La domanda alla base di questa tesi è semplice: quale tipologia di relazione ci potrebbe essere tra scienza e filosofia in pedagogia dopo le recenti scoperte delle neuroscienze? C’è una contrapposizione o una integrazione reciproca? La tradizionale contrapposizione storica è confermata o si può parlare di complementarità reciproca? Con l’obiettivo di mostrare l’interdipendenza reciproca tra questi campi del sapere, attraverso il metodo fenomenologico, la sezione α fa un’analisi teoretica di alcune teorie estratte dalle ricerche di Antonio Damasio. La sezione β esamina gli stessi problemi ma attraverso la fenomenologia di Merleau-Ponty, introducendo alcuni concetti: la “carne” (chair), il “chiasma” e la “reversibilità”, concetti chiave per poter pensare la relazione tra gli le cose, gli enti, le discipline e la pedagogia. I risultati mostrano che non si tratta di sacrificare la pedagogia alla scienza o alla filosofia, né di sacrificare la scienze e la filosofia alla pedagogia, perché questi campi del sapere sono ontologicamente legati tra loro. I risultati aprono a nuove prospettive di ricerca: quali sono le conseguenze di una relazione in chiasma in pedagogia? Possiamo estendere questa particolare relazione alle altre discipline? / The question at the basis of this thesis is simple: which typology of relationship there may be between science and philosophy in education after the most recently neuroscience discoveries? Is there contradiction or an integration? Is the historical and traditional opposition confirmed or we could talk about a possible integration? In order to show the reciprocal interdependence between these fields, using a phenomenological method, the α section does a theoretic analysis of some assertions taken from Antonio Damasio’s researches. The β section looks trough the Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology the same problems and introduces some concepts: the “flesh” (chair), the “chiasma” and “reversibility”, central ideas in order to think the relationship between things, beings, disciplines and education. Results show that it is neither a question of sacrificing education to science and philosophy, nor philosophy and science to education, since these fields are ontologically bound together. In conclusion results open further new questions: what are the consequences of “chiasma” relationship in education? Could we extend this particular relationship to other disciplines?

This thesis articulates a novel interpretation of Heidegger’s explication of the being (Seins) of gear (Zeugs) in §15 of his masterwork Being and Time (1927/2006) and develops and applies the position attributed to Heidegger to explain three phenomena of unreflective action discussed in recent literature and articulate a partial Heideggerian ecological metaphysics. Since §15 of BT explicates the being of gear, Part 1 expounds Heidegger’s concept of the ‘being’ (Seins) of beings (Seienden) and two issues raised in the ‘preliminary methodological remark’ in §15 of BT regarding explicating being. §1.1 interprets the being (Sein) or synonymously constitution of being (Seinsverfassung) of a being (Seienden) as a regional essence: a property unifying a region (Region), district (Bezirk), or subject-area (Sachgebiet) – a highly general (‘regional’) class of entities. Although Heidegger posits two components of the being of a being, viz. material-content (Sachhaltigkeit, Sachgehalt) and mode-of-being (Seinsart) or way-of-being (Seinsweise, Weise des Seins, Weise zu sein) (1927/1975, 321), the unclarity of this distinction means that it does not figure prominently herein. §1.2 addresses Heidegger’s distinction between ontological and ontic investigations and his notion of ‘modes of access’ (Zugangsarten, Zugangsweisen). Part 2 expounds §15 of BT’s explication of the being of gear. §2.1 analyses Heidegger’s two necessary and sufficient conditions for being gear and three core basic concepts (Grundbegriffe) enabling comprehension of these conditions and therewith a foundational comprehension of gear. Heidegger explicates the being of gear through content of unreflectively purposeful, non-intersubjective intentional states. I term such states ‘mundane concern’, which is almost synonymous with Hubert Dreyfus’s term ‘absorbed coping’ (1991, 69). Heidegger’s explication highlights around-for references (Um-zu-Verweisungen) as the peculiar species of property figuring in mundanely concernful intentional content. §2.2 clarifies Heidegger’s position on the relationship between to-hand-ness (Zuhandenheit) and extantness (Vorhandenheit) in the narrow sense: two of Heidegger’s most widely discussed concepts. I reject Kris McDaniel’s recent reading of Heidegger as affirming that nothing could be both to-hand and extant simultaneously (McDaniel 2012). Part 3 develops and applies Heidegger’s phenomenology of mundane concern. §3.1 explains the phenomena of situational holism, situated normativity, and mundanely concernful prospective control. §3.2 undertakes the metaphysical accommodation of around-for references, which §3.1 posited as featuring prominently within mundanely concernful intentional content. This thesis thus contributes not only to Heidegger scholarship, but also to contemporary debates within the philosophy of action and cognitive science.