Rate My Professor Andrea Scarantino

Andrea Scarantino is Professor in the Department of Philosophy and in the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University, where he has served since 2005. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2005), a Ph.D. in Economics from Università Cattolica di Milano, Italy (2000), and a B.S. in Economics from Bocconi University, Italy (1994). Scarantino is also Associate Faculty in the Neuroscience Institute and Affiliate Faculty in the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics. His research encompasses philosophy of mind, philosophy of emotions, and affective science, with a focus on providing explicative definitions of information and emotion. More recently, he has connected these areas by examining the information broadcast by emotional expressions and their role in providing an informational infrastructure for the emergence of language in human ancestors.

Scarantino edited Emotion Theory: The Routledge Comprehensive Guide (2024), a two-volume collection of over 800,000 words featuring contributions from 101 authors across philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and sociology, covering the history of emotion theory from Ancient Greece to contemporary debates, components of emotions, and specific emotions such as fear and enthusiasm. This publication represents the first comprehensive guide to emotion theory. He has received the Herbert Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy from the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (2017), a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany (2015-2017), and a John Templeton Foundation Grant on the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control (2016). At Georgia State University, he helps organize the Neurophilosophy Forum, which addresses issues at the intersection of philosophy, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology.