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Preface

“Hang up philosophy!

Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom, It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.” Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, III, 3

“Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,

Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.”

Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Thinking about how to start this preface, it suddenly came to me how it all began. It was a rainy Milanese morning in September in my first lesson of philosophy at school. The teacher asked us for our opinion about philosophy and if we thought it was a science. With the self-confidence typical of youth, I raised my hand and answered that philosophy is not a science because its claims cannot be demonstrated. Science is stable, clear and certain, whereas philosophy, as Romeo harshly says, is just talk: it is useless and discovers and produces nothing. But then, my teacher showed me that my ideas had some faults: scientific claims are often based on hidden assumptions and theories that change through time. Nothing is stable and fixed. This disturbed me a lot. I had my preferred views, my plans for the future (to become an ethologist or an archaeologist) but then my teacher challenged me. I had only one choice: follow her arguments or just ignore them. I could not leave her words to one side. The same happened when at university I took a course in contemporary philosophy, in which the professor could not avoid dropping hints regarding Kant. We had not read a single word of Kant but the entire course was actually about his theory. I worked under the supervision of this professor, Renato Pettoello, for both my Bachelor and Master theses and I owe him a lot: he is one of the most patient, reasonable and courageous people I know. One day, talking in class about the impossibility of psychology becoming a proper natural science, he mentioned an interesting article written by Thomas Sturm; his vividness of thought and energy not to mention his surname, evoke for Pettoello the Sturm und Drang movement. I wrote down the reference and some months later I decided to register at the UAB in Bellaterra, where he works. Then I spent almost the first year as a research fellow in Düsseldorf, where I built the basis of this work.

Above all, I want to thank these philosophical guides and among them, first and foremost, my advisor, who always encourages me and has the remarkable gift to see the directions of my steps better than I. He sees the path whilst I am still trying to make my way.

Secondly, I want to thank the STORE¹, CEHIC² and AGAUR³, for supporting my research in both Düsseldorf and Barcelona. I moved to both cities in search of interesting interdisciplinary discussions, and I found more than that, namely professionals, such as Christoph Kann, from whom I could learn a lot and whom are examples of life devoted to a work that has value. Philosophy might be just talk, but by just talking we can disclose new horizons, cope with our defeats and then move on. For this I am grateful to Maria Grazia, Michaela, Carmen and Satik. They have been and continue to be here with me. Now I want to thank my friends from Milano and from ice skating: Nico, Grace, Fedra, Marco, Lilla, Vera, Guido, Nadia, Gabriele, Paolo, Ingrid, Albert, Sonia, Marc and Teresa. Sometimes I just wanted to give up, however, they supported (and support) me, telling me the right things at the right time. I thank my family, each member included. None of them has the slightest idea of what a transcendental schema might be, however this does not matter to me. There are lots of important things we shared. Finally, I want to thank the small, wonderful Kant reading group and my friends from the UAB and Frankfurt: Annette, Claudia (and her husband, Fernando), Jaime, Gen, Josep, Hector, Silvia, Gabriele, Neil, Viktor, Franzi, Cristina, Monica, Jose Julian, Fabian, Barbara, Anissa and Nassir. I owe them a lot and, in some occasions, they were very kind in hosting me in their homes. They were my refuge during these years and supported me during the months of preparation of this book.

Without these people and many others I could not have completed this work. I hope that in the future they will still be there and I hope to have the humility and strength to listen to their words (even if they cannot make a Juliet!). Like on that rainy Milanese morning.

1 The Collaborative Research Centre SFB 991 ‘The Structure of Representations in Language, Cognition, and Science’.

2 Centre d’Història de la Ciència.

3 Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (FI-DGR: 2015FI-B00136).