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In my first book (Aristotle on Perceiving Objects, OUP 2014) I argued that Aristotle developed a unique metaphysics of perceptual content, based on an ontology of interacting powers in the perceiver and in the perceived.
In my second book (Everything in Everything. Anaxagoras’s Metaphysics, OUP 2017), I showed that Anaxagoras developed an ontology of qualitative gunk, namely, of qualities that are endlessly divided into parts of parts, where the division does not stop at/end in points (by contrast to Zeno’s divisions). I demonstrated that Anaxagoras used this ontology to underpin the philosophical position he is infamous for, that “everything [is] in everything”.
I subsequently focussed on Plato’s metaphysics; in my book (Forms and Structure in Plato’s Metaphysics, OUP 2021) I showed how Plato, influenced by Anaxagoras, thought of partaking in Forms as overlap with Forms, where overlap is more primitive than parthood. Plato however did not remain committed to this model, for he discovered philosophical difficulties with it; and subsequently opted for an account of partaking by similarity to Forms. Further, I argued that Plato’s Forms are causal powers that do not interact with other powers. Rather, his Forms are difference-makers in the world by their presence within the constitution of sensible objects: they operate as constitutive causes. (With this stance, I contend, Plato contributed substantially to the development of a Post-Parmenidean model of causation that meets Parmenides’ strictures about change, which I call Mereological Causation, contraposing it to Aristotle's Efficient Causation model). My interpretative proposals in the book have various revisionary consequences for our understanding Plato’s Theory of Forms.
In my latest book (Properties in Ancient Metaphysics, CUP 2023) I showed the enormous philosophical influence that Anaxagoras had on Plato, and through him on Aristotle, thus throwing off-centre the traditional idea that Plato and Aristotle (only) shaped the metaphysics of properties in antiquity. In the book I argued that there were three models in play in antiquity to explain property possession and qualitative similarity; I call them respectively the Distributive Model, the Recurrence Model, and the Mimetic Model. I showed that Anaxagoras introduced the Distributive Model, which Plato also endorsed initially, shaping his Theory Forms around it. I further argued that it was Plato who introduced (but never developed) the Recurrence Model (which posits properties to be recurring universals), although he finally opted for the Mimetic Model, where similarity is primitive. I finally explicated Aristotle’s metaphysical development of the Recurrence Model, and I argued that the Model is sound and not prey to the critiques usually raised against Aristotle’s theory of recurrent universal properties.
My book on general metaphysics, co-authored with Erasmus Mayr (Metaphysics. An introduction to Contemporary Debates and Their History, OUP 2019) motivates a general turn in metaphysics towards the study of power ontology. The book covers core issues in metaphysics that have been central in the history of philosophy and remain foundational to contemporary debates. What is philosophically distinctive about this book is that it introduces a power-based approach to these foundational issues and shows what theoretical advantages may be gained by using the family of concepts of powers / dispositions / potentialities / probabilities. Yet the book has in all cases an open-ended approach to questions and problems, encouraging critical thinking in the reader, rather than promoting certain views.
To promote knowledge and interest in analytic metaphysics among Italian-speaking students, I published (first, in 2017) an Italian version of my book co-authored with Erasmus Mayr (OUP, 2019)
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