Roberto Casati – författare

"Perhaps not all the stories that follow are true. They could, however, be true, and the Reader is invited to ponder this." So begins Insurmountable Simplicities, Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi's colorful incarnation of the many philosophical conundrums that hide in the wrinkles of everyday life. Why do mirrors seem to invert left and right but not up and down? How do we know whether strawberries taste the same for everyone? Where is it written that we must observe the law, and if it is not written, why should we observe it? What if we could swap brains-or the rest of our bodies? Insurmountable Simplicities is filled with stories, dialogues, and epistolary exchanges that cover a range of themes-such as personal identity, causality and responsibility, fortune, the nature of things, the paradoxes of time and space, the interface between logic and language-in captivating and inventive ways. Clear, concise, and intellectually engaging, this internationally acclaimed book brilliantly demonstrates that the beauty of philosophy resides in its thorough engagement with the simplicities of the world, insurmountable as they might initially appear.

In this original, wide-ranging, and endlessly thought-provoking work of popular nonfiction, a leading science writer uncovers the pervasive presence of shadows in our world.For Plato, shadows were the symbol of our limitations. For Galileo, they knocked the Earth from the center of the cosmos. They are a source of fear and a symbol of ignorance, and they loom large in art and design, mythology and folklore, physics and metaphysics, and architecture and urban planning. From shadows puppets and the psychology of shadows to the role of shadows in astronomy and the influence of shadows on the architectural profiles of our cities, Roberto Casati awakens our fascination in this tour-de-force of investigation and imagination.From the Trade Paperback edition.

This book scrutinizes the practice of sailing and its relation to philosophy of mind. Sailing brings about a peculiar human-artifact interaction which can lead to unexplored research paths. The idea behind this collection is that this interaction is better scrutinized by sailor scientists/philosophers to open up new possible pathways in research. Fascinating theoretical breakthroughs have been provided by observing sailing practices with the most well-known being Hutchins’ introduction in cognitive science of the concept of “distributed cognition.” However, in times past, sailing has both fueled philosophical metaphors, from Theseus’ ship to Plato’s image of the intellect as the boatperson of the soul, and inspired philosophers’ views (as happened to Herder during a stormy sea trip). The ecology of sailing is highly constrained: sailboats move at the surface between a compressible fluid and an uncompressible fluid. Wind originates in certain specificcircumstances. Only certain sequences of actions are possible to take advantage of this ecology. The ontology of sailing is both of the boat and of the ocean/wind system. It highlights the fact that sailboats have been for centuries arguably the most complex technological artifacts in each culture that developed them, precisely because the environment they are engaging is so peculiar and demanding - almost the precise dual of Sapiens’ adaptive environment.This volume will appeal to philosophers of mind, cognitive psychologists, and marine professionals.

This book scrutinizes the practice of sailing and its relation to philosophy of mind. Sailing brings about a peculiar human-artifact interaction which can lead to unexplored research paths. The idea behind this collection is that this interaction is better scrutinized by sailor scientists/philosophers to open up new possible pathways in research. Fascinating theoretical breakthroughs have been provided by observing sailing practices with the most well-known being Hutchins’ introduction in cognitive science of the concept of “distributed cognition.” However, in times past, sailing has both fueled philosophical metaphors, from Theseus’ ship to Plato’s image of the intellect as the boatperson of the soul, and inspired philosophers’ views (as happened to Herder during a stormy sea trip). The ecology of sailing is highly constrained: sailboats move at the surface between a compressible fluid and an uncompressible fluid. Wind originates in certain specificcircumstances. Only certain sequences of actions are possible to take advantage of this ecology. The ontology of sailing is both of the boat and of the ocean/wind system. It highlights the fact that sailboats have been for centuries arguably the most complex technological artifacts in each culture that developed them, precisely because the environment they are engaging is so peculiar and demanding - almost the precise dual of Sapiens’ adaptive environment.This volume will appeal to philosophers of mind, cognitive psychologists, and marine professionals.

This book scrutinizes the practice of sailing and its relation to philosophy of mind. Sailing brings about a peculiar human-artifact interaction which can lead to unexplored research paths. The idea behind this collection is that this interaction is better scrutinized by sailor scientists/philosophers to open up new possible pathways in research. Fascinating theoretical breakthroughs have been provided by observing sailing practices with the most well-known being Hutchins’ introduction in cognitive science of the concept of “distributed cognition.” However, in times past, sailing has both fueled philosophical metaphors, from Theseus’ ship to Plato’s image of the intellect as the boatperson of the soul, and inspired philosophers’ views (as happened to Herder during a stormy sea trip). The ecology of sailing is highly constrained: sailboats move at the surface between a compressible fluid and an uncompressible fluid. Wind originates in certain specificcircumstances. Only certain sequences of actions are possible to take advantage of this ecology. The ontology of sailing is both of the boat and of the ocean/wind system. It highlights the fact that sailboats have been for centuries arguably the most complex technological artifacts in each culture that developed them, precisely because the environment they are engaging is so peculiar and demanding - almost the precise dual of Sapiens’ adaptive environment.This volume will appeal to philosophers of mind, cognitive psychologists, and marine professionals.