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Roberto Cordeschi teaches Philosophy of Science at the Faculty of Philosophy of “La Sapienza” University of Rome. He has been first associate professor and then full professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Salerno.

His main research areas are the history of Cybernetics and the epistemological issues of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. He has taken a particular interest in the problems of Cognitive Science and scientific method, such as cognitive simulation and the relation between computational theories and models.

Some recent Conferences (as invited speaker): IX National Congress of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA), Milan, Italy, September 21-23, 2005; VII International Ontology Congress, San Sabastian, Spain, October 2-6, 2006; International Congress on Ethics of Human Interaction with Robotic, Bionic, and AI System, Naples, Italy, October 17-18, 2006; III National Congress of the Italian Association for Cognitive Science (AISC), Genoa, Italy, October 26-27, 2006; Italian Workshop of Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation (WIVACE’07), Sampieri (RG), Italy, September 5-7, 2007; Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science 2007-2008, Boston, USA, September 10-11, 2007; International Symposium on Robotics as a New Science, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, Italy, February 20, 2008; X International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB’08), Osaka, Japan, July 7-12, 2008.



Selected English publications

Books

The Discovery of the Artificial: Behavior, Mind and Machines Before and Beyond Cybernetics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2002.
Contents PDF Introduction PDF A book review PDF
 
Articles, book chapters, conference papers

Steps toward the synthetic method: symbolic information processing and self-organizing systems in early Artificial Intelligence, in P. Husbands, O. Holland and M. Wheeler (eds.), The Mechanichal Mind in History, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008, pp. 219-258.
(with M. Frixione) Computationalism under attack, in M. Marraffa, M. De Caro and F. Ferretti (eds.), Cartographies of the Mind: Philosophy and Psychology in Intersection, Springer, Berlin-Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 37-49. PDF

AI turns fifty: revisiting its origins, Applied Artificial Intelligence, 21, 2007, pp. 259-279. PDF

Searching in a maze, in search of knowledge, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4155, Springer, Berlin-Heidelberg, 2006, pp. 1-23.  PDF

(with G. Tamburrini) Intelligent machines and warfare: historical debates and epistemologically motivated concerns, Proceedings of the European Computing and Philosophy Conference (ECAP 2004), College Publications, London, 2005, pp. 1-19.

Cybernetics, in L. Floridi (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Computing and Information, Blackwell, Oxford, 2004, pp. 186-196.

Early-connectionism machines, Artificial Intelligence and Society, 14, 2000, pp. 314-330. PDF

(with G. Tamburrini and G. Trautteur) The notion of loop in the study of consciousness, Proceedings of the International School of Biocybernetics, World Scientific, Singapore, 1999, pp. 524-540.

The role of heuristics in automated theorem proving, Mathware and Soft Computing, 3, 1996, pp. 281-293. PDF

The discovery of the artificial. Some protocybernetic developments 1930-1940, Artificial Intelligence and Society, 5, 1991, pp. 218-238. Reprinted in R.L. Chrisley (ed.), Artificial Intelligence: Critical Concepts in Cognitive Science, vol. 1, Routledge, London and New York, 2000, pp. 301-326.

Brain, mind and computers, in P. Corsi (ed.), The Enchanted Loom: Chapters in the History of Neuroscience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991, pp. 294-300. French translation: Cerveau, esprit et machines. Précis historique de l’intelligence artificielle, in the web site La fabrique de la pensée

Philosophical assumptions in Artificial Intelligence: a tentative criticism of a criticism, Proceedings of the 5th Osterreichische Artificial-Intelligence-Tagung, Springer, Berlin, 1989, pp. 359-364.

Intentional psychology and computational models, in K. Leidlmair and O. Neumaier (eds.), Wozu Künstliche Intelligenz? (Conceptus-Studien 5), VWGÖ, Wien, 1988, pp. 69-77.

Purpose, feedback and homeostasis: dimension of a controversy in psychological theory, in S. Bem and H. Rappard (eds.), Studies in the History of Psychology and the Social Sciences 4, Psychologisch Instituut, Leiden, 1987, pp. 119-129.

Mechanical models in psychology in the 1950s, in S. Bem, H. Rappard and W. van Horn (eds.), Studies in the History of Psychology and the Social Sciences 3, Psychologisch Instituut, Leiden, 1985, pp. 28-42.


Web

(with M.B. Ligorio) Lesson learnt from CSCL to enrich e-learning, Electronic Workshops in Computing-eWiC Series, The British Computer Society, 2005.  PDF

 

PDF copies of the papers above are posted here by permission of the Publishers for personal use, not  for redistribution. These papers may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the Publisher.