Historical Epistemology and European Philosophy of Science: Rethinking Critical Rationalism and Transcendentalism

415 Pages·2022·5.087 MB·English

by  Fabio Minazzi

Studies in Applied Philosophy,
Epistemology and Rational Ethics
Fabio Minazzi
Historical
Epistemology
and European
Philosophy
of Science
Rethinking Critical Rationalism and
Transcendentalism
Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology
and Rational Ethics
Volume 62
Editor-in-Chief
LorenzoMagnani,DepartmentofHumanities,PhilosophySection,Universityof
Pavia,Pavia,Italy
EditorialBoard
AtochaAliseda,UniversidadNacionalAutónomadeMéxico(UNAM),Mexico,
Mexico
GiuseppeLongo,CNRS-EcoleNormaleSupérieure,CentreCavailles,Paris,
France
ChrisSinha,SchoolofForeignLanguages,HunanUniversity,Changsha,China
PaulThagard,UniversityofWaterloo,Waterloo,Canada
JohnWoods,UniversityofBritishColumbia,Vancouver,Canada
Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics (SAPERE)
publishes new developments and advances in all the fields of philosophy,
epistemology, and ethics, bringing them together with a cluster of scientific
disciplines and technological outcomes: ranging from computer science to life
sciences, from economics, law, and education to engineering, logic, and mathe-
matics,frommedicinetophysics,humansciences,andpolitics.Theseriesaimsat
covering all the challenging philosophical and ethical themes of contemporary
society, making them appropriately applicable to contemporary theoretical and
practical problems, impasses, controversies, and conflicts. Our scientific and
technological era has offered “new” topics to all areas of philosophy and ethics –
forinstanceconcerningscientificrationality,creativity,humanandartificialintelli-
gence, social and folk epistemology, ordinary reasoning, cognitive niches and
culturalevolution,ecologicalcrisis,ecologicallysituatedrationality,consciousness,
freedom and responsibility, human identity and uniqueness, cooperation, altruism,
intersubjectivityandempathy,spirituality,violence.Theimpactofsuchtopicshas
been mainly undermined by contemporary cultural settings, whereas they should
increasethedemandofinterdisciplinaryappliedknowledgeandfreshandoriginal
understanding. In turn, traditional philosophical and ethical themes have been
profoundly affected and transformed as well: they should be further examined as
embeddedandappliedwithintheirscientificandtechnologicalenvironmentssoto
update their received and often old-fashioned disciplinary treatment and appeal.
Applying philosophy individuates therefore a new research commitment for the
21st century, focused on the main problems of recent methodological, logical,
epistemological, and cognitive aspects of modeling activities employed both in
intellectualandscientificdiscovery,andintechnologicalinnovation,includingthe
computational tools intertwined with such practices, to understand them in a wide
and integrated perspective. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and
RationalEthicsmeanstodemonstratethecontemporarypracticalrelevanceofthis
novel philosophical approach and thus to provide a home for monographs, lecture
notes,selectedcontributionsfromspecializedconferencesandworkshopsaswellas
selectedPh.D.theses.Theserieswelcomescontributionsfromphilosophersaswell
as fromscientists,engineers, and intellectuals interested inshowing how applying
philosophycanincreaseknowledgeaboutourcurrentworld.Initialproposalscanbe
senttotheEditor-in-Chief,Prof.LorenzoMagnani,[email protected]:
(cid:129)
Ashortsynopsisoftheworkortheintroductionchapter
(cid:129)
TheproposedTableofContents
(cid:129)
TheCVoftheleadauthor(s).
Formoreinformation,[email protected].
IndexedbySCOPUS,zbMATH,SCImago,DBLP.
AllbookspublishedintheseriesaresubmittedforconsiderationinWebofScience.
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttps://link.springer.com/bookseries/10087
Fabio Minazzi
Historical Epistemology
and European Philosophy
of Science
Rethinking Critical Rationalism
and Transcendentalism
FabioMinazzi
DipartimentodiScienzeTeoriche
eApplicate
UniversitàdegliStudidell’Insubria
Varese,Italy
Translatedby
Dr.RichardSadleir
Cambridge,UK
ISSN2192-6255 ISSN2192-6263 (electronic)
StudiesinAppliedPhilosophy,EpistemologyandRationalEthics
ISBN978-3-030-96331-6 ISBN978-3-030-96332-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96332-3
TranslationfromtheItalianlanguageedition:Epistemologiastorico-evolutivaeneo-realismologicoby
FabioMinazzi,©LeoS.OlschkiEditore,Florence2021.PublishedbyLeoS.OlschkiEditore.AllRights
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Advisory Editors
AkinoriAbe,FacultyofLetters,ChibaUniversity,Chiba,Japan
HanneAndersen,CentreforScienceStudies,AarhusUniversity,Aarhus,Denmark
OtávioBueno,DepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofMiami,CoralGables,FL,
USA
MarceloDascal,DepartmentofPhilosophy,TelAvivUniversity,TelAviv,Israel
Gordana Dodig Crnkovic, Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
ChalmersUniversityofTechnology,Gothenburg,Sweden
MichelGhins,InstitutSupérieurdePhilosophie,UniversitéCatholiquedeLouvain,
Louvain-la-Neuve,Belgium
MarcelloGuarini,DepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofWindsor,Windsor,ON,
Canada
RicardoGudwin,ComputerEngineeringandIndustrialAutomation,StateUniversity
ofCampinas,Campinas,Brazil
AlbrechtHeeffer,SartonCentrefortheHistoryofScience,GhentUniversity,Gent,
Belgium
Gerhard Minnameier, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Hessen,
Germany
MargaretC.Morrison,TrinityCollege,UniversityofToronto,Toronto,ON,Canada
YukioOhsawa,SchoolofEngineering,TheUniversityofTokyo,Tokyo,Japan
Sami Paavola, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki,
Finland
WoosukPark,HumanitiesandSocialSciences,KAIST,Daejeon,Korea(Republicof)
Luís Moniz Pereira, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de
Lisboa,Caparica,Portugal
Ahti-VeikkoPietarinen,DepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofHelsinki,Helsinki,
Finland
Demetris Portides, Department of Classics and Philosophy, University of Cyprus,
Nicosia,Cyprus
AthanassiosRaftopoulos,Psychology,UniversityofCyprus,Nicosia,Cyprus
Gerhard Schurz, Department of Philosophy, DCLPS, Heinrich Heine University,
Düsseldorf,Nordrhein-Westfalen,Germany
v
vi AdvisoryEditors
CameronShelley,CentreforSociety,Technology&Values,UniversityofWaterloo,
Waterloo,ON,Canada
FrederikStjernfelt,CenterforSemiotics,UniversityofAarhus,AarhusC,Denmark
MauricioSuárez,LogicandPhilosophyofScience,ComplutenseUniversity,Madrid,
Spain
Jeroen van den Hoven, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft
UniversityofTechnology,Delft,Zuid-Holland,TheNetherlands
Peter-Paul Verbeek, Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, Enschede,
Overijssel,TheNetherlands
MireilleHildebrandt,ErasmusMC,Rotterdam,TheNetherlands
MichaelH.G.Hoffmann,SchoolofPublicPolicy,GeorgiaInstituteofTechnology,
Atlanta,GA,USA
Alfredo Pereira, Institute of Biosciences, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo,
Brazil
DagmarProvijn,CentreforLogicandPhilosophy,GhentUniversity,Ghent,Belgium
Joao Queiroz, Institute of Arts and Design, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora,
JuizdeFora,Brazil
ColinT.Schmidt,EnsamParisTech&LeMansUniversity,Laval,France
NoraSchwartz, Department of Humanities, Universidad de Buenos Aires,Buenos
Aires,Argentina
MarionVorms,Pantheon-SorbonneUniversity,Paris,France
Riccardo Viale, Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Milano-
Bicocca,Milan,Italy
InmemoryofmymotherEsther
Antonietta Bianchi(1926–2017)
Foreword
FabioMinazziisaveryproductivescholar:Heisauthororco-authorofmorethan30
books,andeditororco-editorofmorethan80volumes,andhaspublishedmorethan
600papersgoingfromcontributionsincollectivevolumes,toarticlesinprofessional
journals,popularjournals,newspapers,bookreviews,andoccasionalnotesofvery
differentkinds.Theveryamplitudeofhisproduction,notlessthanthegreatvariety
ofscope,level,anddestinationofhispublishedmaterials(thatgofromtheoretical
philosophy,tohistoryofphilosophyandscience,toeducationalproblems,topolitical
issues and commitment), makes it difficult to form a portrayal of a person who
combines the passion and gift for intellectual work with a remarkable aptitude for
organizationalactivityandculturalpromotion.
Another obstacle for a full appreciation of Minazzi’s scholarly profile is of a
linguisticnatureandconsistsinthefactthattheoverwhelmingmajorityofhispubli-
cations is in Italian. This language is certainly not “provincial” and in particular
counts with a very large platform of intellectual readers and discussants that has
securedtoMinazziasolidreputationespeciallyforhisstudiesonGalileo,hisorig-
inal position in the philosophy of science, his valuable studies in the history of
contemporaryphilosophy.Yet,itiswellknownthatlinguisticbarriersofthiskind
affectalsoauthorswhowriteinlanguagesevenbetterknownthanItalian,andthisis
detrimentalfromthepointofviewofaninternationalrecognition.Itisespeciallythis
reasonthathasencouragedFabioMinazzitopreparethepresentbook,whichdoes
notconsistoftranslations,butcontainspapersthathavebeenoriginallypublishedin
English,andsignificantlycoveralltheaspectsoftheauthor’sscholarlyproduction.
Thiswayofdoing,bytheway,hasprovedprofitableandhasbeenadoptedbyseveral
reputedscholarswhosemostimportantandreferredbooksoftenconsistofselected
papershavingacertainthematicunity.
PartIofthisworkisdevotedtoMinazzi’spositioninphilosophyofsciencethat
he qualifies as “Historical-Evolutionary Epistemology and Logical Neo-Realism”
and encompasses topics like the problem of scientific objectivity envisaged from
differentpointsofview(e.g.,theaxiomatization,thelogical–linguisticanalysis,the
operationalapproach)besidesmorespecializedtreatmentsrelatedtohermeneutics
ix
x Foreword
andontology.Allthisaccompaniedbytheawarenessofthehistoricalconditioning
ofsuchvariousconstituentsofscientificepistemology.
ThehistoricalopennessisparticularlypresentinPartII“SomeMomentsofScien-
tificandPhilosophicalThought”wherethedoctrinesofauthorssuchasKant,Galileo,
Einstein, and Darwin are discussed and a valuable survey of the historical episte-
mologyintheItaliandebateofthetwentiethcenturyisoffered.Thisinterestinthe
historyofcontemporaryphilosophyisdominantinPartIIIdevotedto“Studieson
ContemporaryThought”inwhichofparticularinterestarethechaptersdevotedto
thephilosophyofGiulioPretithatMinazzipresentswithspecialaccuracyduetothe
factofavailinghimselfofarichineditedmaterialofthisimportantbutlittleknown
philosopher.
Fromtheabovefollowsthedoublereasonofinterestofthisvolume.Ontheone
hand, it is a means for offering to the international philosophical community the
opportunityofabetteracquaintancewithaseriousandimportantscholarasFabio
Minazzi.Ontheotherhand,itofferstothesamecommunityavaluablecontribution
for the knowledge of a very significant but still little known philosophical school
operatinginItalyduringthewholeofthetwentiethcentury,the“MilanSchool”that,
beyond many cultural and ideological differences of its individual representatives,
constitutedatrendofcriticalrationalismindialoguewiththemostsignificantcurrents
oftheEuropeanandAmericanphilosophy.
MexicoCity,Mexico EvandroAgazzi