Rythmòs in Acting Together.
A Tool to Improve Stability and to Orient Power Hierarchies
Seminar was held at the University of Rijeka on May 10, 2018.

 “The main aim of the present talk is to argue that the theoretical notion of rythmòs (Piana 1991, Zhok 2012) can be crucial in the analysis of shared agency and collective actions (Searle 2010, Gilbert 2013).

 Rythmòs can be defined as the general trans-modal structure of impulses and relaxations, which characterizes a great variety of diachronic courses and phenomena (from a bouncing ball to a collapsing scree, from musical rhythms to human actions).

In this talk, I will argue that, even being a trait that characterizes actions at a sub-personal level, rythmòs can also be exploited at a personal level to reinforce joint actions and to promote agents’ collaboration. In this sense, rythmòs acquires a central role in giving stability to collective actions and in reducing the risk of uncertainty (Michael and Pacherie 2015). Secondly, I will argue that the rythmòs of a collective action can be manipulated by an agent in order to achieve a position of leadership (Bassetti and Bottazzi 2015). Charisma, for instance, can be, at least partly, considered as the ability to manipulate the rhythm of an interaction by consciously or unconsciously imposing one’s timing.
 Rythmòs will appear as a means to stabilize collective actions but also to orient power roles.”


Francesca Forlè is CAS SEE Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Rijeka and Guest Lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan. Previously, she has been Post-doctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Philosophy, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan. She holds a PhD in Cognitive Neurosciences and Philosophy of Mind. She is mainly interested in phenomenology, philosophy of mind and social ontology. She is Managing Editor of the journal Phenomenology and Mind and member of the Research Centre PERSONA at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, MilanFrancesca published several papers on peer-review international journals and edited volumes. She is also co-editor of three special issues of the journal Phenomenology and Mind. Francesca has also recently published the book Qualità terziarie. Saggio sulla fenomenologia sperimentale, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2017 (Tertiary Qualities. An essay on experimental phenomenology).