Books by Mattia Riccardi
Papers by Mattia Riccardi
Synthese
Some Kant scholars argue that appearances and things in themselves are distinct things (Two Objec... more Some Kant scholars argue that appearances and things in themselves are distinct things (Two Objects View). Others argue that they are the same things (One Object View). This last view is often understood as the claim that appearances and things in themselves are numerically identical (Numerical Identity). However, Walker (2010) and Stang (2014) show that Numerical Identity clashes against Kant’s claim that we lack knowledge of things in themselves (Noumenal Ignorance). I propose a weaker version of the One Object View that is not couched in terms of Numerical Identity and, consequently, avoids the problem raised by Walker and Stang. My case is based on a sustained analogy with perceptual experience that aims at showing that appearances and things in themselves are the same things in the following sense: the very same things can be presented under the mode of sensory intuition or (possibly) under the mode of intellectual intuition. Those things presented under the mode of sensory int...
The Monist, 2021
I argue that Nietzsche puts forward a pandispositionalist view that can be seen as the conjunctio... more I argue that Nietzsche puts forward a pandispositionalist view that can be seen as the conjunction of two basic claims: that powers are the basic constituents of reality, on the one hand, and that the only properties things possess are relational qua dispositional, on the other hand. As I believe that such a view is, at least in part, motivated by his rejection of Kant’s notion of things in themselves, I start by sketching the metaphysics of Kant’s transcendental idealism (section 2) and by presenting Nietzsche’s critical reaction to it (section 3). After that, I start to work out Nietzsche’s pandispositionalist view by considering first the case of physical reality (section 3) and second that of psychological reality (section 5). I then argue that in both cases that view does not conflict with Nietzsche’s naturalism (section 6). In the last part of the paper I explore how his notion of will to power fits into such a pandispositionalist picture. Here, I shall argue, some serious ten...
Synthese, 2017
It is a distinctive mark of normal conscious perception that perceived objects are experienced as... more It is a distinctive mark of normal conscious perception that perceived objects are experienced as actually present in one's surroundings. The aim of this paper is to offer a phenomenologically accurate and empirically plausible account of the cognitive underpinning of this feature of conscious perception, which I shall call perceptual presence (PP). The paper begins with a preliminary characterization of (PP). I then consider and criticize the seminal account of (PP) proposed by Mohan Matthen. In the remainder of the paper I put forward and defend my own attentional account. I first outline a simple version of the view by focusing on vision and then extend it to audition. After discussing the case of depersonalization, I consider some objections. The last objection, in particular, will motivate a refinement of the attentional account for the visual case. The paper ends with some remarks mainly about the specificity of the visual case vis-à-vis the auditory one.
Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind, 2018
Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 2018
This essay is one of ten contributions to a special editorial feature in The Journal of Nietzsche... more This essay is one of ten contributions to a special editorial feature in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 49.2 (Autumn 2018), in which authors were invited to address the following questions: What is the future of Nietzsche studies? What are the most pressing questions its scholars should address? What texts and issues demand our urgent attention? And as we turn to these issues, what methodological and interpretive principles should guide us? The editorship hopes this collection will provide a starting point for discussions about the most fruitful directions for Nietzsche scholarship to take and the most promising avenues for building on the best recent work.
Inquiry, 2017
This is the penultimate draft of a paper forthcoming in Inquiry. Please quote the printed version... more This is the penultimate draft of a paper forthcoming in Inquiry. Please quote the printed version. populated by mysterious tiny agents? So it seems that no model derived from the sphere of social transactions between persons can be meaningfully applied to the mind's subpersonal constituents. This means that no satisfactory solution of the interpretive puzzle can avoid engagement with the philosophical issue concerning nature and scope of subpersonal explanations. The aim of my paper is to offer a construal of Nietzsche's conception of the drives' order that avoids committing him to vicious forms of homuncularism. I shall proceed as follows. Section 2 sets the stage by briefly introducing Nietzsche's notion of the drives, whereas section 3 clarifies what makes a certain view of the mind a case of vicious homuncularism. Sections 4 and 5 critically survey two recent interpretation of the drives' order, which I call the vitalistic reading and the normative reading. Section 6 develops my own Hume-inspired dispositional reading. 2) Drives: A Sketch Drives are the primary explanatory posita of Nietzsche's psychology. But what are such drives? Most scholars agree that at bottom they are behavioral dispositions toward specific patterns of goal-directed behavior.3 For instance, the hunger drive disposes the agent toward searching for food. The cruelty drive disposes the agent toward inflicting pain on sentient creatures. Moreover, as Richardson (Nietzsche's New Darwinism) argues, drives are dispositions rooted in one's biological constitution. As an unpublished note puts it, a drive is constituted by '[s]eparate parts of the body telegraphically connected' (KSA 10, 308). Of course, there are many behavioral dispositions matching this description we would not count as drives, such as contracting and dilating the pupils according to light conditions. So what makes a certain behavioral disposition a drive? First, drives have a characteristic urging character: when hungry I don't merely wait for food to appear in front of me, but I feel a craving that makes me actively look for it. Second, drives produce 'affective orientations' that shape one's experience of the world (Katsafanas, Nietzschean Self, 94; see also Clark and Dudrick, Soul, 124 and 128). For instance, the sex drive causes a characteristic arousal that makes me alert to potential mating partners. Third, and precisely in virtue of so being affectively loaded, drives embody an evaluative perspective: 'each 'drive' is the drive to 'something good', as seen from a certain standpoint; there's valuation (Werthschätzung) in it' (KSA 11, 167). Hunger, for instance, makes the ham sandwich on the kitchen table appear as 3
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2015
Towards an Interpretation of Aphorism 354 of Nietzsche's The Gay Science'.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2015
Disjunctivism has triggered an intense discussion about the nature of perceptual experience. A qu... more Disjunctivism has triggered an intense discussion about the nature of perceptual experience. A question in its own right concerns possible historical antecedents of the position. So far, Frege and Husserl are the most prominent names that have been mentioned in this regard. In my paper I shall argue that Max Scheler deserves a particularly relevant place in the genealogy of disjunctivism for three main reasons. First, Scheler’s view of perceptual experience is distinctively disjunctivist, as he explicitly argues that perceptions and hallucinations differ in nature. Second, his version of the position is philosophically interesting in its own right. This is so primarily, though not exclusively, in virtue of the positive story he tells us about perceptual content. Third, Scheler’s case proves particularly instructive to the question of whether intentionalism and disjunctivism constitute a fundamental, unbridgeable divide.
Inquiry, 2014
In one of his notes, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg once wrote: "Newton was able to separate the col... more In one of his notes, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg once wrote: "Newton was able to separate the colors. Which name will the psychologist have who tells us what the causes of our actions are composed of? Most things, when they become noticeable to us, are already too big" (Lichtenberg 1867: 51; see 1973: Heft C 303, 213). It should come as no surprise that Nietzsche found these words appealing. We can easily imagine him action ultimately breaks down. As Richardson (2004: 5, see also 35-6) puts it, drives are the "principal explanatory tokens" which figure in Nietzsche's view of agency. 3 On the other hand, the kind of explanation Nietzsche offers by appealing to the working of our drives is causal, rather than teleological. 4 The point I would like to focus on in the present paper, however, emerges only in the last part of Lichtenberg's quoted note. There, he writes that "most things, when they become noticeable to us, are already too big". What exactly does he mean by this? Recall that Lichtenberg has just said that the main task of psychology is to individuate the components out of which actions are ultimately explained. Now, this indicates that he takes such components to be something which are hard to discover, for such a task requires nothing short of a Newton of psychology. It also suggests that the "things" Lichtenberg describes as being "already too big" when they "become noticeable to us" are the causes of our own actions. The sense in which the causes of our own actions, once we become aware of them, are "already too big" seems to be that they appear to us as some kind of simple events, or states, whereas they in fact result from the interplay among different causal components-those that psychological inquiry is supposed to uncover. Events or states of this kind constitute episodes of willing-what philosophers usually call volitions. Thus, what Lichtenberg is saying is that the experience we have of episodes of this sort is such that it does not reveal to us how our own actions are actually produced. Nietzsche agrees with Lichtenberg also on this third skeptical point about our self-experience as agents. In aphorism 116 from Daybreak he writes that the belief "that one knows, and knows quite precisely in every case, how human action is brought about" is but a "primeval delusion" (D 116). Importantly, this claim is motivated by appeal to a much broader skepticism which targets introspection as such: In my view, Nietzsche's endorsement of it derives from his commitment to a much broader skepticism which targets introspection as such-a position he expresses in a note from 1888 as follows: 3 The same claim is also put forward by Katsafanas (forthcoming). 4 That Nietzsche's idiom should be understood as causal is argued by Leiter (2002) and Risse (2008). For disagreement, see Clark, Dudrick (2012). For a general defense of a Nietzschean approach to moral psychology, see Knobe, Leiter (2008).
Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 2014
The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 2014
Internationale Konferenz der Nietzsche-Gesellschaft in Zusammenarbeit mit der Kant-Gesellschaft, Naumburg an der Saale, 26.-29. August 2004, 2000
In this paper I argue that Nietzsche’s view on consciousness is best captured by distinguishing d... more In this paper I argue that Nietzsche’s view on consciousness is best captured by distinguishing different notions of consciousness. In other words, I propose that Nietzsche should be read as endorsing pluralism about consciousness. First, I consider the notion that is preeminent in his work and argue that the only kind of consciousness which may fit the characterization Nietzsche provides of this dominant notion is self-consciousness (Sconsciousness). Second, I argue that in light of Nietzsche’s treatment of perceptions and sensations we should conclude that he takes each of such state type to involve a specific kind of consciousness which differs from Sconsciousness. I label these two additional kinds of consciousness perceptual consciousness (Pconsciousness) and qualitative consciousness (Qconsciousness), respectively. I conclude with some remarks on how, in Nietzsche’s picture, these three different kinds of consciousness might relate.
forthcoming in M. Griffiths, N. Levy, & K. Timpe (eds). The Routledge Companion to Free Will. New York: Routledge.
Disjunctivism has triggered an intense discussion about the nature of perceptual experience. A qu... more Disjunctivism has triggered an intense discussion about the nature of perceptual experience. A question in its own right concerns possible historical antecedents of the position. So far, Frege and Husserl are the most prominent names that have been mentioned in this regard. In my paper I shall argue that Max Scheler deserves a particularly relevant place in the genealogy of disjunctivism for three main reasons. First, Scheler’s view of perceptual experience is distinctively disjunctivist, as he explicitly argues that perceptions and hallucinations differ in nature. Second, his version of the position is philosophically interesting in its own right. This is so primarily, though not exclusively, in virtue of the positive story he tells us about perceptual content. Third, Scheler’s case proves particularly instructive to the question of whether intentionalism and disjunctivism constitute a fundamental, unbridgeable divide.
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Books by Mattia Riccardi
Papers by Mattia Riccardi