Papers by Emanuele Bottazzi
This contribution aims at showing some of the advantages of taking a novel, broad and systemic vi... more This contribution aims at showing some of the advantages of taking a novel, broad and systemic view on constitutive rules based on a failure oriented analysis, relying on the notion of impasse. Basically, impasses can descend by two main kinds of causes: either a mismatch between rules (how things should be done) and facts (how things are actually done), or an internal contradiction among rules. Given the definitional character of constitutive rules, one could say that they set a new “logical space” for action, and that impasses (both mismatches and internal contradictions) push the action out of such space, thus threatening the identity of the regulated interaction and coordination. It is fairly clear that constitutive impasses may endanger the life of an institution, on the other hand, in a lot of other situations similar issues can arise in systems of constitutive rules that are not fatal to them. The main claim here is that, in order to understand such situations, an analysis of...
The power of rhythm. From dance rehearsals to adult-newborn interaction
This is a theoretical and empirical contribution on rhythm in social interaction, meant to enligh... more This is a theoretical and empirical contribution on rhythm in social interaction, meant to enlighten its role in the situated interactional «management» of power relations, in both ordinary situations and culturally-specific contexts. To this aim, we adapt the Weberian notion of charisma to the realm of micro-interaction, and we connect it to the dialectics between conceptual and nonconceptual aspects of interaction and rhythm. We further characterize charisma as that capability to set the rhythm in interaction, changing others’ believes at the conceptual level. This happens by leveraging, on the one hand, on the pleasure of being together in common rhythms and, on the other, on the compelling character of the associative dimension of interaction. The contribution is based on two ethnographic researches: one on the Italian field of theatrical dance, the other on the everyday interaction among a newborn, her parents and other members of their intimate circle.
Problemi filosofici emergenti dalla modellazione delle organizzazioni sociali
Rivista di estetica
INIZIO CORPO MINORE L'AC Fiorentina, nata il 26 agosto 1926, fallisce nel luglio... more INIZIO CORPO MINORE L'AC Fiorentina, nata il 26 agosto 1926, fallisce nel luglio 2002, e cessa ufficialmente di esistere. Una nuova società, la Florentia Viola, nasce il 3 agosto 2002, all'indomani della mancata iscrizione al campionato di serie B della AC Fiorentina 1926, e prende il ...
R.: A path to an ontology of organizations
On Help and Interpersonal Control
The Cognitive Foundations of Group Attitudes and Social Interaction, 2015
Help is not much considered in the literature of analytic social philosophy. According to Tuomela... more Help is not much considered in the literature of analytic social philosophy. According to Tuomela (Cooperation – a philosophical study, Springer, 2000), when a helps an agent b (1) a contributes to the achievement of b’s goal, and (2) b accepts a’s contribution to the goal. We take a rather different tack. Our notion of help is unilateral and triggered by an attempt. It is unilateral because we can provide our help to someone without her accepting it. She could be unaware of our actions, or she could be unwilling to receive it. Helping is based on trying because it is agent b (supposedly) trying to do something that triggers a’s action of help. This is something supported for instance by Warneken and Tomasello’s experiments with toddlers (Warneken and Tomasello, Science 311(5765):1301–1303, 2006; Br J Psychol 100:445–471, 2009).
Conflict and Multimodal Communication, 2015
This paper is a contribution to the development of an ontology of conflict. In particular, we sin... more This paper is a contribution to the development of an ontology of conflict. In particular, we single out and we study a peculiar notion of group conflict, that we suggestively label 'social contradiction'. In order to do so, we shall introduce and discuss the methodology of social choice theory, since it allows for defining the notion of collective attitude that may emerge from a number of possibly divergent individual attitudes. We shall see how collective attitudes lead to define a specific notion of group and therefore a specific notion of group conflict. As a conclusion, we shall present our abstract analysis of group conflicts and we shall position social contradiction with respect to other types of conflicts.
Oggetti sOciali e prOspettive
Appearance Counting as Reality? Some Considerations on Stability and Unpredictability in Social Institutions
Social institutions are considered as generally stable entities but, at the same time, prone to u... more Social institutions are considered as generally stable entities but, at the same time, prone to unpredictable and even dramatical changes. The paper draws some considerations on this issue by means of an analysis of the notions of validity and objectivity, seen in the light of the critical situations that institutions may face. Consider the case of an irregular election that leads anyhow to a result accepted by authorities and population at large. Such an election seems to be valid and not valid at the same time. These contrasting intuitions reflect the twofold nature of institutional reality: it depends on one side on what is accepted by those who are dealing with it, but on the other side also on what it is actually going on according to its rules. The article frames this problem in terms of response-dependence. In this respect, it follows, but also expands, Hindriks (2006), to reach the conclusion that institutions are easily prone to fall apart. Anyway, not in all cases this actually happens; on the contrary, institutions seem to be quite stable. We propose that what makes them stable, but also unpredictable, is, in a sense, a sort of misunderstanding among the involved agents. Explaining such misunderstanding amounts to analyze the notion of objectivity in social reality. We argue that objectivity is more a requirement than a feature of institutional systems, being institutional objects mind and context-dependent.
Social Objects and Perspectile
In this work we introduce the notion of perspectile, that is a social object as a token. This is ... more In this work we introduce the notion of perspectile, that is a social object as a token. This is meant to be a flexible and yet clear way of constructing entities by means of a definition. Whenever we define something we create it in the very specific context of its application. Searle (2010) provides an explanation about social types, but he overlooks the importance of social tokens. If, on the one hand, to be a queen in chess means to be associated to a context of constitutive rules, what about the specific chess queen that I have in my hand? One could answer this question by saying that a specific queen is a “a certain piece of wood qua having the role of white queen in that particular game”. But problems arise when we consider change through time. Suppose that by accident, during a single game bases – the pieces of wood – change, say, three times. We would like to say that the white queen in the game stays the same, regardless the change of its material support. According to Fine (1982) we will have just three things, i.e. three pieces of wood. We believe that there is an individual, the perspectile, which includes the three bases in one single entity, and that stays the same during all phases of the game; this is because in the context of chess it is not important – given certain restrictions – what plays the role of queen. Its value is positional. This means that perspectiles are therefore “more flexible” than Fine’s qua-objects. They are able to change their bases, depending on what is constitutively established by the definition of their role. For example, unlike the case of chess pieces, who is President of the Government matters, because to the base, to the one who plays that role are constitutively associated specific institutional responsibilities. The perspectile is then Searle’s social object regarded as a token, that “X qua Y in C”. The term “perspectile” is to emphasize the fact that this object exists as something put into perspective by a role, it is in a system, and what exists of it, its properties, is what the system we have built and adopted filters out from the properties of the base. To complicate a bit the situation we can imagine that Ada and Lucy, two chess players, lose the piece of wood that plays the role of white queen in their game. Because the one they use to play is the only chess set available to them, they decide to use a coin as their white queen in the game. According to our model, the white queen in Ada and Lucy’s game is a perspectile, an object made of the definition of its role and two different physical objects at a time: a piece of wood and a metal coin. The qua-individual is therefore included within the concept of perspectile, being, in a sense, its “istantaneist version”, or its snapshot. If we were to photograph a perspectile at a given time t we would see that it is a qua-individual, since, for every moment, the perspectile has some object as its basis. If we were to film it, we would see instead a change of different bases. This allows us to call a qua-individual an “instantaneous perspectile”. Social organizations may be viewed as complex perspectiles in which each individual perspectile would be a special “brick”, that brings with it part of the structure of the house. I.e. it cannot be placed in any position whatsoever: by its very nature it is meant to be placed in a way rather than another. This is thanks to the relational properties that, through roles1, are “inherited” by perspectiles and that act as basic “glue” for organizations. An ontology of organizations equipped with the notion of perspectile could be helpful in solving the complex problem of diachronic identity. Roughly, we could say that if we look at the ontological nature of perspectiles, we can see how these are “flexible enough” to allow, in principle, the continued existence of organizations over time in spite of their members, i.e. persons, changing. People can change, but the agents – that is “individuals in that specific role” – may stay the same through time, if the definition of the role allows it. From the system’s standpoint, there must be that specific agent, but that specific agent may be a “specific someone acting as”, no matter who is the basis, if John or Jane, it suffices that he or she displays certain features or make certain things.
The ontology of group agency
Open Ontology-Driven Sociotechnical Systems: Transparency as a Key for Business Resiliency
Information Systems: Crossroads for Organization, Management, Accounting and Engineering, 2012
The Background of Social Reality, 2012
It is nowadays widely recognized that constitutive rules play a key role in social ontology. Thei... more It is nowadays widely recognized that constitutive rules play a key role in social ontology. Their definitional character is the primary source of the meaning of every rule-based activity, but what can ensure the persistence of this activity? The most common reply found in literature is to rely on social acceptance; even though this is certainly true, it is nonetheless not sufficient to explain what happens in breakdown situations, i.e. when by following constitutive rules institutions end up in an impasse. It is in a sense necessary to embed in the system something that would preserve it from destruction. Our claim is that for this purpose an arbitral function is needed. Intuitively, an arbitral function is a mechanism which is-at least partially-extracontextual, that is introduced in a system to solve possible or actual impasses. This function may equally well be played by an intentional agent, or by an extra-contextual rule. Examples of the former case are: a referee in a football game, an arbitrator in a legal conflict, a judge exerting discretion in court; examples of the latter are: the toss in sport games, and the 50-move rule in chess. Our contribution then amounts to: introducing a novel concept, that of arbitral function; showing it is widespread in institutional reality; moreover, that it is essential in every institution. Finally, if constitutive rules determine that a certain activity counts as a valid element of an institution, arbitral functions are what ensures that this activity persists in being an element of that institution, by preventing possible impasses.
loa.istc.cnr.it
Abstract. Moving from some reflections on the empirical practice of measurement and on the nature... more Abstract. Moving from some reflections on the empirical practice of measurement and on the nature of visual perception, we present a constructivist approach to objects. At the basis of such approach there is the idea that all we may know about what is out there is always ...
This paper is a contribution to the development of an ontology of conflict. In particular, we sin... more This paper is a contribution to the development of an ontology of conflict. In particular, we single out and we study a peculiar notion of group conflict, that we suggestively label ‘social contradiction’. In order to do so, we shall introduce and discuss the methodology of social choice theory, since it allows for defining the notion of collective attitude that may emerge from a number of possibly divergent individual attitudes. We shall see how collective attitudes lead to define a specific notion of group and therefore a specific notion of group conflict. As a conclusion, we shall present our abstract analysis of group conflicts and we shall position social contradiction with respect to other types of conflicts.
The Ontology of Group Agency
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2014), 2014
We present an ontological analysis of the notion of group agency developed by Christian List and ... more We present an ontological analysis of the notion of group agency developed by Christian List and Philip Pettit. We focus on this notion as it allows us to neatly distinguish groups, organizations, corporations – to which we may ascribe agency – from mere aggregates of individuals. We develop a module for group agency within a foundational ontology and we apply it to organizations.
Preliminaries to a DOLCE ontology of organisations
International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, 2009
From collective intentionality to intentional collectives: An ontological perspective
Cognitive Systems Research, 2006
loa-cnr.it
Thousands of troops are currently being deployed in Italian cities. They patrol alongside state a... more Thousands of troops are currently being deployed in Italian cities. They patrol alongside state and paramilitary police and guard sensitive sites. Military forces are able to stop, search and identify suspects. With the explicit intent to help police fight crime, boost se-curity and ...
Social Objects and Perspectives
In this work we introduce the notion of perspectile, that is a social object as a token. This is ... more In this work we introduce the notion of perspectile, that is a social object as a token. This is meant to be a flexible and yet clear way of constructing entities by means of a defini-tion. Whenever we define something we create it in the very specific context of its application. Searle ...
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Papers by Emanuele Bottazzi