I write about the limitations of human cognition, such as faulty reasoning, delusions, confabulations, irrational beliefs, poor knowledge of the self, distorted memories, unreliable self narratives, and attitude/behaviour inconsistencies. 

 

I am also interested in the ethical issues emerging from the contributions of science to society and concerning biomedical research, psychiatry, reproduction, happiness, and death.

See the projects page for more details.

 

On this site you will find a full list of papers (some available for download). You will also find information about authored and edited books.

Authored books: 

Edited collections:

Special issues: 

 

In 1997 I obtained my first degree in Philosophy (Laurea summa cum laude in Filosofia) at the University of Bologna with a dissertation on conceptual relativism supervised by Eva Picardi. For five months during the degree I was an Erasmus student in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds.

 

Then I got an MA in Philosophy (with distinction) from King's College London where, supervised by Donald Gillies, I wrote a dissertation on the rationality of scientific revolutions. I obtained the BPhil in Philosophy (University of Oxford) in 2000 with a dissertation on the rationality debate in philosophy and the cognitive sciences under the supervision of Bill Newton-Smith.

 

After the BPhil, I moved to the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra.  I worked on my PhD under the supervision of Martin Davies in the Philosophy Programme. My thesis was a challenge to Donald Davidson's rationality constraint on the ascription of beliefs.

 

After obtaining the PhD in 2004, I worked for one year as Research Associate on the EC-funded project EU-RECA (on the concept of research and the ethical regulation of research activities) coordinated by John Harris at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy at the University of Manchester. I was also Honorary Lecturer in Bioethics at the Centre.

 

Next I joined the University of Birmingham, where I was first Lecturer (2005-2008), then Senior Lecturer (2008-2011), and I am now Reader in Philosophy. 

Since 2010, I am also Honorary Associate at the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (Australia).

 

In 2007-2008 I was involved in the activities of the PhD Programme in the Foundations of the Life Sciences and their Ethical Consequences at the European School of Molecular Medicine (Milan) as a Visiting Professor.

 

From the end of July 2008 to the end of December 2008 I visited the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (Australia) on an Endeavour Research Fellowship. My research project consisted in investigating the relationship among attributions of intentionality, rationality and self-knowledge to people reporting delusional beliefs. The fellowship was funded by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations of the Australian Government.

 

In April 2009 I visited John Campbell in the Philosophy Department at the University of California Berkeley as part of the project for my AHRC funded leave.

 

In July 2009 I visited the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) as a Universitas 21 Fellow.

 

In October 2010 I went to the University of Tokyo Centre for Philosophy (UTCP) and delivered a series of five lectures, entitled "Delusions and the Philosophy and Psychology of Belief", organised by Professor Yukihiro Nobuhara.