validity of our reasons for beliefs. On this score, the thesis ultimately defends a neo-Pyrrhonian concept of knowledge and justification, which understands them as intersubjective practices instituted by self-recognizing rational agents. This implies integrating the anti-foundationalist and dialectical instance of philosophical skepticism, consequently relinquishing the link between knowledge and subject-independent truth. This proposal is achieved via an analysis of the main variety of normative skepticis, Wittgenstein's rule-following problem and by proposing a skeptical solution based on Hegel's Self-Consciousness chapter in the Phenomenology of Spirit.
My thesis can be found here
My current research draws from the results of my doctoral dissertation and is aimed at construing an account of knowledge and justification understood as intersubjective practices. It defends a social externalism on justification based on a default-and-challenge structure of warrant. It endorses dialectical foundationalism while rejecting epistemological realism and foundationalism. It accepts the lesson of skepticism in rejecting the idea of self-validating, self-authenticating epistemic evidence. It avoids the problem of arbitrariness by tying the validity of our epistemic normativity to our joint activity of defending and challenging the reasons we offer to other epistemic agents. This is then applied to topics in both classical and social epistemology, with potentially revisionary outcomes such as a revision of the factivity condition on knowledge, the rejection of basic knowledge, and the establishment of epistemic authority as supervening on intersubjective epistemic interactions, eschewing epistemic reductionism.
I have furthermore extensive competence and interest in
- General Philosophy of Science (Underdetermination, Lakatos, Feyerabend, Idealization in Science)
- Philosophy of Mind (Intentionality, Perception)
- Philosophy of Language (Normativity of Meaning, Inferentialism, Triangulation)
- History of 20th Century Philosophy - both Analytic (Sellars, Kripke, Davidson, Brandom, McDowell, Putnam) as well as Continental (Heidegger, Gadamer, Cavell, Levinas, Ricoeur, Habermas)