CURRICULUM VITAE

Employment

2005-present Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Georgia State University

Education

2005              Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
2005              M.S. University of Pittsburgh, Department of Philosophy
2000              Ph.D. Università Cattolica of Milan (Italy), Department of Economics
1997              M.S. The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Department of Philosophy
1994              B.S. Bocconi University (Italy), Department of Economics

Areas of specialization and interest

AOS: Philosophy of mind (esp. emotion theory), philosophy of science
AOC: Metaphysics and epistemology, logic

Publications

  1. "In Defence of Information" (Forthcoming), Animal Behaviour
  2. "Emotions, Philosophical Issues" (Forthcoming) , Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, Cognitive Science
  3. (with Paul Griffiths) "Basic Emotions" (Forthcoming), Emotion Review
  4. (with Gualtiero Piccinini) "Information Without Truth" (Forthcoming), Metaphilosophy
  5. "Inductive Risk and Justice in Organ Allocation" (Forthcoming), Bioethics
  6. “Insights and Blindspots of the Cognitivist Theory of Emotions” (Forthcoming), British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  7. “Is Core Affect a Natural Kind?” (Forthcoming), Philosophy of Science
  8. (with Gualtiero Piccinini) “Computation vs Information Processing” (Forthcoming), Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science
  9. “On The Role of Values in Economics: Robbins and His Critics” (Forthcoming), Journal of the History of Economic Thought
  10.  “Shell Games, Information, and Counterfactuals” (Forthcoming), Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 86, Issue 4 December 2008, pp. 629 - 634
  11. (with Paul Griffiths) “Emotions in the Wild: The Situated Perspective on Emotion”, in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 437-453.
  12. “The Health-Emotion Link: Dimensions of Complexity and Causal Mechanisms”, in The Emotion Researcher, 23, 1, Summer 2008
  13. Review of Thinking About Feeling (ed. Robert Solomon) and Emotion, Evolution and Rationality (eds. Dylan Evans and Pierre Cuse), Mind (2006), 115: 812-820
  14. Review of Passionate Engines by Craig DeLancey, Philosophy of Science (2004), 71, pp. 227-230 Andrea Scarantino, “Affordances Explained”, Philosophy of Science (2003), 70, pp. 949-961
  15.  “Efficiency and Equity in Organ Allocation”, Keiron (2000), October, pp. 42-57 (publication in Italian)

Work in progress

  1. “Unconscious Emotions Explained”
  2. 'Does Emotion Theory Rest on a Mistake?"
  3. “Is the Information Relation Counterfactual Supporting?”
  4. “Did Dretske Learn the Right Lesson from Shannon’s Theory of Information?”
  5.  “The Disjunctive Theory of Art” (with Francis Longworth)   
  6. “How to Define Folk Terms” (with Francis Longworth)
  7. “How to Define Theoretical Terms” (with Francis Longworth)
  8. “How To Do Things With Emotions”
  9. “Emotions and Non-conceptual Content”

Honors

2006    Richard M. Griffith Memorial Junior Award in philosophy for the paper “Emotions as Umotions”, awarded yearly by the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology 
2004    Michael R. Bennett Prize in Philosophy, Philosophy Department, University of Pittsburgh, for the paper “Did Dretske Learn the Right Lesson from Shannon’s Theory of Information?”
2004    Graduate Student Travel Stipend, American Philosophical Association, Central Division, for the paper “Blindfright and the Cognitivist’s Dilemma” 
2002    Graduate Student Travel Award, Society for Philosophy and Psychology, for the paper “A Deeper Problem for Dretske’s Theory of Informational Content” 
2001    Andrew Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh
2000    Student Paper Award from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, for the paper “The Interplay Between Science and Values in the Allocation of Cadaveric Kidneys”
1997    Andrea Mannu Prize, London School of Economics, for the Master Thesis “What is an Action? When is an Action Altruistic?”
1994    Fondazione Lanza Prize, for the dissertation “Rational Fools: a Study on the Requirements of Rationality Beyond Internal Consistency” (in Italian) 
1994    Golden Medal “Amici della Bocconi” from Bocconi University given to all graduates “summa cum laude” for the academic year 1993-1994

Grants

Seminar on metaphysical issues in the philosophy of mind, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington University in Saint Louis, Saint Louis, 8 June - 17 July 2009, Director: John Heil
Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 25 - July 6, 2007 (funding for $2,500), Director: Michael S. Gazzaniga

Talks

2009 "Unconscious Emotions: Respectable, Useful, and Probably Necessary", 2nd Annual Interdisciplinary Approach to Philosophical Issues Conference, University of South Alabama, Sept 24-26 2009, invited talk.
2009 "Natural Affective Kinds", ISRE 2009, The University of Leuven, Belgium, August 6-8 2009, symposium talk.
2008 “Shell Games, Information and Counterfactuals”, poster presented at the Society for Psychology and Philosophy Meeting, Philadelphia 2008
2008 “Is Core Affect a Natural Kind?”, Emotion Research Group, Savannah, invited talk
2007 “The Trouble with Counterfactual Theories of Information”, Philosophy Department, GSU, Brown Bag Lunch Series
2007 “Emotion as Umotion”, Emotion Research Group, Point Reyes, invited talk
2006 “What is an Umotion?”, Philosophy of Science Association, Biennial Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, November 3, 2006
2006 “Emotions as Social Signals”, Cognitive Science Brown Bag Talk, Georgia Institute of Technology, November 17, 2006, invited talk
2006 “Emotions as Umotions”, Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Charleston, April 15, 2006
2006 “Insights and Blindspots of Cognitivism”, International Society for Research on Emotions, August 7, 2006
2006 “Carving Emotion at Its Joints”, Emotion Research Group, Miami, April 14, 2006, invited talk
2005 “Do Invertebrates Have Emotions?”, Neurophilosophy Brown-Bag Talk, Georgia State University, October 27, 2005
2005 “Understanding Emotions”, Neuroscience Fall 2005 Retreat, Georgia State University, October 14, 2005
2005    “A Critique of Cognitivist and Neo-Jamesian Theories of Emotion”, Poster Presentation, International Society for Research on Emotions, Bari, July 11-15, 2005
2005    Chair of a session on “Ethics, Aesthetics, and Cognitive Science”, The Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Wake Forest, June 9-12, 2005
2005    “Blindfright and the Cognitivist’s Dilemma”, American Philosophical Association, Central Division Meeting, Chicago, April 27-30
2004    “Blindfright and the Cognitivist’s Dilemma”, Society for Philosophy and Psychology and European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, First Joint Meeting in Barcelona
2003    “Toward a New Theory of Semantic Information”, Graduate Student Conference at the University of California at S. Diego, La Jolla
2002    “Affordances Explained”, Philosophy of Science Association, Biennial Meeting in Milwaukee
2002    “A Deeper Problem for Dretske’s Theory of Informational Content”, Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Annual Meeting in Edmonton
2001    “A Study on the Interplay between Science and Values in the Allocation of Cadaveric Kidneys”, American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City
2000    “Local justice in organ allocation”, invited paper, Conference on Equity in Health Care in Reggio Emilia (Italy)

Teaching

2005-present Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Georgia State University

Fall 2008

  1. Great Questions of Philosophy (Phil 2010)
  2. Philosophy of Science (Phil 4130/6130)

Spring 2008

  1. Great Questions of Philosophy (Phil 2010)
  2. Metaphysics (Phil 4300/6300)

Fall 2007

  1. Great Questions of Philosophy (Phil 2010)
  2. Seminar in Philosophy of Mind (on Emotions and Intentionality) (Phil 8330)

Spring 2007
1. Great Questions of Philosophy (Phil 2010)

Fall 2006

  1. Great Questions of Philosophy (Phil 2010)
  2. Symbolic Logic (Phil 4520/6520)

Spring 2006

  1. Great Questions of Philosophy (Phil 2010)
  2. Seminar in Philosophy of Language (on Concepts and Conceptual Analysis) (Phil 8530)

Fall 2005

  1. Great Questions of Philosophy (Phil 2010)
  2. Symbolic Logic (Phil 4520/6520)

1997-2005       Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

1995-1996       Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics, Bocconi University

Languages

Italian: native language; English: fluent; French: very good; Spanish: good

Service

2008 Interdiscplinary Committee, Neuroscience Institute, GSU
2006  Organization of the International Society for Research on Emotions (ISRE) annual meeting, August 6-10, 2006
2005-present Referee for Philosophy of Science, Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Psychology
2005-present Organization of the Neurophilosophy Brown Bag Series at Georgia State University
2005-present Master thesis committee membership: Soo Young Byun, Jill Brooks and Jessica Owensby-Sandifer, Scott Schneider, Bradley Thomas
2005-present Master thesis direction: Bryan Miller (co-director Eddy Nahmias), Trevor Kvaran (co-director Eddy Nahmias), Barclay Brown (co-director Eddy Nahmias), Jimmy Vaught (co-director Eddy Nahmias), Jason Outlaw (co-director Eddy Nahmias), Brandie Martinez-Bedard (director)
2005-2006 Brains & Behavior Scientific Committee, Georgia State University
2005  Organization of the 2005/2006 Philosophy Colloquium on “Reason and Emotion”, Georgia State University