The nexus between truth and agency, as adjacent concepts like authenticity, identity, and subjectivity, have been at the center of my research from the start. I have worked on these topics from the two sides of literary scholarship and philosophical investigation. My theoretical background spans from poststructuralist philosophy and literary theory to post-quinean philosophy of language and topics in conceptual engineering.
I have written a monograph on the concept of truth, political identity, and the claim for authenticity in Andreas Maier’s novels, edited a volume on the Italian philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter, and written various articles on realism and conceptual agency in Rorty. More recently, I have published on topics in conceptual engineering and especially on the role pragmatism can play to assess and develop questions of semantic plasticity. My further works cover topics in Romanticism, Modernism, and (Post-)Postmodernism, conceptually focusing on various degrees of intersection of determinism and freedom, ethics and aesthetics, and poetic justice.
Current research project: Horizon2020-MSCA-IF-2018 RELEVANT REALISM
Relevant Realism - Truth, Power, and Action for 21st Century Societies
The aim of this project is to develop a fully functional new concept of realism which intrinsically combines theories of truth with theories of action. This new theory will be measured against other contemporary approaches and adapted to current political problems to validate it and to investigate its practical applications. The problems underpinning the urgent need of developing a new concept of realism are, namely, the rise of authoritarianism and the apparent ineffectiveness of current truth-concepts and communicative strategies in countering totalitarian, authoritarian, and simplistic-populist discourses. The innovative, nostalgia-free concept of realism titled “relevant realism” will provide new ways to frame current political problems and new tools for political communication while avoiding both the current realist backlash and the postmodern relativist trap. The project will engage in a detailed analytic assessment of concepts of realism and a comparative analysis and fusion of positions in Neopragmatism, Poststructuralism, and adjacent theories. Providing a realist approach without losing sight of postmodern and poststructuralist contributions to disentangle and unveil the power-mechanisms involved in every truth-claim is of utmost interest for a culturally diversified space like Europe where constant complexifications of cultures and ways of living have to be faced and are to be preserved as a value. The project will be carried out at the University of Bologna and at the University of Oslo during a secondment period.
connected events:
Workshop: Truth versus the Rhetoric of Truth: Authority, Realism, and Power (June 27-29, 2019, https://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/news-and-events/events/conferences/2019/truth-versus-the-rhetoric-of-truth-authority-reali.html)
Workshop: Conceptual Engineering and Pragmatism (July 8-9, 2021, https://conceptualengineeringpragmatism.yolasite.com/)
Roundtable: Dov'è finito il discorso sulle fake-news? (July 13, 2021, https://magazine.unibo.it/calendario/2021/07/04/dove-finito-il-discorso-sulle-fake-news?d=2021-07-04)
Outreach: MSCA-Event: Science is wonderful! Meet the scientist! (November 22-26, 2021, https://www.scienceiswonderful.eu/en)
