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European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2016
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
Viola e i due reviewers dello European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy per le osser... more Viola e i due reviewers dello European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy per le osservazioni e gli utili commenti a una prima versione di questo lavoro.
Teoria, 2019
Collins and Evans’s Third Way of Social Studies of Science is an ambitious attempt to counteract ... more Collins and Evans’s Third Way of Social Studies of Science is an ambitious attempt to counteract the de-legitimation of scientific experts that is going on in contemporary Western societies and which, on a theoretical level, represents an unfortunate consequence of the corrosive approach championed by many proponents of Social Studies of Science. Collins and Evans argue that the importance of science in technical decision-making should be defended on purely moral grounds, without having recourse to epistemic notions. The goal of this article is to criticize Collins and Evans’s moral defense of the role of science in democracy, and to point out that, contrary to what they believe, the notion of scientific expertise is epistemic through and through. Our pragmatist account of expertise revolves around the idea that being a scientific expert is a social status that is to be earned and preserved: scientific experts are those who are perceived as trustworthy by the citizens. We argue, therefore, that trust is a bidirectional relationship. Trust is a normative concept that puts constraints on the kinds of behavior that both citizens and scientific experts are legitimate to perform.
Keywords: pragmatism; expertise; third wave of social studies of science; scientists; philosophy of competence.
In this paper, I address the question of the nature and ground of objectivity, with the aim to de... more In this paper, I address the question of the nature and ground of objectivity, with the aim to develop a pragmatist account of its distinctive features. Traditionally, pragmatism has been considered as an alternative to Kantian approaches. The aim of the paper is to argue that, contrary to the received view, a consistent pragmatist theory of objectivity should preserve many insights of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. My thesis is that Kantian notions of spontaneity, activity and objectivity can be fruitfully reformulated and translated into pragmatist terms. The key notion here is that of practices. It is only within the context of a practice that concepts can be successfully applied to experience. The intrinsic normativity of practices establishes different levels of objectivity. The paper defends a pluralistic view of reality, insisting on the irreducibility of common-sense objectivity to scientific objectivity. At the same time, it is maintained that common-sense practices have a primacy over scientific practices, and that scientific objects are constructed out of common-sense objects through a process of articulation of the potentialities of the latter.
Alle origini de Il mondo magico: il crocianesimo del giovane De Martino In una delle pagine centr... more Alle origini de Il mondo magico: il crocianesimo del giovane De Martino In una delle pagine centrali di La storia come pensiero e come azione, discutendo la legittimità del ricorso all'irrazionalismo come categoria di spiegazione storica, Benedetto Croce affermava con forza il principio che solo del positivo si potesse scrivere la storia. E spiegava che la ragione per cui non si poteva fare una storia del negativo era che reale è soltanto l'attività con cui gli uomini superano l'errore, la mancanza e la privazione. Tutto questo Croce riteneva evidente e confessava pertanto il suo stupore di fronte ai tentativi sempre più ricorrenti di scrivere la storia di ciò che non è e non può essere. Ma che quel principio fosse molto più problematico di quanto Croce ritenesse era testimoniato, fra le altre cose, dal fatto che pochi anni dopo Adolfo Omodeo (1889-1946) si trovò costretto ancora una volta a ribadire che del negativo non si può fare storia. Scrisse quindi Omodeo: «a rigore di logica la storia del magismo non esiste, perché la storia si può fare del positivo e non del negativo: il magismo è una potenza di cui ci si spoglia nel processo della ragione, appunto perché si rivela inadeguata, e non creativa» (Lettera di Omodeo a De Martino del 24 febbraio 1941, in De Martino 2007, p. 85). Con quelle parole Omodeo rispondeva al suo vecchio allievo Ernesto De Martino che, in una lettera datata 19 febbraio 1941, aveva sollecitato il giudizio del maestro a proposito di un saggio -probabilmente andato perduto -in cui tematizzava il rapporto fra magia e razionalità occidentale (Lettera di De Martino a Omodeo del 19 febbraio 1941, in De Martino 2007. Non si trattava certo di un argomento occasionale e privo di rilievo nell'economia del pensiero demartiniano. Appena dato alle stampe il suo primo libro Naturalismo e storicismo nell'etnologia (1940) De Martino si era infatti dedicato ad analizzare il passaggio dalla Weltanschauung magica all'umanesimo della civiltà occidentale. E anche in quell'occasione aveva scritto a Omodeo una lunga lettera, datata 20 ottobre 1940, per comunicargli la nuova direzione del suo pensiero e per presentare i primi risultati delle sue ricerche (Lettera di De Martino a Omodeo del 19 febbraio 1941, in De Martino 2007. Omodeo aveva espresso con chiarezza le difficoltà che vedeva in quel progetto. Quel giudizio critico del maestro riecheggiò per anni nella mente di De Martino. In una importante nota de Il mondo magico. Prolegomeni a una storia del magismo (1948), De Martino decise pertanto di pubblicare quel passo della lettera di Omodeo e di rendere in tal modo esplicita una divergenza teorica che aveva costituito uno degli assi attorno a cui si era formato il suo pensiero.
The idea of interdisciplinarity can be articulated in different ways. The aim of the article is t... more The idea of interdisciplinarity can be articulated in different ways. The aim of the article is to criticise the view that interdisciplinarity is to be treated as a quality of the historian's approach to his subject-matter, and to argue for a constructivist interpretation of that notion. A constructivist account of interdisciplinarity relies on the thesis that the latter is one of the manifold ways in which it is possible to give sense to the historical records of which the historian wants to gain knowledge. In the paper it is maintained that the function of the notion of interdisciplinarity is to account for the clash of languages that can be found when disciplines converge. This new paradigm is highlighted by taking into consideration the history of American pragmatism.
In this paper I will try to develop some of the ideas that lie at the basis of Rorty's naturalism... more In this paper I will try to develop some of the ideas that lie at the basis of Rorty's naturalism, and I will take the liberty of treating Rorty's philosophical arguments and ideas as a springboard to reach conclusions different from those that Rorty wanted to reach. In particular, I will move from what Rorty says in his response to Bjorn Ramberg concerning the privileged status of the vocabulary of normativity in order to argue for the importance of keeping the language of normativity from the language of intentionality. The thesis that the vocabulary of normativity is more fundamental than that of intentionality leads directly to the issue of identifying what is the nature of that vocabulary, and in which practice it is actually instantiated. My suggestion is that the normative vocabulary should be identified with what it is usually called common-sense, that is, the set of habitual and institutionalized practices taken for granted in every "community of minds". According to this reading, common-sense is nothing but a more comfortable and less emphatic way of saying "human nature". The statement of the identity of human nature and common-sense is philosophically interesting since it helps counteract a tendency toward intellectualism that strikes me as a possible undesired sideeffect of the linguistic turn. There is a sense in which one is entitled to say that it is not correct to question the "givenness" of certain forms or "representation": we cannot choose how things appear to us because their mode of manifestation is dependent both on their constitution -what Rorty calls "causal pressure"and on our biological endowment. I will therefore argue that the community of minds is grounded at its deepest level on the community of common-sense, that is, on the fact that we human beings are animals who share a common stock of needs, impulses, and habits. There is no necessary connection between that conclusion and an alleged unmodifiability of human nature: the recourse to the notion of human nature is not a move available only to those who want to restore a metaphysical language which paves the way for a metaphysical view of reality, as Rorty seems to believe. Rather the contrary, it seems to me that the notion of human nature is deeply intertwined with Price's idea of subject naturalism, a philosophical project that Rorty endorses in his article Naturalism and Quietism. Through the confrontation with Rorty's philosophy I hope to succeed in sketching a sound philosophy of praxis revolving around the concepts of practice, normativity, and nature.
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European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2016
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
Viola e i due reviewers dello European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy per le osser... more Viola e i due reviewers dello European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy per le osservazioni e gli utili commenti a una prima versione di questo lavoro.
Teoria, 2019
Collins and Evans’s Third Way of Social Studies of Science is an ambitious attempt to counteract ... more Collins and Evans’s Third Way of Social Studies of Science is an ambitious attempt to counteract the de-legitimation of scientific experts that is going on in contemporary Western societies and which, on a theoretical level, represents an unfortunate consequence of the corrosive approach championed by many proponents of Social Studies of Science. Collins and Evans argue that the importance of science in technical decision-making should be defended on purely moral grounds, without having recourse to epistemic notions. The goal of this article is to criticize Collins and Evans’s moral defense of the role of science in democracy, and to point out that, contrary to what they believe, the notion of scientific expertise is epistemic through and through. Our pragmatist account of expertise revolves around the idea that being a scientific expert is a social status that is to be earned and preserved: scientific experts are those who are perceived as trustworthy by the citizens. We argue, therefore, that trust is a bidirectional relationship. Trust is a normative concept that puts constraints on the kinds of behavior that both citizens and scientific experts are legitimate to perform.
Keywords: pragmatism; expertise; third wave of social studies of science; scientists; philosophy of competence.
In this paper, I address the question of the nature and ground of objectivity, with the aim to de... more In this paper, I address the question of the nature and ground of objectivity, with the aim to develop a pragmatist account of its distinctive features. Traditionally, pragmatism has been considered as an alternative to Kantian approaches. The aim of the paper is to argue that, contrary to the received view, a consistent pragmatist theory of objectivity should preserve many insights of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. My thesis is that Kantian notions of spontaneity, activity and objectivity can be fruitfully reformulated and translated into pragmatist terms. The key notion here is that of practices. It is only within the context of a practice that concepts can be successfully applied to experience. The intrinsic normativity of practices establishes different levels of objectivity. The paper defends a pluralistic view of reality, insisting on the irreducibility of common-sense objectivity to scientific objectivity. At the same time, it is maintained that common-sense practices have a primacy over scientific practices, and that scientific objects are constructed out of common-sense objects through a process of articulation of the potentialities of the latter.
Alle origini de Il mondo magico: il crocianesimo del giovane De Martino In una delle pagine centr... more Alle origini de Il mondo magico: il crocianesimo del giovane De Martino In una delle pagine centrali di La storia come pensiero e come azione, discutendo la legittimità del ricorso all'irrazionalismo come categoria di spiegazione storica, Benedetto Croce affermava con forza il principio che solo del positivo si potesse scrivere la storia. E spiegava che la ragione per cui non si poteva fare una storia del negativo era che reale è soltanto l'attività con cui gli uomini superano l'errore, la mancanza e la privazione. Tutto questo Croce riteneva evidente e confessava pertanto il suo stupore di fronte ai tentativi sempre più ricorrenti di scrivere la storia di ciò che non è e non può essere. Ma che quel principio fosse molto più problematico di quanto Croce ritenesse era testimoniato, fra le altre cose, dal fatto che pochi anni dopo Adolfo Omodeo (1889-1946) si trovò costretto ancora una volta a ribadire che del negativo non si può fare storia. Scrisse quindi Omodeo: «a rigore di logica la storia del magismo non esiste, perché la storia si può fare del positivo e non del negativo: il magismo è una potenza di cui ci si spoglia nel processo della ragione, appunto perché si rivela inadeguata, e non creativa» (Lettera di Omodeo a De Martino del 24 febbraio 1941, in De Martino 2007, p. 85). Con quelle parole Omodeo rispondeva al suo vecchio allievo Ernesto De Martino che, in una lettera datata 19 febbraio 1941, aveva sollecitato il giudizio del maestro a proposito di un saggio -probabilmente andato perduto -in cui tematizzava il rapporto fra magia e razionalità occidentale (Lettera di De Martino a Omodeo del 19 febbraio 1941, in De Martino 2007. Non si trattava certo di un argomento occasionale e privo di rilievo nell'economia del pensiero demartiniano. Appena dato alle stampe il suo primo libro Naturalismo e storicismo nell'etnologia (1940) De Martino si era infatti dedicato ad analizzare il passaggio dalla Weltanschauung magica all'umanesimo della civiltà occidentale. E anche in quell'occasione aveva scritto a Omodeo una lunga lettera, datata 20 ottobre 1940, per comunicargli la nuova direzione del suo pensiero e per presentare i primi risultati delle sue ricerche (Lettera di De Martino a Omodeo del 19 febbraio 1941, in De Martino 2007. Omodeo aveva espresso con chiarezza le difficoltà che vedeva in quel progetto. Quel giudizio critico del maestro riecheggiò per anni nella mente di De Martino. In una importante nota de Il mondo magico. Prolegomeni a una storia del magismo (1948), De Martino decise pertanto di pubblicare quel passo della lettera di Omodeo e di rendere in tal modo esplicita una divergenza teorica che aveva costituito uno degli assi attorno a cui si era formato il suo pensiero.
The idea of interdisciplinarity can be articulated in different ways. The aim of the article is t... more The idea of interdisciplinarity can be articulated in different ways. The aim of the article is to criticise the view that interdisciplinarity is to be treated as a quality of the historian's approach to his subject-matter, and to argue for a constructivist interpretation of that notion. A constructivist account of interdisciplinarity relies on the thesis that the latter is one of the manifold ways in which it is possible to give sense to the historical records of which the historian wants to gain knowledge. In the paper it is maintained that the function of the notion of interdisciplinarity is to account for the clash of languages that can be found when disciplines converge. This new paradigm is highlighted by taking into consideration the history of American pragmatism.
In this paper I will try to develop some of the ideas that lie at the basis of Rorty's naturalism... more In this paper I will try to develop some of the ideas that lie at the basis of Rorty's naturalism, and I will take the liberty of treating Rorty's philosophical arguments and ideas as a springboard to reach conclusions different from those that Rorty wanted to reach. In particular, I will move from what Rorty says in his response to Bjorn Ramberg concerning the privileged status of the vocabulary of normativity in order to argue for the importance of keeping the language of normativity from the language of intentionality. The thesis that the vocabulary of normativity is more fundamental than that of intentionality leads directly to the issue of identifying what is the nature of that vocabulary, and in which practice it is actually instantiated. My suggestion is that the normative vocabulary should be identified with what it is usually called common-sense, that is, the set of habitual and institutionalized practices taken for granted in every "community of minds". According to this reading, common-sense is nothing but a more comfortable and less emphatic way of saying "human nature". The statement of the identity of human nature and common-sense is philosophically interesting since it helps counteract a tendency toward intellectualism that strikes me as a possible undesired sideeffect of the linguistic turn. There is a sense in which one is entitled to say that it is not correct to question the "givenness" of certain forms or "representation": we cannot choose how things appear to us because their mode of manifestation is dependent both on their constitution -what Rorty calls "causal pressure"and on our biological endowment. I will therefore argue that the community of minds is grounded at its deepest level on the community of common-sense, that is, on the fact that we human beings are animals who share a common stock of needs, impulses, and habits. There is no necessary connection between that conclusion and an alleged unmodifiability of human nature: the recourse to the notion of human nature is not a move available only to those who want to restore a metaphysical language which paves the way for a metaphysical view of reality, as Rorty seems to believe. Rather the contrary, it seems to me that the notion of human nature is deeply intertwined with Price's idea of subject naturalism, a philosophical project that Rorty endorses in his article Naturalism and Quietism. Through the confrontation with Rorty's philosophy I hope to succeed in sketching a sound philosophy of praxis revolving around the concepts of practice, normativity, and nature.