Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology

Photo of Professor Giovanna Colombetti

Professor Giovanna Colombetti

BA (Florence), MSc (Birmingham), DPhil (Sussex)

Professor (Philosophy)

G.Colombetti@exeter.ac.uk

3287

01392 723287

Amory 311

Overview

I am a philosopher with a background in both philosophy and cognitive science. I work primarily on emotion and affectivity from the perspective of so-called '4E cognition' (embodied, embedded, enactive and extended cognition). Since my PhD (Sussex, 2004) I have strived to reconceptualize various affective phenomena from a dynamical, embodied-enactive and, more recently, situated perspective. In both my teaching and research I draw quite liberally on phenomenology, analytic philosophy, as well as theoretical and experimental work in psychology and neuroscience. More recently I have become interested in the contribution that the social sciences and the field of material culture studies can make to our understanding of affectivity, in particular in the context of philosophical debates on the 'scaffolded' and perhaps even 'extended' nature of the mind.

Most of my current reserach efforts are aimed at completing a monograph on our affective relation to everyday material objects and spaces (encouragement welcome!).

In addition:

I am member of EGENIS, and lead its Mind, Body, and Culture research group.

I am Editor-in-Chief of Emotion Review (together with Brian Parkinson and Doug Irish) - from Jan 2023 to Dec 2025. 

(From 2014 to 2022 I was Associate Editor of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.)

I am Adjunct Professor in Philosophy at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Southern Denmark (2021-2026) - with links especially to its Movement, Culture and Society research cluster.

In the autumn of 2023 I was Visiting Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, teaching there for one term. 

In 2010-2014 I was the Principal Investigator of a Starting Grant funded by the European Research Council (ERC), titled "Emoting the Embodied Mind" (EMOTER). This project focused primarily on so-called "embodied" and "enactive" approaches in the philosophy of cognitive science. These approaches have emphasized that to explain and understand mental phenomena we need to look at the whole organism; studying the brain only is not sufficient. My project EMOTER expanded upon this view, elaborating its implications for our understanding of various affective phenomena (such as emotions, moods, feelings), and of the relation between cognition and affectivity. My book The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind (2014, MIT Press) presents and discusses most of the ideas developed during this project.

My ORCID number is 0000-0003-0935-1109

You can access and download my publications here.

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Research

  • Philosophy of mind: emotion and affectivity; consciousness; embodied and enactive approaches; the extended mind
  • Philosophy of science: theories and experimental work in affective science
  • Phenomenology of affectivity and the body
  • Asian philosophies and meditative practices

NB: You can access and download my publications here.

Research group links

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Projects

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Supervision

I am always happy to hear from prospective PhD candidates. I also oversee all PhD admissions for our Department, so I can give general advice on the PhD admission process.

For information about our postgraduate (PhD, but also MA) research degrees, funding opportunities, and how to apply, the first thing to do is to look here carefully.

You are welcome to email me if you are interested in doing a PhD (or MPhil) under my supervision, in the following areas:

  • Philosophy of cognitive science - especially of "4EA cognition" (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended AND affective cognition);
  • Philosophy of emotion - especially questions about embodiment, emotional consciousness and feelings, moods and personality, affect and materiality;
  • Philosophy of affective science - especially methodological and theoretical issues pertaining to the scientific and experimental study of affective phenomena;
  • Consciousness studies - especially phenomenology (classic and contemporary), neurophenomenology, and Asian and contemplative approaches;
  • Theoretical approaches to material culture and technology - especially in relation to affect, and from a multidisciplinary perspective, including philosophy but not only (taking advantage of the interdisciplinary nature of this Department).

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2005 | 2003 |

2024

  • Colombetti G, Bogotá JD. (2024) The Tacitly Situated Self: From Narration to Sedimentation and Projection, Topoi, DOI:10.1007/s11245-024-10044-9.
  • Colombetti G, Irish BJ, Parkinson B. (2024) Editorial, Emotion Review, volume 16, no. 1, pages 3-4, DOI:10.1177/17540739231220991.
  • Steinert U, Colombetti G. (2024) Material affective engagements: examples from ancient Mesopotamia, Aestimatio: Sources and Studies in the History of Science, volume 3, pages 113-168.
  • Ciampi G, Colombetti G. (2024) Enacting affectivity: the psychophysical training of śṛṅgāra in Gopal Venu’s Navarasa Sādhanā, Art as Experience of the Living Body: An East/West Dialogue, Vernon Press, 179-206.

2023

  • Colombetti G. (2023) Varieties of incorporation: beyond the blind man's cane, Varieties of Self-Awareness, Springer.
  • Colombetti G, Kuppens P. (2023) How should we understand valence, arousal, and their relationship?, Routledge Handbook of Emotion Theory, Routledge.

2022

  • Bogotá JD, Colombetti G. (2022) Can There Be a Unified 5E Theory of Pain?, Constructivist Foundations, volume 17 (2), pages 150-152.

2021

  • Colombetti G. (2021) The Embodiment of Emotion, A Multidisciplinary Approach to Embodiment: Understanding Human Being, Routledge, 71-76.

2020

2019

2018

2017

  • Rappert B, Colombetti G, Coopmans C. (2017) What is absent from contemplative neuroscience? Rethinking limits within the study of consciousness, experience, and meditation, Journal of Consciousness Studies, volume 24, no. 5-6, pages 199-255.
  • Colombetti G. (2017) The embodied and situated nature of moods, Philosophia, volume 45(4), pages 1437-1451, DOI:10.1007/s11406-017-9817-0.
  • Colombetti G. (2017) Emozioni come sistemi dinamici, Sistemi Intelligenti, volume 29, no. 1, pages 195-220, DOI:10.1422/86624.
  • Rappert B, Coopmans, Colombetti G. (2017) Meditations on silence: The (non-)conveying of the experiential in scientific accounts of Buddhist meditation, Silences of Science. Gaps and Pauses in the Communication of Science, Routledge, 193-217.
  • Colombetti G. (2017) Enactive affectivity, extended, Topoi: an International Review of Philosophy, volume 36, pages 445-455, DOI:10.1007/s11245-015-9335-2.

2015

  • Colombetti G. (2015) World in a bag. Review of Jean-Claude Kaufmann's 'Le Sac: Un petit monde d'amour', Berlin Review of Books.
  • Colombetti G. (2015) World in a bag. Review of Jean-Claude Kaufmann's 'Le Sac: Un petit monde d'amour', The Berlin Review of Books.
  • Colombetti G, Roberts T. (2015) Extending the Extended Mind: The Case for Extended Affectivity, Philosophical Studies: an international journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition, volume 172, no. 5, pages 1243-1263, DOI:10.1007/s11098-014-0347-3.
  • Colombetti G, Krueger J. (2015) Scaffoldings of the affective mind, Philosophical Psychology, volume 28, no. 8, pages 1157-1176, DOI:10.1080/09515089.2014.976334.

2014

  • Colombetti G. (2014) Why call bodily sense making "languaging"?, Frontiers in Psychology, no. 5, article no. 1286, DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01286.
  • Colombetti G. (2014) Enactive affectivity, extended, AISB 2014 - 50th Annual Convention of the AISB.
  • Colombetti G, Trigg D, Ravn S. (2014) Review of Body Memory, Metaphor and Movement, MEMORY STUDIES, volume 7, no. 3, pages 393-400, DOI:10.1177/1750698014530627.
  • Colombetti G, Trigg D, Ravn S. (2014) Review of Body Memory, Memory Studies, volume 3, no. 7, pages 393-400.
  • Colombetti G. (2014) The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind, MIT Press. [PDF]

2013

  • Colombetti G. (2013) Some Ideas for the Integration of Neurophenomenology and Affective Neuroscience, Constructivist Foundations, volume 8, no. 3, pages 288-297.
  • Colombetti G, Stephan A. (2013) Affektwissenschaft (affective science), Handbuch Kognitionswissenschaft, J.B. Metzler, 501-510.
  • Colombetti G. (2013) Psychopathology and the enactive mind, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry, Oxford University Press, 1083-1102.

2012

  • Colombetti G, Ratcliffe M. (2012) Bodily feeling in depersonalisation: a phenomenological account, Emotion Review, volume 4, no. 2, pages 145-150.

2011

  • Colombetti G. (2011) Varieties of pre-reflective self-awareness: foreground and background bodily feelings in emotion experience, Inquiry, volume 54, no. 3, pages 293-313.

2010

  • Colombetti G. (2010) Review of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, Journal of Consciousness Studies, volume 17, no. 5-6, pages 232-238.
  • Colombetti G. (2010) Enaction, sense-making and emotion, Enaction: Toward a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science, MIT Press, 145-164.

2009

  • Colombetti G. (2009) What language does to feelings, Journal of Consciousness Studies, volume 16, no. 9, pages 4-26.
  • Colombetti G. (2009) Reply to Barrett, Gendron and Huang, Philosophical Psychology, volume 22, no. 4, pages 439-442.
  • Colombetti G, Torrance, S. (2009) Emotion and ethics: an inter-(en)active approach, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, volume 8, no. 4, pages 505-526.
  • Colombetti G. (2009) From affect programs to dynamical discrete emotions, Philosophical Psychology, volume 22, no. 4, pages 407-425, DOI:10.1080/09515080903153600.

2008

2007

  • Colombetti G. (2007) Enactive appraisal, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, volume 6, pages 527-546.

2005

  • Colombetti G. (2005) (co-edited with Evan Thompson) Emotion Experience, Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (8-10).
  • Colombetti G. (2005) Appraising valence, Journal of Consciousness Studies, volume 12, no. 8-10 SPEC. ISS, pages 103-126.
  • Colombetti G, Thompson E. (2005) Journal of Consciousness Studies: Preface, Journal of Consciousness Studies, volume 12, no. 8-10 SPEC. ISS, pages 7-8.
  • Colombetti G, Thompson E. (2005) Enacting emotional interpretations with feeling, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, volume 28, no. 2, pages 200-201, DOI:10.1017/s0140525x05280044. [PDF]
  • Colombetti G. (2005) Appraising valence, JOURNAL OF CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES, volume 12, no. 8-10, pages 103-126. [PDF]

2003

  • Colombetti G. (2003) Complexity as a new framework for emotion theory, Philosophy of Science and Logic, volume 1. [PDF]

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Teaching

Modules taught

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Biography

I joined the (then) Sociology & Philosophy Department at Exeter in 2007. Before then I moved around quite a lot...

2005-2007: Postdoc at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences at the University of Trento (Italy). During this period I spent 10 months at the Cognitive Neuropsychology Laboratory at Harvard University.

2003-2005: Postdoc in "Cognitive Science and the Embodied Mind" at the Philosophy Department of York University (Canada) under the supervision of Evan Thompson.

2000-2004: PhD in Philosophy at the former School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (now Centre for Research in Cognitive Science) at the University of Sussex (UK), under the supervision of Andy Clark.

1999-2000: MSc in Cognitive Science at the University of Birmingham (UK). For my final project I used John Barnden's system ATT Meta, an AI system that reasons about mental states, to reason about desires and emotions.

1993-1999: Laurea (BA & MA) in Filosofia (Philosophy) at the Dipartimento di Filosofia of the University of Florence (Italy). My Tesi (in Italian) was entitled "The role of Gödel's incompleteness theorems and quantum mechanics in the mind-computer debate". My supervisors were Marisa Dalla Chiara and Marco Giunti. I also collaborated with Bruno Marchal at the IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium).

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