Nel corso degli ultimi anni si è assistito ad un ampio dibattito sull’uso della valutazione della ricerca nelle università e nelle strutture di ricerca. Nell’ambito di tale dibattito, nella presente tesi, vengono analizzate le più importanti metodologie per la valutazione della ricerca presenti a livello internazionale, i principali strumenti qualitativi di valutazione della ricerca (in particolare la peer review), gli strumenti quantitativi, quali la bibliometria, e le caratteristiche dei più importanti archivi bibliografici citazionali (es. Scopus, Web of Science), approfondendo i principali indicatori citazionali utilizzati nelle scienze umane e sociali (es. Indice H). Inoltre la tesi affronta il tema dell’impatto socio-economico della ricerca e le principali criticità di questo innovativo strumento, attraverso uno studio di caso realizzato nel Regno Unito. Una successiva analisi empirica riguarda le principali liste di riviste realizzate a livello internazionale e nazionale, nel settore scientifico di Storia e Filosofia della scienza. I risultati degli studi mostrano che le liste internazionali di riviste possono rappresentare, un punto di partenza a cui devono necessariamente essere affiancati altri strumenti di valutazione (peer review, analisi citazionali, etc); mentre le liste nazionali rischiano, invece, di essere uno strumento poco utile ed in alcuni casi inadeguato al fine di una corretta valutazione della ricerca, a causa della scarsa internazionalizzazione dei repertori e dei giudizi generalmente troppo elevati attribuiti alle riviste. Un ulteriore risultato raggiunto nella presente tesi riguarda la valutazione della ricerca nelle diverse discipline scientifiche: nelle Scienze umane e sociali risulta esserci uno scarso grado di presenza di pubblicazioni scientifiche nei principali archivi bibliografici e citazionali internazionali. Questa situazione limita fortemente l’attendibilità delle analisi statistiche basate su indici e indicatori quantitativi, per valutare la produttività scientifica di un ricercatore, oppure di una istituzione di ricerca. / Over the last few years there has been an extensive debate on the use of evaluation of research in universities and research facilities. As part of this debate, in this thesis, we analyze the most important methods for the assessment of research on an international level, the main qualitative tools for the evaluation of research, in particular the peer review, and quantitative tools, such as bibliometrics, and the characteristics of the main bibliographic archives (eg, Scopus, Web of Science), deepening the main indicators used in human and social sciences (eg H Index). In addition, the thesis is connected with the socio-economic impact of research and the main problems of this innovative tool, through a case study conducted in the United Kingdom. A subsequent empirical analysis covers the main lists of journals at international and national levels, in the scientific field of History and Philosophy of Science. The results of the studies show that the lists of international journals can be, a starting point which must necessarily be joined by other instruments of assessment (peer review, citation analysis, etc.), while the national lists, however, can’t be an instrument, which is in some cases inadequate in order to a proper evaluation of the research, due to the low internationalization of repertoires and judgments generally too high attributed to the journals. A further result is that the evaluation of research in different scientific disciplines shows that in the humanities and social sciences there is a low presence of scientific publications in major international citation and bibliographic databases (Web of Science, Scopus). This situation limits the reliability of the statistical analysis based on indices and quantitative indicators (first Impact Factor and Index H), to evaluate the scientific productivity of a researcher or an institution research.

We introduce labelled sequent calculi for indexed modal logics. We prove that the structural rules of weakening and contraction are height-preserving admissible, that all rules are invertible, and that cut is admissible. Then we prove that each calculus introduced is sound and complete with respect to the appropriate class of transition frames.

This dissertation is devoted to the study of non-normal (modal) systems for deontic logics, both on the propositional level, and on the first order one. In particular we developed our study the Multi-relational setting that generalises standard Kripke Semantics. We present new completeness results concerning the semantic setting of several systems which are able to handle normative dilemmas and conflicts. Although primarily driven by issues related to the legal and moral field, these results are also relevant for the more theoretical field of Modal Logic itself, as we propose a syntactical, and semantic study of intermediate systems between the classical propositional calculus CPC and the minimal normal modal logic K.

La specificità dell'acquisizione di contenuti attraverso le interfacce digitali condanna l'agente epistemico a un'interazione frammentata, insufficiente da un punto di vista computazionale, mnemonico e temporale, rispetto alla mole informazionale oggi accessibile attraverso una qualunque implementazione della relazione uomo-computer, e invalida l'applicabilità del modello standard di conoscenza, come credenza vera e giustificata, sconfessando il concetto di credenza razionalmente fondata, per formare la quale, sarebbe invece richiesto all'agente di poter disporre appunto di risorse concettuali, computazionali e temporali inaccessibili. La conseguenza è che l'agente, vincolato dalle limitazioni ontologiche tipiche dell'interazione con le interfacce culturali, si vede costretto a ripiegare su processi ambigui, arbitrari e spesso più casuali di quanto creda, di selezione e gestione delle informazioni che danno origine a veri e propri ibridi (alla Latour) epistemologici, fatti di sensazioni e output di programmi, credenze non fondate e bit di testimonianze indirette e di tutta una serie di relazioni umano-digitali che danno adito a rifuggire in una dimensione trascendente che trova nel sacro il suo più immediato ambito di attuazione. Tutto ciò premesso, il presente lavoro si occupa di costruire un nuovo paradigma epistemologico di conoscenza proposizionale ottenibile attraverso un'interfaccia digitale di acquisizione di contenuti, fondato sul nuovo concetto di Tracciatura Digitale, definito come un un processo di acquisizione digitale di un insieme di tracce, ossia meta-informazioni di natura testimoniale. Tale dispositivo, una volta riconosciuto come un processo di comunicazione di contenuti, si baserà sulla ricerca e selezione di meta-informazioni, cioè tracce, che consentiranno l'implementazione di approcci derivati dall'analisi decisionale in condizioni di razionalità limitata, approcci che, oltre ad essere quasi mai utilizzati in tale ambito, sono ontologicamente predisposti per una gestione dell'incertezza quale quella riscontrabile nell'istanziazione dell'ibrido informazionale e che, in determinate condizioni, potranno garantire l'agente sulla bontà epistemica del contenuto acquisito. / The specificity of the acquisition of content through digital interfaces condemns the epistemic agent to a fragmented interaction, with respect to the huge informational bulk today available through any standard implementation of the man-computer relationship, and invalidates the applicability of the standard model of knowledge as justified true belief, by repudiating the concept of rationally founded belief, to form which would instead require the agent to be able to have precisely the conceptual resources and computational time inaccessible. Thereby the agent, bound by the ontological limitations belong to cultural interfaces, is forced to fall back on ambiguous, arbitrary and often more casual than he takes into account, selection and management information process that produce real epistemological hybrids (by Latour) made of feelings, program outputs, unfounded beliefs, bits of indirect testimonies and of a series of human-digital relationships that give rise to escape in a transcendent dimension belonging to anthropological area of the sacred. Starting from this analysis the work deals with constructing a new epistemological paradigm of propositional knowledge obtained through a digital content acquisition, based on the new concept of Digital Tracings, defined as a process of digital capture of a set of tracks , ie meta-information of a testimonial kind. This device, once recognized as a communication process of digital contents, will be based on the research and selection of meta-information, ie tracks, which allow the implementation of approaches derived from analysis of decision-making under bounded rationality, which approaches, as well to be almost never used in this context, are ontologically prepared for dealing with uncertainty such as that came into the informational hybrid and that can provide the agent on the epistemic goodness of acquired content.

The Mechanistic Theory of Human Cognition (MTHC) is currently one of the most influential fundamental theories in the field of cognitive science. The main idea is to provide an account of what human neuro-cognitive complex mechanisms are and how to explain them. The theory proposes an ambitious revolutionary unified view of human cognition that can provide foundations and theoretical unification within cognitive science and between cognitive science and relevant portions of neuroscience. However, this proposal faces many challenges. The central objective of this work is to make a theoretical critical appraisal of MTHC. I critically analyse and evaluate whether MTHC provides a unifying account of human cognition and its explanation for cognitive science. I argue that MTHC provides a significant theoretical contribution for the field; however, it cannot offer the ambitious revolutionary integration that some of its most influential advocates promise.

Scientific discourse, as the basic unit of dissemination and exploitation of research results, has steadily enhanced their accessibility and reusability in response to the advancement of web technologies. A highly semantic enriched publication always makes its information and data much easier to search, navigate, disseminate and reuse, whereas most online articles today are still electronic facsimiles of linear structured papers, with shallow metadata descriptions, lacking in semantic knowledge and interlinked relationships between elementary modules of content. In this dissertation, we propose a Scientific Knowledge Objects (SKO) framework in terms of a theory of structural knowledge- SKO Types, a methodology for scientific discourse representation- SKO Patterns, a tool for semantic authoring and annotation- SKO TeX, and an application of SKO management- the Conference of the Future, in the context of the emerging Social Web and Semantic Web.

The topic of this thesis lies in the intersection between proof theory and algebraic logic. The main object of discussion, constructive reasoning, was introduced at the beginning of the 20th century by Brouwer, who followed Kant’s explanation of human intuition of spacial forms and time points: these are constructed step by step in a finite process by certain rules, mimicking constructions with straightedge and compass and the construction of natural numbers, respectively. The aim of the present thesis is to show how classical reasoning, which admits some forms of indirect reasoning, can be made more constructive. The central tool that we are using are induction principles, methods that capture infinite collections of objects by considering their process of generation instead of the whole class. We start by studying the interplay between certain structures that satisfy induction and the calculi for some non-classical logics. We then use inductive methods to prove a few conservation theorems, which contribute to answering the question of which parts of classical logic and mathematics can be made constructive.

La philosophie d’Eric Weil présente une structure systématique dont l’interprétation des composants n’est pas facilement concevable. Le titre “Philosophie et histoire dans la pensée d'Eric Weil” propose une lecture complète du système weilian visant à sa compréhension à travers un élément qui traverse tout son travail : l’histoire. Notre hypothèse est que Weil présente une manière originale de penser à l’histoire qui, sans constituer une “philosophie particulière”, peut être un principe herméneutique pour l’interprétation de sa pensée. Nous voulons montrer que la question de l’histoire représente une position originale en s’éloignant de l’inspiration hegelienne et de la pensée heideggerienne; et fondamental, parce que la pensée de Weil ne peut être comprise sans référence à la réflexion sur l’histoire et à l’homme qui pose des questions sur l’histoire. Notre thèse se développe à partir de la tâche qui exige à la fois la présentation des problèmes inhérents à la conception d’une philosophie de l’histoire et la détermination du fil qui pointe vers son unité interne et son articulation avec le reste du système. Par conséquent, à chaque nouvelle étape, l’hypothèse est prise : la réflexion sur l’histoire sert de clé herméneutique légitime à approcher le travail weilien. Une première exigence a un caractère historique-exposant : énumérer les textes qui abordent les questions de la réflexion sur l’histoire. Il faut également lire systématiquement l’ensemble des textes et leur relation avec le système de philosophie articulé dans la Logique de la philosophie, en supposant que l’idée du système est la pierre angulaire de la validité de toute interprétation. Il ne s’agit donc pas de découper le corpus weilien en vue de l’indication des lieux où apparaît la question, mais de reconstruire l’unité entre les différentes parties de son travail. Notre enquête prend le travail de Weil en se concentrant sur l’histoire dans sa dimension logique-philosophique sans dispenser de la perspective histoire-politique. C’est donc une approche logique-argumentative qui tente de comprendre une philosophie qui est à la fois dialectique et critique. Nous avons divisé le travail en quatre chapitres. Le premier abordait la métaphilosophie dans la pensée weilienne à partir de son inspiration kantienne. Notre hypothèse fondamentale est le retour à l’affirmation du kantisme de Weil. Nous commençons par la définition de la philosophie en tant qu’acte humain de celui qui a librement choisi de comprendre le monde, une activité éminemment scientifique et transmissible et essentiellement historique. Le deuxième insère Eric Weil parmis les philosophes qui pensent l’histoire, plus précisément, il rélie Weil à la tradition d’une “critique de la raison historique” qui s’étend de Dilthey à Weber et à Aron. Le troisième prend les conditions des discours sur le sens de l’histoire dans le système des catégories discursives. Autrement dit, nous suivons la succession catégorielle de la Logique de la philosophie. Ce dernier constitue une deuxième partie du travail et reprend la tâche annoncée comme la récupération de la fonction sociale du philosophe, de la lecture weilienne de la Révolution française. / The philosophy of Eric Weil presents a systematic structure whose interpretation of the components is not easily conceivable. The title “Philosophy and history in the thinking of Eric Weil” proposes a comprehensive reading of the Weilian system aiming at its comprehension through an element that crosses all his work: history. Our fundamental hypothesis is that Weil is the original way of thinking about history, which, even without being a “particular philosophy”, is a hermeneutical principle for the interpretation of its thought. In our view, the theme has not yet found the deserved deepening among those who have been willing to think about Weilian philosophy both by the way the question of the relationship between philosophy and history is usually raised or as a tangent theme in the work or as a brand of his “Hegelianism”. We show that the question of history is taken from an original philosophical perspective by distancing itself from both Hegelian “inspiration” and Heideggerian thought; and fundamental, because Weil’s thinking can not be understood without reference to the reflection on history and the man who is interested in it. Our thesis develops from the task that demands both the presentation of the problems inherent to the design of a philosophy of history, and the determination of the thread that points to its internal unity and to its articulation with the rest of the system. Therefore, with each new step the hypothesis is taken that the reflection on the history serves as legitimate hermeneutic key of the work weiliana. A first requirement has a historical-expository character: to list texts that deal with the questions of thought about history. One should also systematically read the set of texts and their relation to the philosophy system articulated in the Logique de la philosophie, assuming the idea of ​​system as the touchstone of the validity of any interpretation. It is not, therefore, a question of cutting the Weilian corpus in view of the indication of the places where the question appears, but of rebuilding unity between the different parts of his work. Our investigation takes Weil’s work by concentrating on history in its logical-philosophical dimension without dispensing with that historical-political. It is, then, a logical-argumentative perspective that tries to understand a philosophy that is intended dialectic and critical. To do so, we divided the work into four chapters. The first deals with metaphilosophy in Weilian thought from its Kantian inspiration. Our fundamental hypothesis is the return to the affirmation of Weil’s kantism, Kantianism taken up by a philosopher who read and understood Hegel. We start from the definition of philosophy as a human act of one who freely chose to understand the world in a quest for meaning understood as an eminently scientific and communicable activity and, above all, essentially historical. The second is Eric Weil in the wake of philosophers who think of history, always according to Kantian inspiration, which implies associating it with the tradition of a “critique of historical reason” that starts from Dilthey and extends to Weber and Aron. The third takes the conditions of discourses on the meaning of history to the system of discursive categories. Put another way, we follow the categorial succession of the Logique de la philosophie. On the one hand, we discern the motives that hinder a historical discourse from the Truth to the Self, and on the other, we follow the development of the foundational discourses of an understanding of the history of the category of God to Wisdom. The latter constitutes a second part of the work and takes up the task announced as the recovery of the social function of the philosopher, from the Weilian reading of the French Revolution. / A filosofia de Eric Weil apresenta uma estrutura sistemática cuja interpretação dos componentes não é facilmente concebível. O título “Filosofia e história no pensamento de Eric Weil” propõe uma leitura abrangente do sistema weiliano visando sua compreensão através de um elemento que atravessa toda a sua obra: a história. Nossa hipótese fundamental é a de que se encontra subjacente, em Weil, uma forma original de pensar a história, que, mesmo sem constituir uma “filosofia particular”, é uma princípio hermenêutico para a interpretação do seu pensamento. A nosso ver, o tema ainda não encontrou o aprofundamento merecido entre os que se dispuseram a pensar a filosofia weiliana tanto pela forma como normalmente se põe a questão da relação entre a filosofia e a história ou como um tema tangente na obra ou como uma marca do seu “hegelianismo”. Mostramos que a questão da história é tomada numa perspectiva filosófica original por se distanciar tanto da “inspiração” hegeliana como do pensamento heideggeriano; e fundamental, porque o pensamento de Weil não pode ser compreendido sem referência à reflexão sobre a história e sobre o homem que por ela se interessa. Nossa tese se desenvolve a partir da tarefa que demanda tanto a apresentação dos problemas inerentes ao projeto de uma filosofia da história, como a determinação do fio condutor que aponta para a sua unidade interna e para a sua articulação com o restante do sistema. Portanto, a cada novo passo retoma-se a hipótese de que a reflexão sobre a história serve de chave hermenêutica legítima da obra weiliana. Uma primeira exigência tem caráter histórico-expositivo: elencar os textos que abordam as questões próprias do pensamento sobre a história. Deve-se também ler sistematicamente o conjunto dos textos e da sua relação com o sistema da filosofia articulado na Lógica da filosofia, assumindo a ideia de sistema como pedra de toque da validade de qualquer interpretação. Não se trata, portanto, de recortar o corpus weiliano em vista da indicação dos lugares em que a questão aparece, mas de reconstruir a unidade entre as diferentes partes da sua obra. Nossa investigação toma a obra de Weil concentrando-nos sobre a história na sua dimensão lógico-filosófica sem prescindir daquela histórico-política. Trata-se, então, de uma perspectiva lógico-argumentativa que tenta compreender uma filosofia que se pretende dialética e crítica. Para tanto, dividimos o trabalho em quatro capítulos. O primeiro aborda a metafilosofia no pensamento weiliano a partir da sua inspiração kantiana. Nossa hipótese fundamental é o retorno à afirmação do kantismo de Weil, kantismo retomado por um filósofo que leu e compreendeu Hegel. Partimos da definição da filosofia como ato humano próprio de quem escolheu, livremente, compreender o mundo numa busca de sentido entendida como atividade eminentemente científica e comunicável, e, acima de tudo, essencialmente histórica. O segundo, insere Eric Weil na esteira dos filósofos que pensam a história, sempre segundo a inspiração kantiana, o que implica associá-lo à tradição de uma “crítica da razão histórica” que parte de Dilthey e se prolonga até Weber e Aron. O terceiro leva as condições dos discursos sobre o sentido da história ao sistema das categorias discursivas. Dito de outro modo, seguimos a sucessão categorial da Lógica da filosofia. De um lado, discernimos os motivos que impedem um discurso histórico da Verdade ao Eu, e de outro, acompanhamos o desenvolvimento dos discursos fundantes de uma compreensão da história da categoria Deus até a Sabedoria. O último constitui uma segunda parte do trabalho e retoma a tarefa anunciada como a recuperação da função social do filósofo, a partir da leitura weiliana da Revolução francesa.

Per spiegare i loro risultati gli psicologi sperimentali fanno uso di termini riferentisi al mentale. Tuttavia, nel corso della storia, essi hanno definito in modi differenti il concetto di mente e quindi il significato dei termini usati nelle sue teorie. Nella prima parte della tesi sono discusse quattro opzioni epistemologiche in base alle quali tali termini sono stati interpretati nella storia della psicologia scientifica (il ‘mentalismo’ dell’introspezionismo, l’‘anti-mentalismo’ del comportamentismo, il ‘mentalismo’ del cognitivismo, l’ ‘antimentalismo’ delle neuroscienze cognitive). Assumere una di queste posizioni piuttosto che un’altra implica il porre l’attenzione su tipi diversi di dati e dunque la scelta di differenti metodologie di raccolta e analisi degli stessi. Nella seconda parte vengono replicati gli esperimenti del neurologo Damasio per testare la sua “ipotesi del marcatore somatico”. Tali esperimenti sono interessanti perchè utilizzano dati e metodologie che fanno riferimento a tutte e quattro le opzioni epistemologiche descritte nella prima parte. I risultati qui presentati non replicano quelli di Damasio e dunque sembrano falsificare la sua ipotesi. L’analisi empirica e quella epistemologica mostrano come l’opzione mentalistico-introspezionistica (rifiutatata da Damasio in favore di quella neuroscientifica) meriti di essere considerata e perseguita come linea metodologica che può dare origine a risultati scientificamente fecondi. / Experimental psychologists use terms referring to mind for explaining their results. However, in the course of history, they have defined the concept of mind in many ways and so the meaning of the terms used in its theories. In the first part of this work four epistemological options according to which these terms have been interpreted all along the history of experimental psychology are discussed (the ‘mentalism’ of introspectionism, the ‘anti-mentalism’ of behaviourism, the ‘mentalism’ of cognitivism, the ‘anti-mentalism’ of cognitive neuroscience). Assuming one of these options implies to consider different kinds of data and so to choose different data collecting and analyzing methodologies. In the second part the experiments proposed by neurologist Damasio for testing his ‘somatic marker hypothesis’ are replicated. Such experiments are interesting because they appeal to data and methodologies referring to all the four epistemological options above considered. The results presented do not replicate the Damasio’s ones and so they seem to falsify his hypothesis. The epistemological analysis and the empirical research show how the introspectionistic-mentalistic option (refused by Damasio in favour of the neuroscientific option) deserve to be considered as a reliable methodological that can lead to important scientific results.

Il tema dell’unità/unificazione della scienza è radicato nella storia e nella teoria dell’epistemologia del XX secolo. Il presente lavoro riprende tale tema e lo applica alla psicologia in generale e alla psicologia clinica in particolare, con un approccio sia teorico sia empirico. In particolare, la discussione sulla frammentazione della psicologia ha radici nella riflessione filosofica relativa all’unità o pluralità del metodo scientifico e a temi contigui, quali il linguaggio scientifico, le leggi e gli oggetti d’indagine della scienza. In questa cornice di riferimento, viene analizzato dettagliatamente il fenomeno della frammentazione della psicologia tramite l’esposizione critica delle proposte avanzate nella letteratura per la sua unificazione. Quindi, vengono evidenziati alcuni problemi centrali che riguardano diversi livelli di analisi, da quello socio-istituzionale a quello metodologico, in riferimento alla psicologia generale e alla psicologia clinica. E’ entro questo scenario che si situa la ricerca empirica, realizzata al fine di esplorare la rappresentazione emozionale della disciplina, in quanto scienza e professione, da parte degli psicologi italiani. La comparazione tra la disamina teorica e i risultati della ricerca empirica portano a concludere che per la psicologia è fondamentale riappropriarsi di quegli strumenti concettuali che possano meglio coordinare i rapporti tra dati, teorie e applicazioni pratiche. / The issue of the unity/unification of science has its roots in the history and theory of 20th Century epistemology. The present research addresses this issue and implements it in psychology and in clinical psychology, with both a theoretical and empirical approach. In particular, the topic of the fragmentation of psychology is connected to the philosophical reflection regarding the unity or plurality of the scientific method and to contiguous issue as the scientific language, the laws and science’s objects of interest. Within such a framework, the phenomenon of psychology’s fragmentation is examined in detail through the critical analysis of the proposals proposed in the unification literature. Then, some key problems regarding different levels of analysis, from socio-institutional to methodological, are highlighted, with regards to general psychology and clinical psychology. In this scenario, the empirical research is aimed to explore the emotional representations of Italian psychologist about their own discipline, as a science and as a profession. The comparison between the theoretical examination and the outcomes of the empirical research lead to the conclusion that is crucial for psychology to manage those conceptual tools which are able to better coordinate the relationships between data, theories and practical applications.