Esercizi Filosofici 11, 2 (2016)

In this paper we aim to show that motor intentionality, as the underlying ground for social cognition, can be explained through the predictive engagement model. Sensorimotor processes seem to play central roles in social interaction, cognition and language. We question the phenomenological role of the body in social cognition and further investigate a causal neural explanation. We will adopt a different perspective by linking the role of the body and intercorporeality with recent findings in philosophy of neuroscience under the predictive brain hypothesis. In fact, the living body seems to entertain a dialogical and enactive relationship with the surrounding context, as well as with neural circuits actively responding to external stimuli. The body is thus configured as a living organism, and not as a mere biological substratum, offering to phenomenology and empirical sciences further confirmations of the possibility-and need-for a cooperation.

Aristotle indicates four types of inferences whose conclusion does not necessarily follows its premises. In this paper, I review them from the mental models theory and try to show that, if this last framework is correct, people should note without a lot of effort that their conclusions are not necessary. I mainly base my analysis on the distinction between canonical and noncanonical models provided by Khemlani, Lotstein, Trafton, and Johnson-Laird (2015).

The disputes between externalism and internalism in the philosophy of mind and epistemology are revealed to be greatly intertwined. In this paper, I would like to defend the compatibility between content externalism and epistemic internalism, and then explore some of its potential consequences. More precisely, I have a twofold goal: first, I shall examine the widespread idea that content externalism is not compatible with epistemic internalism, and argue that, if the two theses are appropriately understood, then there is no real tension between them; second, I shall sketch some interesting effects that may hopefully come from the combination of content externalism and epistemic internalism, as that of accommodating the constitutive link between justification and truth.