Patrizio U E Lo Presti | Lund University (original) (raw)

Papers Published/Accepted/In Press by Patrizio U E Lo Presti

Humana.Mente, 2020

The possibility of autonomous artificially intelligent systems (AAIs) has awaken a well-known wor... more The possibility of autonomous artificially intelligent systems (AAIs) has awaken a well-known worry in the scientific community as well as in popular imaginary: the possibility that beings which have gained autonomous intelligence either turn against their creators or at least make the moral and ethical superiority of creators with respect to the created questionable. The present paper argues that such worries are wrong-headed. Specifically, if AAIs raise a worry about human ways of life or human value it is a worry for a certain human way of thinking about what it is to be human. What is threatened is a way of thinking about what it is to be human, not human ways of life or human value.

AVANT, 2020

This paper argues that first-person singular I-and first-person plural we-intentionality are cons... more This paper argues that first-person singular I-and first-person plural we-intentionality are constituted in normative second-person relations. Their relata are individuals who mutually recognize each other as loci of responsibility. Such relations constitute an I-You, which is argued to be sufficient for both singular I-and plural we-intentionality. Whenever there is I-intentio-nality there is we-intentionality, because whenever the relevant second-person relations obtain , conditions sufficient for both are satisfied. Consequently, the possibility of autonomous individual I-intentionality as well as plurally shared we-intentionality depends on at least two individuals involved in normative mutual recognition. Neither individual is an intentional 'I' independently of entering the I-You, and when they do so they are an intentional 'we.'

Theory & Psychology, 2020

Direct perception and theory-theory approaches to social cognition are opposed with respect to wh... more Direct perception and theory-theory approaches to social cognition are opposed with respect to whether social cognition is inferential. The latter argues that it is inferential, the former that it is not. This article argues that the opposition in terms of inference is mistaken. A sense of inference is specified on which social cognition can be inferential and directly perceptual. Arguing for inferential social cognition does not commit to a defense of indirect social cognition if inferential access to other minds can be direct. Contrary convictions are symptomatic of working with too simplistic a notion of inference. The dispute between direct and inferentialist social cognition is one in which both sides can be right. The argument, then, is that inferentialism should not be called on to witness in favor or disfavor of advocates of either direct or indirect social cognition. In this article, I make two points. First, there is a sense of "inference" and, relatedly, a version of inferentialism, neglected in social cognition research. Expounding it is the first point. This is not an argument that other senses are simply wrong, but it shows that the issue of whether social cognition is direct and perceptual isn't settled by whether it is inferential. Second, the sense of inference and inferentialism arrived at in the first step suggests that social cognition can be directly perceptual and inferential. This approach subsumes opposed inferential and direct perception accounts. On the whole, this paper contributes to a recent request by Gallagher and Allen (2018, p. 2643), to clarify how to understand inference (among other concepts) in order to sort out basic issues, for cognition in general and for social cognition in particular. The

Ecological Psychology, 2019

Interdisciplinary interest in affordances is increasing. This paper is a philosophical contributi... more Interdisciplinary interest in affordances is increasing. This paper is a philosophical contribution. The question is: Do persons offer affordances? Analysis of the concepts ‘person’ and ‘affordance’ supports an affirmative answer. On a widely accepted understanding of what persons are, persons exhibit many of the features typical of socionormative affordances. However, to understand persons as offering affordances requires, on the face of it, stretching traditional understandings of the concept of affordance: persons, in contrast to the organisms that partially constitute persons, do not seem to be available to perception. This and similar worries are responded to.

Phenomenology and Mind, 2019

This paper argues that rules and norms are conceptually distinct: what is norm is not thereby rul... more This paper argues that rules and norms are conceptually distinct: what is norm is not thereby rule, and vice versa. Versions of conflating the two are discussed and an argument for distinction given. Two objections to the argument are responded to. It is accepted that rules and norms are often intimately related. They are so causally, not conceptually: what norms we live by can make a difference to what rules we accept and what rules we accept can make a difference to what norms we live by. This is a social, dynamic and continuous causal process of development of the social practices of community.

Northern European Journal of Philosophy, 2017

Contemporary debate on the nature of meaning centres on whether meaning is normative. Agreement i... more Contemporary debate on the nature of meaning centres on whether meaning is normative. Agreement is widespread that meaning implies correct-ness, but disagreement on whether correctness is normative remains. Normativists argue that correctness implies obligations or permissions. Anti-normativists disagree and hold that correctness is a descriptive term. This paper argues that, fundamentally, meaning presupposes norms, but not in the generic normativist sense: a vocabulary is recognisable as part of a language if and only if it is part of a practice of committing and entitling to ask for and provide reasons for what is said. To commit and entitle is not obliged or permitted. It is a presupposition for speaking about obligations and permissions.

Theory & Psychology, 2016

According to direct perception theory (DPT) people understand each other’s minds by way of percei... more According to direct perception theory (DPT) people understand each other’s minds by way of perceiving each other’s behavioral engagements in the world. I argue that DPT admits of two interpretations. One interpretation is found in Searle’s social ontology. The other interpretation departs from an enactivist account of social cognition. Both can make sense of what it is to perceive other minds, but in two different ways. The first claims that people can directly perceive states of mind shared in a community. In contrast, the second interpretation allows for direct perception of particular individuals’ states of mind in the context of participation in social practices. The two interpretations are argued to be compatible. People can perceive communal states of mind in another’s responsiveness to action possibilities in social environments, not only the particular other’s states of mind.

Adaptive Behavior, 2016

It is argued that normativity is an embodied and situated skill that resists explanation in terms... more It is argued that normativity is an embodied and situated skill that resists explanation in terms of rule-following. Norms are dynamic and negotiable, and are understood in practice by engaging with others. Rules are a subclass of norms and have pragmatic functions, e.g., to impose norms and elucidate implicit normativity. The propositional articulation of norms is secondary to normativity. Norms can be explained within the framework of ecological psychology as a particular kind of affordance that enables actions to be directly understood as correct. This view entails that the niche of human beings is inherently normative. Finally, the ecological account of normativity is used to elucidate the notion of rule-following.

The Philosophical Forum, 2015

Matters collective are receiving increased attention. Philosophers discuss concepts such as we-a... more Matters collective are receiving increased attention. Philosophers discuss concepts
such as we-action, we-want, we-intentionality, and in general how to understand
psychological states and agency prefixed the first person plural we. I will be
concerned with we-agency in particular, and I will be focusing on one issue of
we-agency specifically; namely, what kind of reasons it involves, and in what
sense it “involves” reasons. The two central claims of the paper are, first, that
we-agency involves a special kind of reason: All individual part-actions of a
we-action must be performed for a we-reason. By a we-reason, I understand a
reason such that the agent wants what she does to realize an end together with
others; she wants to do it as part of what a we does. This positive claim, it will be
seen, is quite uncontroversial. Secondly, we-actions need not involve reasons that
any participating agent is aware of as a we-reason. In other words, consciousness
of what one does as part of what a we does is not conceptually implied in
we-action.

HUMAN AFFAIRS, 2015

The paper submits a criticism of the standard formulation of Wittgenstein’s rule-following parad... more The paper submits a criticism of the standard formulation of Wittgenstein’s rule-following
paradox. According to the standard formulation, influenced by Kripke, the paradox invites us to consider what mental or behavioral items could constitute meaning. The author proposes instead an enactivist understanding of the paradox. On this account there is no essential gap between mental items and behavioral patterns such that the paradox enforces a choice between meaning being constituted either internally ‘in mind,’ or externally ‘in behavior.’ The paper begins with an introduction to the paradox and then presents arguments against standard solutions. It ends with the enactivist proposal, admitting that although much more needs to be said before it can be established as a full-fledged alternative, it nonetheless holds some promise both for revising our understanding of the paradox and for the formulation of a novel solution.

Logos & Episteme, 2014

Why does it strike us as absurd to believe that it is raining and that one doesn’t believe that i... more Why does it strike us as absurd to believe that it is raining and that one doesn’t believe that it is raining? Some argue that it strikes us as absurd because belief is normative. The beliefs that it is raining and that one doesn’t believe that it is are, it is suggested, self-falsifying. But, so it is argued, it is essential to belief that beliefs ought not, among other things, be self-falsifying. That is why the beliefs strike us as absurd. I argue that while the absurdity may consist in and be explained by self-falsification, we have no reasons to accept the further claim that self-falsifying beliefs are absurd because violating norms.

Abstracta, 2013

The aim of this paper is to show that there is a reciprocal dependency relationship between socia... more The aim of this paper is to show that there is a reciprocal dependency relationship between social cognition and social ontology. It is argued that, on the one hand, the existence conditions of socially meaningful objects and of social groups are about subjects’ social cognitive processes and interactive patterns and, on the other hand, social cognitive processes and interactive patterns are modulated by socially meaningful objects and social groups. I proceed from a historically informed distinction between social ontologies – between what might be called constructivist and emergentist theories of social reality. I then distinguish three theories of social cognition, theory-theory, simulation theory, and interaction theory, and argue that the first distinction and the latter map onto each other. Finally I argue that the reciprocal dependency between social ontology and social cognition can be justifiably though of as causal in Di Paolo et. al.’s (2010) sense of “downward” or “circular” causation. It is concluded that the dependency between social ontology and social cognition pertain to both a methodological and a phenomenal level. First, research on social ontology depends on research on social cognition; and, secondly, social phenomena, involving socially meaningful objects and groups, influence social cognitive processes and interaction, which in turn influence social phenomena.

Collegium: Studies across Disciplines in the Human and Social Sciences, 2013

This contribution provides an interdisciplinary analysis of expressions of austerity policies. It... more This contribution provides an interdisciplinary analysis of expressions of austerity policies. It is argued that expressions of austerity policies are meaningful if and only if the intended addressees’ psychological states are adequately attuned and the conceptual preconditions for implementation met. Furthermore, it is argued that if the addressees are suitably psychologically attuned and these preconditions met, utility will, by definition, be maximised and successful economical recovery enjoyed in equal measure among austerity implementors. The paper is divided into five sections. In the first section, the political scene is set in which austerity policies are expressed and the terminology is introduced. In the second section, expressions of austerity policies are dissected and an analysis of the reference conditions of such expressions provided. The third section reviews a conceptual analysis of intending and acting together and relates it to jointly implementing austerity policies. In the fourth section, the economic rationale behind expressions of austerity policies is evaluated with reference to what in economic theory is called team-reasoning theory. It is concluded, in section five, that given suitably psychologically attuned implementors of austerity policies, expressions of austerity policies are economically rational. But we should be sceptical about their economic motivation: if the people referred to, to implement austerity, are different from those calling for austerity policies, then it might appear, in the long run, that the former bear a burden for the good of the latter.

The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 2013

The paper argues that contexts of interaction are structured in a way that coordinates part actio... more The paper argues that contexts of interaction are structured in a way that coordinates part actions into normatively guided joint action without agents having common knowledge or mutual beliefs about intentions, beliefs, or commitments to part actions. The argument shows earlier analyses of joint action to be fundamentally flawed because they have not taken contextual influences on joint action properly into account. Specific completion of earlier analyses is proposed. It is concluded that attention to features distributed in context of interaction that signal expected part actions is sufficient for a set of part actions to qualify as a joint action.

Cogency, 2012

Pragma-dialectical argumentation theory has received criticism from epistemological argumentatio... more Pragma-dialectical argumentation theory has received criticism from epistemological
argumentation theorists. While the former emphasizes argumentation as aimed at resolving differences of opinion through adequate procedures, the latter emphasizes that argumentation is aimed at reaching a justified conclusion of the argumentation. In this paper pragma-dialectics is analyzed and two objections considered. The first objection pertains to the pragma-dialectical definition of reasonable argumentation, the other to the lack of an account of normativity of argumentation in pragma-dialectics. It is argued that the objections are not convincing.

Books by Patrizio U E Lo Presti

Daidalos förlag: Gothenburg, Sweden, 2018

Denna bok har finansierats av Sten K Johnsons Stiftelses stipendium för bildning. Jag vill tacka ... more Denna bok har finansierats av Sten K Johnsons Stiftelses stipendium för bildning. Jag vill tacka Stiftelsen för bidraget. Grund för boken är min avhandling Norms in Social Interaction: Semantic, Epistemic and Dynamic (Lund University Publications, 2015). Jag vill tacka min handledare under forskarutbildningen vid filosofiska institutionen i Lund, Ingar Brinck, och min biträdande handledare, Björn Petersson, för all kritisk hjälp och deras tålamod.

Lund University Publications: Lund, Sweden, 2015

Papers by Patrizio U E Lo Presti

Humana.Mente: Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2020

The possibility of autonomous artificially intelligent systems (AAIs) has awaken a well-known wor... more The possibility of autonomous artificially intelligent systems (AAIs) has awaken a well-known worry in the scientific community as well as in popular imaginary: the possibility that beings which have gained autonomous intelligence either turn against their creators or at least make the moral and ethical superiority of creators with respect to the created questionable. The present paper argues that such worries are wrong-headed. Specifically, if AAIs raise a worry about what human ways of life it a worry for a certain human way of thinking about what it is to be human. What is threatened is a way of thinking about what it is to be human, not human ways of life or human value.

Lund University Publications: Lund, Sweden, 2015

at the Humanities office, Ylva von Gerber, Anna Östberg, and the Lund University IT-support unit.... more at the Humanities office, Ylva von Gerber, Anna Östberg, and the Lund University IT-support unit. Thank you also Åsa Burman for the Finish On Time course. I am grateful for the friendly help of Jan Hartman. Last but far from least I would like to thank my doctoral student colleagues Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup and Oscar Ralsmark for our lively discussions in the philosophy of mind reading group as well as for helping me with comments on several occasions. Thank you Frits Gåvertsson for all those pauses outside the Department of Philosophy at Kungshuset and LUX. And thank you Martin Viktorelius, friend since undergraduate studies and now doctoral student in cognitive science at Chalmers University of Technology. None of this would be possible without the last eight years of friendship and off the hook, open-minded, at the bar, at the dinner table, on the train, and on vacation discussions of everything in philosophy, and what it is that we are really doing when doing philosophy. ! Chapter 20 has a certain meaning means that one should use it according to certain norms. This is called meaning-normativism and has its modern roots in Saul Kripke (1982), who argued (or argued that Wittgenstein argued) that the relation between meaning and use must not be how we do or will use language according to some pattern but how we should use it. On a competing approach to meaning and normativity correctness is not unambiguously a normative term (Hattiangadi 2007). It can have descriptive purport as well. For example, when it is said that 'dog' means dog implies that 'dog' can be used correctly (to refer to dogs) or incorrectly (to refer to non-dogs), then this only means that it is true, relative to those correctness conditions, that 'dog' means dog. It does not follow from this, or so it is argued by anti-normativists, that there is any particular manner one should or should not use 'dog'; words refer and to use words correctly simply means that it is true that one uses them according to a certain standard. Hence, it seems, 'correctness' has descriptive meaning, and norms must be imposed, e.g., socially, for meaning to be normative (Glüer and Wikforss 2009). Anti-normativists agree that norms can be imposed on language use; i.e., it can be normative but it is not a conceptual truth that it is. For example, it might be a social norm that one should not lie, not assert what one believes to be false, to be conspicuous, and so on (Grice 1989). But these are not norms that can be directly derived from meaning alone. They must be supported by social agreement on correct use. Hence to say that meaning entails correctness, as many philosophers do, is not, according to anti-normativists, to say that meaning is normative, because correctness might be a non-normative term. At least, it is ambiguous whether correctness is normative and therefore not sufficient for meaning to entail normativity that it entails correctness. It can be seen here that there is a difference between saying, on the one hand, that meaning is normative in the sense that semantics is normative and, on the other hand, saying that pragmatics is normative. Thus it might be argued that the semantics of a language does not entail norms, because for norms to apply the language must have a socially agreed on pragmatics; that is, an agreement in use. Given this difference between norms for semantics and norms for pragmatics several positions are opened up. For example, one might argue Since the field of meaning of 'norm' is not only heterogeneous but also has vague boundaries, it would probably be futile to try to create a General Theory of Norms covering the whole field. The theory of norms must be somehow restricted in its scope. From this observation, accurate or not, von Wright goes on to distinguish a host of different domains in which the term 'norm' might apply, much as I have done here.

Humana.Mente, 2020

AVANT, 2020

Theory & Psychology, 2020

Ecological Psychology, 2019

Phenomenology and Mind, 2019

Northern European Journal of Philosophy, 2017

Theory & Psychology, 2016

Adaptive Behavior, 2016

The Philosophical Forum, 2015

HUMAN AFFAIRS, 2015

Logos & Episteme, 2014

Abstracta, 2013

Collegium: Studies across Disciplines in the Human and Social Sciences, 2013

The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 2013

Cogency, 2012

Daidalos förlag: Gothenburg, Sweden, 2018

Lund University Publications: Lund, Sweden, 2015

Humana.Mente: Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2020

The possibility of autonomous artificially intelligent systems (AAIs) has awaken a well-known wor... more The possibility of autonomous artificially intelligent systems (AAIs) has awaken a well-known worry in the scientific community as well as in popular imaginary: the possibility that beings which have gained autonomous intelligence either turn against their creators or at least make the moral and ethical superiority of creators with respect to the created questionable. The present paper argues that such worries are wrong-headed. Specifically, if AAIs raise a worry about what human ways of life it a worry for a certain human way of thinking about what it is to be human. What is threatened is a way of thinking about what it is to be human, not human ways of life or human value.

Lund University Publications: Lund, Sweden, 2015

In this presentation, I continue previous work on extracting consequences for the design of integ... more In this presentation, I continue previous work on extracting consequences for the design of integration policies from research on participatory sense-making in cognitive science. Participatory sense-making was introduced in cognitive science in the early 21 century. The idea, roughly, is that social understanding consists in mutually inclusive social face-to-face real-time participation in pursuit of joint activities. I mean to unpack the concept of participatory sense-making to the end, specifically, of proving it relevant for integration policies and practice. I argue that modelling integration policies on participatory sense-making is instrumental to consolidate a sense of community and mutual respect for others and norms for how to live together.

This dissertation examines people’s understanding of and action according to norms. Two models ar... more This dissertation examines people’s understanding of and action according to norms. Two models are distinguished: a cognitive and a non-cognitive model. The cognitive model is characterized by requiring for people to understand norms and each other, and to act accordingly, that they have higher-order mental states whose propositional contents refer to the mental states of others and from these infer beliefs about what is normative and intentions to act accordingly. On the other, non-cognitive model, understanding norms and others and to act accordingly is understood as an embodied, situated, ecological, and enacted know-how. Such knowledge does not imply that people entertain mental states with propositional contents that something is a norm or that someone is in a certain mental state, from which they infer what to do; instead it presupposes certain embodied activities in the context of particular situations in social environments that people together participate in enacting. In th...

Ownership and First-Person Authority from a Normative Pragmatist Perspective

Contemporary Pragmatism

Mental episodes are typically associated with subjective ownership and first-person authority. My... more Mental episodes are typically associated with subjective ownership and first-person authority. My belief that an apple is red is had by me; it is mine and I’m in a privileged position to know it. Your experience of red is had by you; it is yours and you are in a privileged position to know it. The two assumptions are that mental events are had by individuals to whom they occur, and that owners are in a privileged epistemic position to fallibly report their own. This paper asks how to understand ownership and first-person authority (section 1). It argues that the two assumptions should not be accepted by default (section 2). A normative pragmatism is specified, on which mental episodes are not owned, but owed to practices of reason articulation (section 3). Finally, a positive account of ownership and first-person authority is considered (section 4).