Dr Luca Barlassina
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Psychology
Director of Graduate Studies
Associate Director, Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies
Full contact details
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
45 Victoria Street
Sheffield
S3 7QB
- Profile
-
Luca is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Psychology and Associate Director of the Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies. He joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Sheffield in 2014. Before that, he was a Von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. He studied philosophy and cognitive science in Italy (Universitá degli Studi di Milano), the US (Rutgers University) and France (Institut Jean Nicod—École Normale Supérieure).
- Research interests
-
Luca works at the interface of philosophy and cognitive science. He is particularly interested in affective, social, and moral cognition. His work has appeared in philosophical venues such as Analysis, Mind, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, and The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and in interdisciplinary journals such as Cognition, and Mind & Language.
Luca is currently on research leave (supported by a fellowship from the Mind Association) to write a book on the nature of emotions and moods—working title: No Hard Feelings. The Cognitive Architecture of the Affective Mind. He is also PI for the WUN project “Getting back in touch: Emotional pathways to a post-pandemic world”, a cross-cultural investigation of the emotional responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Publications
-
Journal articles
- “Must” implies “can”. Mind and Language. View this article in WRRO
- Corrigendum to: ‘More of me! Less of me!: Reflexive Imperativism about Affective Phenomenal Character’ by Luca Barlassina and Max Khan Hayward. Mind, 130(518), 731-731.
- More of me! Less of me! Reflexive imperativism about affective phenomenal character. Mind, 128(512), 1013-1044. View this article in WRRO
- Loopy regulations: The motivational profile of affective phenomenology. Philosophical Topics, 47(2), 233-261. View this article in WRRO
- The puzzle of the changing past. Analysis, 75(1), 59-67. View this article in WRRO
- The good, the bad, and the timely: how temporal order and moral judgment influence causal selection. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. View this article in WRRO
- The Role of Bodily Perception in Emotion: In Defense of an Impure Somatic Theory. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 89(3), 637-678.
- Simulation is not enough: A hybrid model of disgust attribution on the basis of visual stimuli. Philosophical Psychology, 26(3), 401-419.
- Moral judgment in adults with autism spectrum disorders. Cognition, 121(1), 115-126.
- After all, it’s still replication: A reply to Jacob on simulation and mirror neurons. Res Cogitans : Journal of Philosophy, 8(1), 92-101. View this article in WRRO
- The informational profile of valence: The metasemantic argument for imperativism. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
- Expanding Protection Motivation Theory to explain vaccine uptake among United Kingdom and Taiwan populations. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics.
- Not more than a feeling: An experimental investigation into the folk concept of happiness. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy.
- Beyond good and bad: Reflexive imperativism, not evaluativism, explains valence. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy.
Chapters
- Valence: A reflection
Dictionary/encyclopaedia entries
- Folk psychology as mental simulation. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. View this article in WRRO
- “Must” implies “can”. Mind and Language. View this article in WRRO
- Research group
-
I am happy to supervise MA and PhD students in all areas of philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science, and particularly those students who are interested in emotions, pleasures and pains, interoception, social cognition, self-knowledge, Theory of Mind, and moral psychology.
- Teaching interests
-
Luca enjoys teaching interdisciplinary modules that combine philosophy and science. In particular, his modules explore how findings from psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary theory can shed light on traditional philosophical problems, and how philosophical analysis can clarify the conceptual foundations of the mind sciences.
- Teaching activities
-
PHI 202: Philosophy of Science.
What is science?PHI 230: Philosophy of Mind.
What is the mind?PHI 372/6372: Pain, Pleasure, and Emotions.
The philosophy and cognitive science of affective states.
PHI 6016: Cognitive Studies Research Seminar.
How does the mind work?
- Postgraduate Supervision
Luca welcomes expressions of interest from students who are interested in doing a PhD in the philosophy of psychology under his supervision.
Current PhD Students
- Viktoriia Kononova (first supervisor). Thesis topic: The cognitive mechanisms underlying hedonic bodily feelings (and their disorders)
- James Turner (first supervisor). Thesis topic: Low mood: A representational theory
- Ben Jenkins (second supervisor). Thesis topic: The heterogeneity of implicit bias
- David Bevan (second supervisor). Thesis topic:Thinking Parts: A defense of a dual psychological and physical continuity approach to Personal Identity.
Completed PhD Students
- Andrea Blomkvist (first supervisor). Thesis topic: The cognitive architecture of memory and imagination (2021)
- Miklos Kurthy (first supervisor). Thesis topic: “Ought implies can” as a principle of the Moral Faculty (2019)
- Andreas Bunge (second supervisor). Thesis topic: The nature of attitudes (2018)
- Alex Duval (second supervisor). Thesis topic: The cognitive mechanisms underlying spatial navigation (2019)
- Damiano La Manna (second supervisor). Thesis topic: The function of phenomenal consciousness (2018)
- Richard Hassall (first supervisor). Thesis topic: Are mental disorders natural kinds?
- Marcantonio Gagliardi (second supervisor). Thesis topic: A modular account of motivational systems