Andrea Borghini
Biographic Data
| ID | 106777 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrea Borghini |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrea |
| FAMILY NAME | Borghini |
| SIGNATURE | BORGHINI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Milan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2239-1482 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Ontologies for Sustainability: Theoretical Challenges
The lack of sustainable practices in key sectors of human societies is a global concern, posing threats for the whole planet. This paper provides the first review of ontologies for sustainability efforts, outlining their roles in assessing and advancing such efforts. Section 2 outlines three major challenges associated with sustainability: (1) the polysemy of the term; (2) the relationship between sustainability and sustainable development; and (…
Early Conceptual Knowledge About Food
Recent research suggests that preschool (three- to six-years-old) children’s food cognition involves much more than the nutritional information usually conveyed by traditional food education programs. This review aims at collecting the empirical evidence documenting the richness of preschoolers’ conceptual knowledge about food. After introducing the relevance of the topic in the context of the research in early food rejection dispositions (Sect. …
Mapping Out Food and Philosophy
The following special section on food and philosophy arose out of an ongoing conversation that, like many of our encounters within the discipline of food studies, began with a shared admiration for the diversity of methodologies and interests that form its esprit de corps. While the use of theory has been a constant in food scholarship, the contributions of philosophers, and the unique perspective that the discipline of philosophy provides, have …
Going Public: A Philosophical Account of Problems in the Public Sphere
Going Public: A Philosophical Account of Problems in the Public Sphere
Cet article pose les bases d’une analyse philosophique des problèmes publics. Nous partons du constat qu’aucun problème dans la sphère publique ne naît comme public — il le devient — et que ce processus de devenir public requiert une explication. Après avoir introduit notre sujet (section 1), nous le recontextualisons dans le cadre plus large de l’étude de la nature des problèmes et des activités de résolution de problèmes (section 2). Nous écart…
Disgust reactions and their justifications: The case of meat
Special Issue Introduction: Power of infrastructures, infrastructures of power
The concept of 'infrastructure' has become increasingly central in social sciences and sociological theory, recognized as a foundational element that underpins modern and contemporary societies. Given its growing significance, this Special Issue addresses the need to explore both the material and immaterial dimensions of infrastructures in relation to power and social dynamics. This introduction outlines the central points of each article, emphas…
Infrastructure as a sociological category: Concept, applications, and paradigmatic turns
In this essay, we address the increasingly debated question of whether the concept of infrastructure offers a new perspective for understanding processes of reproduction within socio-historical formations, particularly the relationship between agency and structures. How does this research agenda differ from classical sociological approaches that study the foundational elements and developmental logic of social systems? Are claims of an 'infrastru…
Living on the Margins: Bourdieu on Social Dynamics
This contribution highlights the methodological and theoretical aspects at the basis of Bourdieu's work The Weight of the World, regarded as an exceptionally significant text, rich in intellectual, political, and methodological insights and provocations. Recently rediscovered, particularly in Italy, it has demonstrated its enduring relevance more than 30 years after its initial publication. The paper is organized in two parts. In the first part, …
All’ombra dell’istituzione totale. La «sociologia pubblica» alla prova del penitenziario
The contribution aims to reflect on the emancipatory role that sociology can play, in its public dimension, when confronted with a total institution, such as the penitentiary. The historical-critical assumptions from which the reflection moves can be traced, on the one hand, to those values of inclusion and social justice to which public sociology, in the ‘version’ that Burawoy (re)launched in 2004, looks to as inalienable ethical principles. And…
Gastrospaces: A Philosophical Study of Where We Eat
This book explores the moral and political significance of gastrospaces: the spaces where we eat. It adopts an innovative approach, combining analytic political philosophy and analytic ontology, to lay down the theoretical foundations for a multi- and interdisciplinary research agenda on the complex interconnections between food and space. Social science and humanities scholars have studied the ties between food consumption and space from multipl…
The Justice and Ontology of Gastrospaces
In this paper, we establish gastrospaces as a subject of philosophical inquiry and an item for policy agendas. We first explain their political value, as key sites where members of liberal democratic societies can develop the capacity for a sense of justice and the capacity to form, revise, and pursue a conception of the good. Integrating political philosophy with analytic ontology, we then unfold a theoretical framework for gastrospaces: first, …
Learning from Covid-19: Public Justification and the Ontology of Everyday Life
Liberal democracies across the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing measures that significantly curtail the rights and liberties of individual citizens. These measures must receive public justification in order to be politically legitimate. By combining analytical political philosophy with ontology in an original way, in this article we argue that liberal democratic governments have so far failed to adequately justify the…
A Deliberative Model for Preserving the Diversity of Lebanese Traditional Fermented Food and Beverages
Eating Local: A philosophical toolbox
Eating local food has become a mainstream proxy for virtue and a reliable model of sustainable dieting. It suffers, nonetheless, from genuine criticisms and limitations. In this paper, we suggest theoretical amendments to reorient the local food movement and turn eating local into a robust concept-comprehensive, coherent, and inclusive, affording a firm grip over structural aspects of the food chain. We develop our argument in three parts. The fi…
Cooking and dining as forms of public art
This paper addresses the yet unexplored question of whether cooking and dining are sometimes a form of public art. After introducing the main question (§1), we rehearse key characteristics of public artworks, most importantly accessibility, theme, and elicited responses (§2). We then argue that some instances of cooking and dining meet such conditions (§3). Hence, we vet the pros and cons of three avenues to support cooking and dining as a form o…
Defective food concepts
Our aim in this paper is to employ conceptual negotiation to inform a method of rethinking defective food concepts, that is concepts that fail to suitably represent a certain food-related domain or that offer representations that run counter to the interests of their users. We begin by sorting out four dimensions of a food concept: (i) the data upon which it rests and the methodology by which those data are gathered; (ii) the ontology that sustai…
Philosophy of Recipes: Making, Experiencing, and Valuing
Recipes form the bedrock of culinary cultures and allow the knowledge of how to cook across generations, countries and cultures, through history. They are vital for the transfer of knowledge and have, through restaurants, entered the public domain to become part of brand identities. This volume addresses three major themes regarding recipes: their nature and identity; their relationship to territory, producers, consumers and places of production.…
A gradient framework for wild foods
Mereological monism and Humean supervenience
On Interpreting Something as Food
In this paper we discuss the role that individual and collective acts of interpretation play in shaping a metaphysics of food. Our analysis moves from David Kaplan’s recent contention that food is always open to interpretation, and substantially expands its theoretical underpinnings by drawing on recent scholarship on food and social ontology. After setting up the terms of the discussion (§1), we suggest (§2) that the contention can be read subje…
Positivism
The term positivism refers to a cultural current that emerged in Europe in the nineteenth century, which transformed many fields of human knowledge. Its main proponents include A. Comte and J. S. Mill (proponents of social positivism) as well as Herbert Spencer (evolutionary positivism). The positivist current aims to reconstruct the social order on new foundations. It adopts the naturalistic method of the physical sciences and mathematics and lo…
Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Modality
A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Modality examines the eight main contemporary theories of possibility behind a central metaphysical topic. Covering modal skepticism, modal expressivism, modalism, modal realism, ersatzism, modal fictionalism, modal agnosticism, and the new modal actualism, this comprehensive introduction to modality places contemporary debates in an historical context. Beginning with a historical overview, Andrea Bor…
What Is a Recipe
Science and Society in Karl Raimund Popper: Some reflections starting from Positivismusstreit
In my contribution, I intend to move from Positivismusstreit in order to work through the complex and in part unexplored rapport of Popper with the topic of Society. It is possible to point out some parts in Popper's paper that was presented in Tübingen that reinforce the idea of a social connotation of science present in Popper's conception of epistemology. These parts, in my opinion, have two immediate and significant consequences: on one hand,…
What Is a Recipe
Cooking and dining as forms of public art
This paper addresses the yet unexplored question of whether cooking and dining are sometimes a form of public art. After introducing the main question (§1), we rehearse key characteristics of public artworks, most importantly accessibility, theme, and elicited responses (§2). We then argue that some instances of cooking and dining meet such conditions (§3). Hence, we vet the pros and cons of three avenues to support cooking and dining as a form o…
A gradient framework for wild foods
On Interpreting Something as Food
In this paper we discuss the role that individual and collective acts of interpretation play in shaping a metaphysics of food. Our analysis moves from David Kaplan’s recent contention that food is always open to interpretation, and substantially expands its theoretical underpinnings by drawing on recent scholarship on food and social ontology. After setting up the terms of the discussion (§1), we suggest (§2) that the contention can be read subje…
Eating Local: A philosophical toolbox
Eating local food has become a mainstream proxy for virtue and a reliable model of sustainable dieting. It suffers, nonetheless, from genuine criticisms and limitations. In this paper, we suggest theoretical amendments to reorient the local food movement and turn eating local into a robust concept-comprehensive, coherent, and inclusive, affording a firm grip over structural aspects of the food chain. We develop our argument in three parts. The fi…
Defective food concepts
Our aim in this paper is to employ conceptual negotiation to inform a method of rethinking defective food concepts, that is concepts that fail to suitably represent a certain food-related domain or that offer representations that run counter to the interests of their users. We begin by sorting out four dimensions of a food concept: (i) the data upon which it rests and the methodology by which those data are gathered; (ii) the ontology that sustai…
Science and Society in Karl Raimund Popper: Some reflections starting from Positivismusstreit
In my contribution, I intend to move from Positivismusstreit in order to work through the complex and in part unexplored rapport of Popper with the topic of Society. It is possible to point out some parts in Popper's paper that was presented in Tübingen that reinforce the idea of a social connotation of science present in Popper's conception of epistemology. These parts, in my opinion, have two immediate and significant consequences: on one hand,…
Development and natural kinds: Some lessons from biology
On the logic of soccer patronage
Silvio Berlusconi once remarked that ‘soccer is a metaphor for life’. Taking this claim at face value, the essay explores some of the logics at play when soccer is linked to other domains. In particular, by considering the circumstances of three Italian clubs, the essay throws light on different ways the image of a patron may be mirrored. A preliminary philosophical apparatus is introduced in the first part of the essay, clarifying the notion of …
Development and natural kinds: Some lessons from biology
What Is a Recipe
Science and Society in Karl Raimund Popper: Some reflections starting from Positivismusstreit
In my contribution, I intend to move from Positivismusstreit in order to work through the complex and in part unexplored rapport of Popper with the topic of Society. It is possible to point out some parts in Popper's paper that was presented in Tübingen that reinforce the idea of a social connotation of science present in Popper's conception of epistemology. These parts, in my opinion, have two immediate and significant consequences: on one hand,…
Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Modality
A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Modality examines the eight main contemporary theories of possibility behind a central metaphysical topic. Covering modal skepticism, modal expressivism, modalism, modal realism, ersatzism, modal fictionalism, modal agnosticism, and the new modal actualism, this comprehensive introduction to modality places contemporary debates in an historical context. Beginning with a historical overview, Andrea Bor…
Positivism
The term positivism refers to a cultural current that emerged in Europe in the nineteenth century, which transformed many fields of human knowledge. Its main proponents include A. Comte and J. S. Mill (proponents of social positivism) as well as Herbert Spencer (evolutionary positivism). The positivist current aims to reconstruct the social order on new foundations. It adopts the naturalistic method of the physical sciences and mathematics and lo…
A gradient framework for wild foods
Mereological monism and Humean supervenience
On Interpreting Something as Food
In this paper we discuss the role that individual and collective acts of interpretation play in shaping a metaphysics of food. Our analysis moves from David Kaplan’s recent contention that food is always open to interpretation, and substantially expands its theoretical underpinnings by drawing on recent scholarship on food and social ontology. After setting up the terms of the discussion (§1), we suggest (§2) that the contention can be read subje…
Cooking and dining as forms of public art
This paper addresses the yet unexplored question of whether cooking and dining are sometimes a form of public art. After introducing the main question (§1), we rehearse key characteristics of public artworks, most importantly accessibility, theme, and elicited responses (§2). We then argue that some instances of cooking and dining meet such conditions (§3). Hence, we vet the pros and cons of three avenues to support cooking and dining as a form o…
Defective food concepts
Our aim in this paper is to employ conceptual negotiation to inform a method of rethinking defective food concepts, that is concepts that fail to suitably represent a certain food-related domain or that offer representations that run counter to the interests of their users. We begin by sorting out four dimensions of a food concept: (i) the data upon which it rests and the methodology by which those data are gathered; (ii) the ontology that sustai…
Philosophy of Recipes: Making, Experiencing, and Valuing
Recipes form the bedrock of culinary cultures and allow the knowledge of how to cook across generations, countries and cultures, through history. They are vital for the transfer of knowledge and have, through restaurants, entered the public domain to become part of brand identities. This volume addresses three major themes regarding recipes: their nature and identity; their relationship to territory, producers, consumers and places of production.…
Learning from Covid-19: Public Justification and the Ontology of Everyday Life
Liberal democracies across the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing measures that significantly curtail the rights and liberties of individual citizens. These measures must receive public justification in order to be politically legitimate. By combining analytical political philosophy with ontology in an original way, in this article we argue that liberal democratic governments have so far failed to adequately justify the…
A Deliberative Model for Preserving the Diversity of Lebanese Traditional Fermented Food and Beverages
Eating Local: A philosophical toolbox
Eating local food has become a mainstream proxy for virtue and a reliable model of sustainable dieting. It suffers, nonetheless, from genuine criticisms and limitations. In this paper, we suggest theoretical amendments to reorient the local food movement and turn eating local into a robust concept-comprehensive, coherent, and inclusive, affording a firm grip over structural aspects of the food chain. We develop our argument in three parts. The fi…
The Justice and Ontology of Gastrospaces
In this paper, we establish gastrospaces as a subject of philosophical inquiry and an item for policy agendas. We first explain their political value, as key sites where members of liberal democratic societies can develop the capacity for a sense of justice and the capacity to form, revise, and pursue a conception of the good. Integrating political philosophy with analytic ontology, we then unfold a theoretical framework for gastrospaces: first, …
All’ombra dell’istituzione totale. La «sociologia pubblica» alla prova del penitenziario
The contribution aims to reflect on the emancipatory role that sociology can play, in its public dimension, when confronted with a total institution, such as the penitentiary. The historical-critical assumptions from which the reflection moves can be traced, on the one hand, to those values of inclusion and social justice to which public sociology, in the ‘version’ that Burawoy (re)launched in 2004, looks to as inalienable ethical principles. And…
Gastrospaces: A Philosophical Study of Where We Eat
This book explores the moral and political significance of gastrospaces: the spaces where we eat. It adopts an innovative approach, combining analytic political philosophy and analytic ontology, to lay down the theoretical foundations for a multi- and interdisciplinary research agenda on the complex interconnections between food and space. Social science and humanities scholars have studied the ties between food consumption and space from multipl…
Early Conceptual Knowledge About Food
Recent research suggests that preschool (three- to six-years-old) children’s food cognition involves much more than the nutritional information usually conveyed by traditional food education programs. This review aims at collecting the empirical evidence documenting the richness of preschoolers’ conceptual knowledge about food. After introducing the relevance of the topic in the context of the research in early food rejection dispositions (Sect. …
Mapping Out Food and Philosophy
The following special section on food and philosophy arose out of an ongoing conversation that, like many of our encounters within the discipline of food studies, began with a shared admiration for the diversity of methodologies and interests that form its esprit de corps. While the use of theory has been a constant in food scholarship, the contributions of philosophers, and the unique perspective that the discipline of philosophy provides, have …
Going Public: A Philosophical Account of Problems in the Public Sphere
Going Public: A Philosophical Account of Problems in the Public Sphere
Cet article pose les bases d’une analyse philosophique des problèmes publics. Nous partons du constat qu’aucun problème dans la sphère publique ne naît comme public — il le devient — et que ce processus de devenir public requiert une explication. Après avoir introduit notre sujet (section 1), nous le recontextualisons dans le cadre plus large de l’étude de la nature des problèmes et des activités de résolution de problèmes (section 2). Nous écart…
Disgust reactions and their justifications: The case of meat
Special Issue Introduction: Power of infrastructures, infrastructures of power
The concept of 'infrastructure' has become increasingly central in social sciences and sociological theory, recognized as a foundational element that underpins modern and contemporary societies. Given its growing significance, this Special Issue addresses the need to explore both the material and immaterial dimensions of infrastructures in relation to power and social dynamics. This introduction outlines the central points of each article, emphas…
Infrastructure as a sociological category: Concept, applications, and paradigmatic turns
In this essay, we address the increasingly debated question of whether the concept of infrastructure offers a new perspective for understanding processes of reproduction within socio-historical formations, particularly the relationship between agency and structures. How does this research agenda differ from classical sociological approaches that study the foundational elements and developmental logic of social systems? Are claims of an 'infrastru…
Epistemology (16 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Political science (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Culinary Culture and Tourism (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Social science (8 works) · Metaphysics (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)