Scholars
Claudia Rosciglione Ascolta
email address: claudia.rosciglione@unipa.it
My research interests are in the fields of history of philosophy, philosophy of biology, life sciences and social ontology. In particular, my work is focused on Nietzsche’s Philosophy and its relation with XIXth century’s science with regard to the concepts of Self-regulation and Chaos. Accordingly my work has addressed Nietzsche’s concept of consciousness in relation with the contemporary mind-body problem debate. Furthermore I work on the concept of Self-organization in the Theory of Complexity and the contemporary life sciences. I took a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Palermo (2002). I spent one semester at the TU in Berlin as visiting scholar under Professor G. Abel’s supervision. In 2004 I was granted with a postdoc fellowship for a research with the following title: “Non reductionist Models of Mind and Consciousness between XIX and XX Century”. Since 2010 I taught History of Scientific Thinking, History of philosophy and History of contemporary philosophy at the University of Palermo. Now I am Assistant Professor in History of Philosophy at the University of Palermo. I have been member of the research unit of National Interest Research Projects (PRIN) and I took part in the research project “Mind and World” that was funded by the University of Palermo as Innovative Research University Project. As a member of the Workshop of Critical Social Philosophy I am currently taking part to the Organizing Committee of the IVth International Conference of the European Network on Social Ontology (ENSO IV conference, September 2015, University of Palermo, Palazzo Steri). My affiliations are: European Network on Social Ontology (ENSO), Società italiana di Filosofia (SFI), Seminario permanente nietzscheano (SPN).
Giuseppe Vicari Ascolta
email address: giuseppevicari@yahoo.it
I pursue my research activity in the fields of history of philosophy, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, social ontology. More specifically, I work to the reconstruction of the main concepts of a neo-Lockean line of thought, that I see as culminating in John R. Searle’s biological naturalism, and to the assessment of its contributions to modern and contemporary philosophy of mind. I trace the origins of the main concepts of Searle’s biological naturalism back to John Locke’s philosophy of mind and I apply its conceptual tools to the analysis of issues which are crucial both in philosophy of mind and social ontology, such as the problems of consciousness, the self, mental causation, collective intentionality, mindreading, language and recursion.
I have been educated mainly in History of Philosophy at the University of Palermo, having Francesca Di Lorenzo as supervisor both of my MA in Philosophy (2003) and of my PhD in Philosophy (2007). Then I moved to Edinburgh, where I got a Msc in Philosophy of Mind, Language and Embodied Cognition (2009) funded by a scholarship granted by the University of Palermo. As a doctoral candidate I have spent study and research terms at U.C. Berkeley under supervision of John R. Searle (2004, 2005, 2007). More recently I integrated my profile of researcher in the field of the foundational problems of cognitive science and social ontology and in the field of the historical genesis of their crucial concepts by way of pursuing a PhD program in neuroscience (title awarded in 2015) under supervision of Bruno G. Bara and Mauro Adenzato (University of Turin). I am also recognized as expert in the subject matter of Psychology by the Department of Psychology in Turin since 2013.
As postdoc researcher in History of Philosophy (Funds: MIUR 2009-2013) at the University of Palermo I have pursued a project on “Embodied, Embedded Mind and the Challenges of Subjectivity: Theoretical Perspectives and Historical-Philosophical Perspectives”. I also took part, as member of the research unit of the University of Palermo, to the national project “Comunità, verità e impegno ontologico (Truth, Community, and Ontological Commitment)” (Funds: Prin 2009), and to the University project on “Aesthetics and logic of sciences” (Funds: Ateneo ex 60%, 2012).
As a member of the Workshop of Critical Social Philosophy I am currently taking part to the Organizing Committee of the IVth International Conference of the European Network on Social Ontology (ENSO IV conference, September 2015, University of Palermo, Palazzo Steri).
I am a member of the following associations and research groups: European Network on Social Ontology (ENSO), International Society of Social Ontology (ISOS), European Society for Analytic Philosophy (ESAP); Società Italiana di Filosofia Analitica (SIFA); Social Ontology Group (Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, USA), Associazione italiana di Scienze Cognitive (AISC).
My teaching activity took place mainly in the M-FIL/06 SSD (Scientific-disciplinary section of History of Philosophy) at the University of Palermo, where I am recognized as expert of the subject matter since 2013. I have been tutor of workshops on “Reading the philosophical texts” for undergraduate courses in Philosophy since 2007 to 2012, tutor of subject remediation courses in philosophy since 2011, contract professor of an integrative course of History of Philosophy in 2008.
Giancarlo Zanet Ascolta
email address: giancarlo.zanet@unipa.it
Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Palermo, he has worked on issues related to naturalism in epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. His articles and essays on those topics have been published in journals and books. He focused his research on the philosophy of W.V. Quine and the historical empiricist and pragmatist roots of his naturalized epistemology. He is currently working on the topic of mindreading, assessing the role of simulation and rationality in our mentalizing abilities. His works include Le radici del naturalismo. W.V. Quine tra eredità empirista e pragmatismo (The Roots of Naturalism. W.V. Quine between Empiristic Legacy and Pragmatism) Quodlibet, Macerata, 2007.
