Roberto Casati

Achille Varzi

Achille C. Varzi

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 captivating and inventive stories, dialogues, and epistolary exchanges that illuminate the many philosophical conundrums of everyday life. Clear, concise, and intellectually engaging, this internationally acclaimed book covers a range of themes, such as personal identity, causality and responsibility, fortune, the nature of things, the paradoxes of time and space, and the interplay between logic and language, and brilliantly demonstrates that the beauty of philosophy resides in its engagement with the simplicities of the world, insurmountable as they might initially appear.

Thirty-Nine Philosophical Conundrums

Insurmountable Simplicities

Contro il colonialismo digitale. Istruzioni per continuare a leggere

"This is an exciting epistemological experiment. It is wonderful to see how intelligent philosophers can take a modest concept, such as that of the hole, as a starting point for an immense and brilliant exercise.... The writing is delightful." -- Valentino Braitenberg, Director, Max-Planck-Institut fü r Biologische Kybernetick "The idea of "Holes and Other Superficialities" is wonderfully counterintuitive: The authors want us to think of absences as full-fledged cognitive entities. The book describes a grand variety of holes -- holes in doughnuts, tunnels through blocks, flowing gaps in regularly-spaced flowerbed, and hundreds more. There are an enormous number of beautifully-rendered illustrations of every imaginable (and often never-before-imagined) type of hole....The overlap with philosophical issues of every sort is marvelous, and the authors have a delightful sense of humor." -- Douglas Hofstadter, author of "Gö del, Escher, Bach" This fascinating investigation on the borderlines of metaphysics, everyday geometry, and the theory of perception seeks to answer two basic questions: Do holes really exist? And if so, what are they? Holes are among entities that down-to-earth philosophers would like to expel from their ontological inventory. Casati and Varzi argue in favor of their existence and explore the consequences of this unorthodox approach -- odd as these might appear. They examine the ontology of holes, their geometry, their part-whole relations, their identity, their causal role, and the ways we perceive them. A Bradford Book

Holes and Other Superficialities

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Achille C Varzi

Thinking about space is thinking about spatial things. The table is on the carpet; hence the carpet is under the table. The vase is in the box; hence the box is not in the vase. But what does it mean for an object to be somewhere? How are objects tied to the space they occupy? In this book Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi address some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial representation. Their starting point is an analysis of the interplay between mereology (the study of part/whole relations), topology (the study of spatial continuity and compactness), and the theory of spatial location proper. This leads to a unified framework for spatial representation understood quite broadly as a theory of the representation of spatial entities. The framework is then tested against some classical metaphysical questions such as: Are parts essential to their wholes? Is spatial co-location a sufficient criterion of identity? What (if anything) distinguishes material objects from events and other spatial entities? The concluding chapters deal with applications to topics as diverse as the logical analysis of movement and the semantics of maps.

The Structures of Spatial Representation

Parts and Places

100 storie filosofiche fulminanti, semplicemente diaboliche, costruite per sorprenderci e mettere in scacco le nostre certezze. Dopo il successo internazionale di Semplicità insormontabili, Casati e Varzi tornano a sfidarci con i loro racconti. La filosofia è una sfida incessante a riconoscere la straordinaria complessità del mondo che ci circonda, a partire dalle cose più semplici. Qual è la differenza tra la mano destra e la sinistra? Tornerà mai un momento come questo? Come fa un'attrice a fingere una morte finta? Il mosaico dipende dalla posizione delle tessere; ma sarebbe lo stesso mosaico se si scambiassero fra loro due tessere uguali? Nelle pagine di questo libro, Lei, Lui, l'indomabile Ficcanaso e altri nuovi personaggi, tra cui il Flippamondi e la Gatta Parlante, si cimentano con queste e molte altre domande. A guidarli non è il desiderio di semplificare ciò che è complesso, come in molti libri della nostra epoca, ma lo sguardo indagatore su ciò che sembra semplice e invece non lo è. Sul filo dei loro dialoghi ci si ritrova a scoprire che il bello della filosofia sta proprio in questo: fare i conti con ogni semplicità, anche quando ci appare assolutamente insormontabile. I due autori collaborano da molti anni. Il loro Semplicità insormontabili. 39 storie filosofiche (per i nostri tipi, 2004) ha dato vita all'omonima rubrica settimanale sull'inserto domenicale del "Sole 24 Ore".

100 nuove storie filosofiche

Semplicemente diaboliche

Notes the role of shadows in science, philosophy, art, religion, and other fields, revealing how shadows are related to the discovery of secrets about the universe while profiling the contributions of such thinkers as Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci. 20,000 first printing.

The Greatest Mystery in the Universe--shadows--and the Thinkers who Unlocked Their Secrets

The Shadow Club

A guidare Casati e Varzi non è il desiderio di semplificare ciò che è complesso, ma lo sguardo indagatore su ciò che sembra semplice e invece non lo è. "Il Sole 24 Ore" La filosofia è una sfida incessante a riconoscere la straordinaria complessità del mondo che ci circonda, a partire dalle cose più semplici. Qual è la differenza tra la mano destra e la sinistra? Tornerà mai un momento come questo? Come fa un'attrice a fingere una morte finta? Il mosaico dipende dalla posizione delle tessere; ma sarebbe lo stesso mosaico se si scambiassero fra loro due tessere uguali? Il bello della filosofia sta proprio in questo: fare i conti con ogni semplicità, anche quando ci appare assolutamente insormontabile.

Patrick Cavanagh

How the perception of shadows, studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. In The Visual World of Shadows , Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh examine how the perception of shadows, as studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. Shadows are at once a massive problem for vision--which must distinguish them from objects or material features of objects--and a resource, signaling the presence, location, shape, and size of objects. Casati and Cavanagh draw up an inventory of information retrievable from shadows, showing their amazing variety. They present an overview of the visual system, distinguishing between measurement and inference. They discuss the shadow mission , the work done by the visual brain to parse, and perhaps discard, the information from shadows; shadow ownership , the association of a shadow with the object that casts it; shadow labeling , the visual system's ability to tell shadows from nonshadows; and the shadow concept , our knowledge about shadows as a category. Casati and Cavanagh then apply the theoretical apparatus they have developed for shadows to other phenomena: illumination, reflection, and transparency. Finally, they examine the art of the shadow, paying tribute to artists' exploration of shadow, analyzing a series of artworks (reproduced in color) from this rich and fascinating art historical corpus.

The Visual World of Shadows

Notes the role of shadows in science, philosophy, art, religion, and other fields, revealing how shadows are related to the discovery of secrets about the universe while profiling the contributions of such thinkers as Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci. Originally published as The Shadow Club. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Unlocking Their Secrets, from Plato to Our Time

Shadows

Un libro fondamentale per capire che il libro di carta non è affatto morto, ma piuttosto che la lettura ci è stata rubata. Giuseppe Culicchia, "La Stampa" Roberto Casati non è affatto contro le tecnologie digitali. Piuttosto, è per una resistenza della scuola alle nuove tecnologie distraenti: una scuola che faccia valere l'immenso vantaggio, anche grazie alle sue inerzie, di essere uno spazio protetto in cui lo zapping è vietato per definizione. E che riesca così a incubare il vero cambiamento, cioè lo sviluppo morale e intellettuale delle persone. Paolo Di Stefano, "Corriere della Sera" Più che un attacco al libro elettronico il saggio di Casati è una accorata difesa della scuola e della lettura dei libri, dei tempi lenti, di uno spazio protetto dalla continua distrazione che ci consegna l'incessante innovazione tecnologica. Al contrario del tablet, il libro di carta è insostituibile dal punto di vista cognitivo, perché protegge la nostra risorsa mentale più preziosa: l'attenzione. Robert Castrucci, "il manifesto" Una riflessione sull'uso delle nuove tecnologie di provocatoria intelligenza. Matteo Di Gesù, "Il Sole 24 Ore"

Istruzioni per continuare a leggere

Contro il colonialismo digitale

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.

La lezione del freddo

How the perception of shadows, studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. In The Visual World of Shadows, Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh examine how the perception of shadows, as studied by vision scientists and visual artists, reveals the inner workings of the visual system. Shadows are at once a massive problem for vision—which must distinguish them from objects or material features of objects—and a resource, signaling the presence, location, shape, and size of objects. Casati and Cavanagh draw up an inventory of information retrievable from shadows, showing their amazing variety. They present an overview of the visual system, distinguishing between measurement and inference. They discuss the shadow mission, the work done by the visual brain to parse, and perhaps discard, the information from shadows; shadow ownership, the association of a shadow with the object that casts it; shadow labeling, the visual system's ability to tell shadows from nonshadows; and the shadow concept, our knowledge about shadows as a category. Casati and Cavanagh then apply the theoretical apparatus they have developed for shadows to other phenomena: illumination, reflection, and transparency. Finally, they examine the art of the shadow, paying tribute to artists' exploration of shadow, analyzing a series of artworks (reproduced in color) from a rich and fascinating art historical corpus.

Roberto Casati

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