I am Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cagliari (Department of Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy), Italy, and at the University of Pardubice (Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies), Czech Republic. I am a member of the Centre for Ethics, where I lead the project Vicious Epistemic Cultures funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GACR), and Mitigating Epistemic Injustice (TACR). I am the Faculty of Arts Team Leader of “Loving is Caring: Towards a Platonic Care Ethics“.  I am also contributing to the OP JAK  project “Beyond Security”, working on environmental emotions in the Anthropocene. I am an active member of Mind and Life Europe.

My research field is Philosophy of Emotions at the crisscross of Social Epistemology and the Ethics of Knowing. I also have specific expertise in Ancient Greek Philosophy, especially Plato. I’m interested in 4E Cognition, especially Enactivism, Pragmatism, Feminist Epistemology, Virtue and Vice Epistemology, the Ethics of Sense-Making, and Environmental Ethics. I’m increasingly working on topics in Applied Social Epistemology and Ethics, especially related to Critical Dialogue, Participatory Sense-Making, and Contemplative Practices. I am also contributing to the development of an enactive ethics of sense-making grounded on affects as what disclose existential concerns and values, especially regarding environmental issues.

I understand emotions as “in-between”: Emotions are not private state of mind but active and dynamic processes between subjects and natural and cultural environments. They emerge from our embodied interactions with others in processes of participatory sense-making.

Academic History

Before joining the University of Pardubice, I was Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Research Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, with a project on the role of emotions in group knowledge (2019/2021). As a fellow of the Intercontinental Academy on Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, I further explored research on the affective experience of the networked life, such as affective interactions in social media and cultural robotics. Previously, I was a Senior Research Fellow at the IMéRA Institute of the Advanced Studies of the Aix-Marseille University, France (2018/2019), with a project on positive emotions. I also worked as Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK,  carrying on the EU funded project “Emotions First” (Marie Curie Individual Fellowship) at the Eidyn Centre. I worked as Teaching Fellow at the same University, both in the Department of Philosophy and at the Moray House School of Education (2016/2018). Within the pilot project Extended Cognition in the Classroom at the University of Edinburgh, I studied the affective dimension of trust in structural coupling with assistive technology. Before that, I worked as postdoctoral research fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy (2013/2015).

I did my PhD at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, supervisor Prof. Luigi Vero Tarca, in collaboration with the UPR76 CNRS Paris and Sorbonne University of Paris under the supervision of Prof. Luc Brisson. My PhD topic focused on Plato’s Socratic dialogues: I argued for the necessity thesis about the role of shame in the Socratic elenchus, and the shared motivational states of the interlocutors in the dialogical inquiry.

Webpages

To download my articles https://upce.academia.edu/LauraCandiotto

For Italian readers: www.candiottolaura.wordpress.com (last update 2016)

My institutional profile page: https://centreforethics.upce.cz/en/doc-laura-candiotto-phd-0

LIST OF THE BEST FIRST QUARTILE (Q1) PUBLICATIONS

(2025). “The problem of sentience”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 24, 191–211. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-024-09994-7.

(2024). “Eros in-between and all-around”, Human Studies. 47, 185–203. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-024-09718-5.

(2024) (with Mog Stapleton). “Assistive Technology as Affective Scaffolding”, Topoi. 1007/s11245-024-10019-w.

(2023) (with Martin Weichold). “Ethics of Sense-Making”. Frontiers in Psychology. Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Volume 14 – 2023, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1240163.

(2022). “Extended Loneliness. When Hyperconnectivity makes us feel alone”. Ethics and Information Technology, 24, article number: 24. 10.1007/s10676-022-09669-4.

(2022). “What I cannot do without you. Towards a truly embedded and embodied account of the socially extended mind”. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 10.1007/s11097-022-09862-2.

(2022). “Loving the Earth by loving a place”. Constructivist Foundations, 17(3): 179-189.

(2022). “Epistemic Emotions and Co-Inquiry: A Situated Approach”. Topoi, 41: 839-848. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-021-09789-4.

(2021) (with R. Dreon), “Affective Scaffoldings as Habits. A Pragmatist Approach”. Frontiers in Psychology, Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
Volume 12 – 2021. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.629046.

(2021) (with H. De Jaegher), “Love in-between”, The Journal of Ethics, 25 (4), special issue“The Ethics of Love”, ed. A. Archer, pp. 501-524. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-020-09357-9.

(2020). “Epistemic Emotions and the Value of Truth”. Acta Analytica. 35(4): 563-577. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00416-x.

(2020). “The Divine Feeling: The Epistemic Function of Erotic Desire in Plato’s Theory of Recollection”. Philosophia, 48: 445–462.

(2018). “Purification through emotions. The role of shame in Plato’s Sophist 230b4-e5”, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50, Issue 6-7: pp. 576-585. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1373338.

LIST OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RESEARCH PROJECTS AS PI

– 2024/2027: “Vicious Epistemic Cultures”, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic, Czech Science Foundation Standard Grant (GACR)

– 2019/2021: “Bonds: Positive Emotions for Group Cognition”, Free University of Berlin, Germany, Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellowship.

– 2016/2018: “Emotions First. Feeling Reason: the role of emotions in reasoning”, University of Edinburgh, UK, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship