Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

Starting from some results of neuroscience, and especially of Embodied Cognition, I’ll discuss the problem of the intelligent use of tools, as a useful perspective under which to investigate the link between common knowledge and scientific knowledge. The philosophical question from which I shall start my reflection is the following: how do we represent reality to ourselves when we intervene on it through the intelligent use of a tool? The answer to this problem will be developed in two fundamental steps. 1. The problem of the intelligent use of tools…

This essay is the English translation of the foreword to the Italian edition of Film, Art, and the Third Culture, published in 2022 as Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze: un’estetica naturalizzata del film (Rome: Dino Audino). It approaches Murray Smith’s study as a key entry point into the ongoing dialogue between film theory and the cognitive sciences, and as a catalyst for rethinking the epistemological foundations of film studies in light of neuroscience. The analysis situates Smith’s notion of “cooperative naturalism” within a broader critical framework that questions how the humanities can…