About the Event

Traces of the Future and Traces of Memory

Department of Philosophy’s Research Seminar on Friday 28 March

Title: Traces of the Future and Traces of Memory

Speakers: Prof. Tiziana Andina and Prof. Carola Barbero (University of Turin)

Date: Friday 28 March 2025

Time: 17:30

Location: CHBO-411

Abstract

While it is true that history can only be written from the future, i.e. with the knowledge of the consequences determined by choices made in certain areas, it is also true that it is necessary to start from the present in order to determine the starting conditions for future generations.

The Maastricht Principles on the Human Rights of Future Generations (2022) seek to clarify the present state of international law as it applies to the human rights of future generations. The Principles consolidate the developing legal framework and affirm binding obligations of European states and other actors as prescribed under international and human rights law.

However, if The Maastricht Principles are to have a real impact, we need to create the cultural and theoretical conditions for thinking about society as a whole, over time, across the generations that make it up. In her talk, Prof. Andina will address this question: What does it mean to transform a liberal democracy into a transgenerational democracy?

Memory, far from being a simple recorder that replays reality in delayed time, operates more like a creative machine that composes and recomposes traces, often guided by the heart and its mysterious logic-the “le coeur a des raisons que la raison ne connait pas”. Prof. Barbero will explore how this connection is reflected in expressions like “remembering by heart” or par cœur in English and French. We search for the fragments of memory, attempting to assemble them into a coherent narrative that may never have existed. Ulrich Neisser, in Cognitive Psychology (1967), likens the act of remembering to the work of a paleontologist reconstructing a dinosaur skeleton from scattered fossils. From scattered traces, we recreate entire scenes, yet we can never fully verify their accuracy. This dual nature of memory-its inventiveness and fragility-becomes evident in the risk of recalling something that never truly

happened.

Bionotes

Tiziana Andina is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Turin. She has been a fellow of Columbia University (2008-2009), of Kate Hamburger Kolleg (Bonn) in 2015, Visiting Professor at ITMO University, Russia (2014), University of Nanjing and University of Wuhan (2019) and author of many articles on national and internationals journals in different topics of philosophy, social ontology and philosophy of art. Her most recent publications concern social ontology, with her latest book being A Philosophy for Future Generations. The Structure and Dynamics of

Transgenerationality, Bloomsbury Academic (2022).

Carola Barbero teaches Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Literature at the University of Turin. Her research interests include empty names, the metaphysics and ontology of fictional entities, emotions, the paradox of fiction, the phenomenology of reading, and the distinction between literary and ordinary language. She was a visiting researcher at the

University of Auckland (2007) and a visiting professor at ETH Zurich (2020). She is the author of many essays published in international journals and eight books, including her most recent one. That Shiver in the Back. The lanauades of literature (in Italian. Il Mulino. 2023).

cœur in English and French. We search for the fragments of memory, attempting to assemble them into a coherent narrative that may never have existed. Ulrich Neisser, in Cognitive Psychology (1967), likens the act of remembering to the work of a paleontologist reconstructing a dinosaur skeleton from scattered fossils. From scattered traces, we recreate entire scenes, yet we can never fully verify their accuracy. This dual nature of memory-its inventiveness and fragility-becomes evident in the risk of recalling something that never truly happened.

Bionotes

Tiziana Andina is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Turin. She has been a fellow of Columbia University (2008-2009), of Käte Hamburger Kolleg (Bonn) in 2015, Visiting Professor at ITMO University, Russia (2014), University of Nanjing and University of Wuhan (2019) and author of many articles on national and internationals journals in different topics of philosophy, social ontology and philosophy of art. Her most recent publications concern social ontology, with her latest book being A Philosophy for Future Generations. The Structure and Dynamics of Transgenerationality, Bloomsbury Academic (2022).

Carola Barbero teaches Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Literature at the University of Turin. Her research interests include empty names, the metaphysics and ontology of fictional entities, emotions, the paradox of fiction, the phenomenology of reading, and the distinction between literary and ordinary language. She was a visiting researcher at the University of Auckland (2007) and a visiting professor at ETH Zurich (2020). She is the author of many essays published in international journals and eight books, including her most recent one, That Shiver in the Back. The languages of literature (in Italian, ll Mulino, 2023).

For further information please contact the Department’s Research Seminars series convenor, Prof. Jean-Paul De Lucca on jean-paul.delucca@um.edu.mt