Associate Professor of Philosophy
Principal Investigator: Vicious Epistemic Cultures
E-mail: Laura.Candiotto@upce.cz
Location: G Building, 06 003, Center for Ethics
Research interests
Philosophy of Emotion; Enaction and Embodiment; Virtue and Vice Epistemology; Situated Affectivity; Ancient Philosophy (Plato); Social Epistemology; 4E Cognition; Ethics of AI and Robotics; Pragmatism; Dialogical Inquiry and Participatory Sense-Making; Environmental Ethics; Philosophy as a Way of Life (Hadot); Philosophy of Well-Being and Contemplative Science; The Ethics of Knowledge; Metaphysics of Relations.
Laura Candiotto is a philosopher of emotion who works at the intersection of ethics and epistemology. She is also a Plato scholar. Her research is focused on the epistemic role of emotions, especially as embedded in social interactions and epistemic cultures. She has worked on love, wonder, shame, and compassion bridging her expertise in the Socratic method of inquiry and the enactive approach to participatory sense-making. She is now contributing to the development of an enactive ethics grounded on emotion as what reveals existential concerns and values, especially regarding environmental issues and animal rights. She is also working on the transformation of affective interactions through AI and robotics. Her new three-years GACR project focuses on the role of emotions in epistemic responsibility.
Education and Degrees (Academic)
1. Docent (≈Associate Professor) in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Language. Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (2023).
2. Docent (≈Associate Professor) in Theoretical Philosophy. Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (2018).
3. PhD in Philosophy. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in collaboration with Sorbonne University Paris I (2011).
4. Post-graduate degree in Philosophy for Children and Community. University of Padua (2006)
5. Master of Arts. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2005).
Previous Affiliations
- Chair of the Mind and Life Europe ESRI Planning Committee (2022-2023).
- Visiting Professor in Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilio (UNIMORE) (March-May 2023);
- Fellow of the 4th Intercontinental Academy on “Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence” by UBIAS (University-Based Institutes of Advanced Studies) (2021-2023);
- Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellow at the Free University of Berlin (2019-2021);
- Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, Eidyn Research Centre (2016-2018);
- Research Fellow at the IMèRA Institute for Advance Study of the Aix-Marseille University (2018-2019):
- Visiting scholar at the Pontifical University of Curitiba, Brazil (2016);
- Post-doctoral Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2013-2015).
Research Projects
a. Principal Investigator
- 2024/2027: “Vicious Epistemic Cultures”, University of Pardubice, Czech Science Foundation Standard Grant (GACR).
- 2019/2021: “Bonds: Positive Emotions for Group Cognition”, Free University of Berlin, Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellowship.
- 2018/2019: “Epistemic Cooperation: The Function of Positive emotions”, University of Aix-Marseille, IMéRA Institute of Advanced Studies.
- 2016/2018: “Emotions First. Feeling Reason: the role of emotions in reasoning”, University of Edinburgh, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship.
- 2013/2015: “On relationality. New models of relationality starting from Plato's philosophy”, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, post-doc.
b. Team Member
- (2023-present) CoRE, „Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building“: member of the team on technology and environmental emotions, Op JAcK "Špičkový výzkum" (PI: Kamila Pacovská) Grant No. CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004595, University of Pardubice
- (2023) ECEGADMAT, Varieties of Feeling Bad about Climate and Other Things, Czech Science Foundation Standard Grant (PI: Ondřej Beran), Grant No. 22-15446S, University of Pardubice
- (2021-2022) Affective sense-making in epistemic responsibility: “Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Values”, Operational Programme Research, Development and Education, call "Support of Excellent Research Teams (PI: Kamila Pacovská), Grant No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000425, University of Pardubice
c. Other research teams
- (2023-present) "WHALE - Working on non-Human Animal Law and rights in the Eu", Jean Monnet Module, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Director: Sara De Vido.
Teaching Experience
Laura Candiotto is currently coordinating the PhD Seminar at UPCE. She is also contributing to the AI Lectures organised by the AI in Pardubice Team.
She has experienced teaching Ancient Ethics, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Virtue Epistemology, Philosophy of Emotion, Philosophy of Action, Ethics of AI, Philosophical Issues of Contemporary Management, Philosophy of Well-Being, Philosophy of Dialogue, and Philosophy of Education.
Supervision
- 2023-present: Ph.D Supervisor: Hardy Mizra, “A Metaphysical Foundation for Platonic Ethics”.
- 2023-present: Ph.D Supervisor: Lisa Hall, “Coming Alive to a Sentient World”.
- 2023-present: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Supervisor: Myrthe Bartels, “The Common Good as Civic Solidarity in Plato’s Republic” (COMMONGOOD, 2023-present) MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship CZ (Global).
- 2022-2023: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Supervisor: Silvia Caprioglio Panizza. Marie Curie Individual Fellowship. Grant: 101026701 MIGHT, Moral Impossibility
Publications
Laura Candiotto’s research led to the publication of more than 100 papers in leading journals and volumes (in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese), 13 edited volumes and journal special issues (in English and Italian), 4 monographs (in Italian). For the full list: https://upce.academia.edu/LauraCandiotto
Publications in English (selection)
(2024) (with Mog Stapleton). “Assistive Technology as Affective Scaffolding”, Topoi. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11245-024-10019-w
(2023) (with Martin Weichold). “Ethics of Sense-Making”. Frontiers in Psychology. Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Volume 14 - 2023. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1240163/full
(2023). “A Strange State of Mournful Contentment: The Role of Compassion in Moral Betterment”. Passion: Journal of the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotion. https://passion-journal.org/article/view/13769
(2023). “Emotions in knowledge production”. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03080188.2023.2179722?src=&journalCode=yisr20
(2023). “Emotions”. In G. Press, M. Duque (eds.), Bloomsbury Handbook of Plato.
(2022, with M. Mansouri). “Can we have cultural robotics without emotions?”. Social Robots in Social Institutions, eds. R. Hakli, P. Mäkelä, J. Seibt, pp. 259-266.
(2022). "Extended Loneliness: When Hyperconnectivity makes us feel alone". Ethics and Information Technology, 24: 47. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-022-09669-4
(2022). "What I cannot do without you. Towards a truly embedded and embodied account of the socially extended mind". Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-022-09862-2
(2022). “The space in-between”. Constructivist Foundations, 17(3): 214-219. https://constructivist.info/17/3/214.candiotto
(2022). “Loving the Earth by loving a place”. Constructivist Foundations, 17(3): 179-189.https://constructivist.info/17/3/179.candiotto
(2022) “Epistemic Emotions and Co-Inquiry: A Situated Approach”. Topoi https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-021-09789-4.
(2021). “Why do We Need to Explore the Social Dimension of the Ethics of Knowledge?”. Humana.Mente. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 14 (39), III-X. https://www.humanamente.eu/index.php/HM/article/view/383.
(2021), “Mimesis and Recollection”. In Platonic Mimesis Revisited, eds. J. Pfefferkorn and A. Spinelli, Baden-Baden, Academia 2021 (International Plato Studies vol. 40).
(2021) (with R. Dreon), “Affective Scaffoldings as Habits. A Pragmatist Approach”. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.629046.
(2021) (with H. De Jaegher), “Love in-between”, The Journal of Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-020-09357-9.
(2021) "Care of the Self and Politics. Michel Foucault: Heir of a Forgotten Plato?", Platonism: Ficino to Foucault, V. Rees, A. Corrias, F. M. Crasta, L. Follesa, G. Giglioni (eds.), pp. 297-313. Leiden: Brill.
(2020) (online first: 2019). “Epistemic Emotions and the Value of Truth”. Acta Analytica. 35(4): 563-577. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00416-x
(2020) (online first: 2019). “The Divine Feeling: The Epistemic Function of Erotic Desire in Plato’s Theory of Recollection”. Philosophia, 48: 445–462. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00108-1.
(2020) ed. with O. Renaut. Emotions in Plato, eds. L. Candiotto, O. Renaut, pp. 1-14. Leiden: Brill (Brill’s Plato Studies Series vol. 4). In this book, Candiotto authored two chapters “Why Plato comes first” (with O. Renaut, pp. 1-14) and “Epistemic wonder and the beginning of the enquiry: Plato’s Theaetetus 155d2-4 and its wider significance” (with V. Politis, pp. 17-38).
(2019), ed. The Value of Emotions for Knowledge, London: Palgrave Macmillan. In this book Candiotto authored two chapters “From Philosophy of Emotion to Epistemology: Some Questions About the Epistemic Relevance of Emotions” (pp. 3-24) and “Emotions in-between. The affective dimension of participatory sense-making” (pp. 235-260).
(2019). “Plato’s dialogically extended cognition. Cognitive transformation as elenctic catharsis”, in The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory, eds. P. Meineck, W. M. Short and J. Devereux, pp. 202-215. London and New York: Routledge.
(2018). “Purification through emotions. The role of shame in Plato's Sophist 230b4-e5”, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50, Issue 6-7: pp. 576-585. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1373338 Also republished in Bildung and paideia. Philosophical models of education, eds. J. Dillon, M. L. Zovko, London: Routledge: 2021.
(2015). “Aporetic State and Extended Emotions: the Shameful Recognition of Contradictions in the Socratic Elenchus”, Etica e Politica/Ethics & Politics, XVII, 2015(2), special issue on “The Legacy of Bernard Williams's Shame and Necessity”, ed. A. Fussi, pp. 233-248.
Conferences
Laura Candiotto delivered more than 80 talks at international conferences and workshops. Among them:
- November 2023, “World-breaking? Environmental emotions and the climate crisis”, Free University of Berlin, Jan Slaby’s Research Seminar.
- October 2023, “The role of emotions in the ethics of sense-making, DFG Conference: “Normativity and Reflexivity in Emotional Experience”, University of Würzburg, Germany
- August 2023, “Responsibility out of shared sentience”, Sentience and Responsibility, Mind and Life Summer Research Institute, Italy
- June 2023, “The problem of sentience”, Workshop “Pragmatism and Enactivistm”, University of Roma Tre, Italy
- June 2023, “The Ethics of Sense-Making”, TU Dresden, Research Seminar, Germany
- May 2023, "Why Should I Listen More?" Varela International Symposium, Upaya Zen Center and Mind and Life Europe, USA
- May 2023, “A strange state of mournful contentment”, Research Workshop "Emotions, Moral and Social Agency", University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in cooperation with Fondazione ReggioChildren, Italy
- 27 March 2023, “What trusting an AI means”, Meta Lecture, Milan Politecnico, Italy
- March 2023, “Emotions in Science-Making”, University of Aix-Marseille, Workshop “Émotions, Travail et récit”, France
- March 2023, “Care Robots”, University of Brescia, "L'uomo e la macchina", Italy
- January 2023, “Moral Change: the case of compassion”, University of Tours, CESR, "La compassion, ou l’oubli d’une emotion vertueuse", France
- November 2022, “AI in Medicine: The Issue of Trust”, University of Belo Horizonte, Faculty of Medicine, Brazil.
- October 2022, “Plato: Emotions and Knowledge”, The Ancient Greeks and their Knowledge, University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
- September 2022, “Personalised Medicine and the Techno Healthcare”, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Birmingham, UK
- August 2022, “Can we have cultural robotics without emotions?”, Robophilosophy Conference, University of Helsinky, Finland
- August 2022, “Desire in-between and all aroung”, Learning with Others: Living Connections and Transmission, Mind & Life Europe, Pisa, Italy
- July 2022, “The affective dimension of trust”, The present and future of AI research”, University of Konstanz, Institute of Advanced Studies, Germany
- July 2022, “Longing for connection (online?): the feeling of extension". Approaching collective action transdisciplinarily: Collective intentionality, enactive cognitive science, and practice theory”, University of Darmstadt, Social Ontology Society, Germany
- June 2022, “Affective Habits in Aesthetic Experience”, Humboldt-Kolleg “Aesthetic Habits“, University of Torino, Free University of Berlin, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Italy
- June 2022, “The dialectics between suffering and enjoyment”, EPSSE pre-workshop on “co-emotions”, University of Graz, Austria
- December 2021, "Extended Loneliness", Lecture Series "Philosophy and Psychopathology of Embodiment in Social Contexts", University of Heidelberg, Germany.
- November 2021, “Affective Habits“, Lecture Series “Recent Debates in Situated Cognition and Affectivity”, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.
- November 2021, “The aporetic dimension of recollection”, XIII Symposium Platonicum Pragense on Plato’s Phaedrus, Czech Republic.
- September 2021, “Interrogating Wonder”, Royal College of Art, London, UK.
- July 2021, (with M. Calcagno) “Epistemic and Practical Ignorance. A Virtue-Theoretic Approach”, EGOS Colloquium 2021, Sub-theme 34: Ignorance at Work: How Organizations Strive Not to Know, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- June 2021, (with G. Piredda) “The Affectively Extended Self”, EPSSE, 10 June 2021, online workshop.
- May 2021, “The role of ἔρως in recollecting the Forms. Phaedrus 249b-253c”, Erōs and Philia in Plato and Aristotle, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Plato Centre, 8–9 May 2021 (invited speaker, online workshop), Ireland.
- March 2021, “Emotions and Co-inquiry”, The role of emotions in epistemic practices and communities, Free University of Berlin, 4th March 2021, Germany.
- June 2020, “Emotions and Extended Cognition”, Panel “Emotional Artificial Intelligence”, International Interdisciplinary Conference “Artificial Intelligence in the New Communicative Reality”, Ural Federal University, Russia.
- February 2020, “Love in Between” (presented with H. De Jaegher), Workshop on the Philosophy of Love, Tilburg University, The Netherlands.
- January 2019, “Epistemic Emotions”, IUSS Pavia, Center for Neurocognition, Epistemology and theoretical Syntax, 07th Jan 2019, Italy.
- September 2018, “Extended Agency and Autonomy. The case of assistive technology”, OpenSelf. Investigating the Boundaries of the Self: Bodily, Social, and Technological, Technical University of Berlin, Germany.
- October 2016, “Emotions First. Epistemic emotions in Platos’ dialogically extended cognition”, Classics and Cognitive Theory, New York University, 27th - 28th October 2016, USA.
- September 2016, “Socratic Dialogue at the border. Emotions for building the trust for humanity”, Lines in the Sand. Borders, Conflicts, Transitions, International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, University of Glasgow, 9th - 11th September 2016, UK.
- August-September 2016, “Positive Affectivity in Distributed Cognition”, Collective Intentionality X, Delft University of Technology, 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, and the University of Groningen on behalf of the International Social Ontology Society (ISOS), 30th August - 2nd September 2016, The Netherlands.
- August 2016, “Extended Affectivity as the cognition of primary intersubjectivity”. the 24th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, University of St. Andrews, 10th - 13th August 2016, UK.
- June 2016, “Alcibiades, the pupil of Socrates”, the Celtic Conference in Classics, University College Dublin, 22nd - 25th June 2016, Ireland.
- June 2016, “Remembering through Love”, EPSSE 2016, University of Athens, 13th - 15th June 2016, Greece.
- July 2015, “Aporetic state and the shamefull recognition of contradictions in the Socratic Dialogue”. EPSSE 2015, University of Edinburgh, 15th-17th July, UK.
- October 2014, “The reality of relations. A philosophical interpretation of Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics”. XI International Ontology Conference “Old Questions in Physis, Contemporary Approaches”, Under the Honorary Presidency of Bas Van Fraassen, University of San Sebastian, Spain.
- October 2012, “The children's prayer. Saving the phenomena”, X International Ontology Conference “Physis. From particles to human nature”, Under the Honorary Presidency of Daniel Dennet, University of San Sebastian, Spain.
WEB:
www.emotionsfirst.org (personal website)
https://upce.academia.edu/LauraCandiotto (many papers to download)
https://vimeo.com/210967736 (research in a nutshell)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2CagvI8PD1rzqa9VaUHMSw (YouTube channel)
https://soundcloud.com/user-311970225 (podcast on emotion and intelligence)
https://soundcloud.com/user-311970225/laura-candiotto-on-loving-nature (podcast on environmental ethics: love of nature)