Leda Berio - Talking About Thinking: Language, Thought, and Mentalizing

Epistemic Studies

Philosophy of Science, Cognition and Mind

Edited by

Volume

ISBN 9783110748437

e-ISBN (PDF) 9783110748475

e-ISBN (EPUB) 9783110748550

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

To every migrant.

As this book was built on the foundation of the research made during my PhD, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Gottfried Vosgerau, for the ongoing academic support during my PhD, the insightful feedback, and for a lot of what I have learned while at HHU. I am also grateful to Albert Newen, my second advisor, for the incredibly helpful feedback and advice. I would also like to extend my gratitude to David Hommen and Katja Biermann-Ruben for the patient feedback given during advisory meeting, and for their ongoing support, as well as to Christoph Kann and Hana Filip for their valuable work as members of my examination committee. A sincere thank you should also go to Richard Moore, who has patiently discussed with me several ideas in this work, and to the editorial team at De Gruyter for their careful and precise support.

The research for my PhD thesis, which is partially what this book is based on, was funded by DFG Collaborative Research Centre 991: The Structure of Representations in Language, Cognition, and Science, Project D02. My most sincere thanks also go to the entirety of the SfB 991 team, including and especially my fellow PhD students, who never failed to provide insightful comments and encouragement. The same holds for the Philosophy department at HHU, including but not limited to Nicolas Lindner, Arne Weber and Ren Baston, for their amicable presence, their valuable input, and their inspiring research. My most sincere thanks also go to Eva Kellner and Eva Gentes, for their infinite patience in explaining every little bit of German bureaucracy to me.

All of the conferences attended in the last five years, and all of the questions received during every talk, have helped me getting to this point. A special thank you should also go to the audience of SSPP 2019, which was particularly reactive and engaged, and gave me meaningful input for developing some of these ideas.

I have had the luck and privilege of growing up in a family that never failed to express encouragement when it came to my somewhat unrestricted passion for learning in general, and for Philosophy in particular. It would not have been possible for me to arrive at this point without my parents unshakable trust in me, their love, and their material and emotional support. Grazie, mamma e pap.

I am also indebted, as usual, to my brother. He has been my first confident, my first friend, and my certainty across my entire life. The process that led me to produce this book was no exception: his quiet support has been the reason why, even living more than eight hundred kilometers away from home, I have never felt truly alone.

Being an Italian in Germany would have been much harder without having a community to go back to when I needed to feel at home again, and without new friends making the journey easier. Im extremely grateful to Alessandra, Camilla, ed Elisa, for being my brightest example of sisterhood; to Andrea, Francesco e Marta, for always making me feel like I have never ceased to belong at their side; to Giulio and Luca, for sharing, among countless other things, some of my (dis)adventures as a friend, fellow expatriate, and researcher; to Alex, for being my first friend here, as well as an amazing, inspiring person; to Ben and Esther, for sharing joy, frustration, and climbing evenings that made the hard work all the more enjoyable.

I am grateful to my extended families, both the Italian and the American one, for being a positive and bright presence in my life. The visits, the trips, and even the video calls in this last, hard year have continuously made my days richer, and for that I will always be thankful.

I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to every woman before me that fought for her right to study, learn, and research. I would be nowhere if it was not for the effort of those before me.

Finally, none of this would have been possible without my partner, soon husband, Kurt. From the moment I met him, my life has been filled with more joy, laughter, and love than I could ever have hoped. His insightful intelligence has always helped me, in and out of academic contexts, and his compassion is my daily inspiration. It is also thanks to him if I am a better person, and a better researcher, then when I started exploring the topic of this book.