Lisa Bortolotti

On 10th August Why Delusions Matter is out in paperback! One of the key ideas of the book is that we should avoid thinking of beliefs that we find irrational as a sign of a pathology. In the last few days, two open-access papers have been published where I capture some aspects of this idea. In one paper,  Is it pathological to believe conspiracy theories? , I ask how we decide that some ways of thinking about the world are pathological. Either those ways are considered to be harmful or the output of a malfunctioning mechanism. But in the case of conspiracy beliefs, harmfulness is hard to ascertain, and beliefs that are harmful in some ways can also bring benefits.  For instance, the belief that a vaccine is unsafe and is promoted by health authorities to benefit the pharmaceutical company who produced it may lead someone not to take advantage of the vaccine. As a result, the person is left unprotected against a serious disease. But conspiracy theories also aim to respond to e...

On 15th December 2022, I will participate in a special event at the University of Pavia , dedicated to the memory of Italian philosopher Eva Picardi, who taught me in Bologna in the 90s. During the day, two new publications will be presented and discussed by students and colleagues of Eva Picardi: Frege on Language, Logic and Psychology , Oxford University Press 2022. The Selected Writings of Eva Picardi. From Wittgenstein to American Neo-Pragmatism , Bloomsbury 2020/2022. These volumes gather Eva Picard's philosophical work and have been curated by Annalisa Coliva. From the poster of the event Villa sull'Adriatico by Salvatore Nocera