by Prof. Michele Marsonet Many thinkers nowadays react against the strictures of the analytic tradition by reviving the American philosophy par excellence: pragmatism. The forerunner of this trend of thought in the second half of the past century is Quine, even though he has never been a full-fledged pragmatist: his stance is better pictured by saying that he inserted pragmatist elements in a largely analytic (and even logical empiricist) stance. Following Quine we find Rescher, who began reevaluating pragmatism in the late 1960’s. Rescher’s…
by Michele Marsonet University of Genoa Chair of Philosophy of Science Summary A pragmatist conception of logic rejects any kind of logical constructionism, based on the appeal to privileged ontological and epistemological items and to a perfect language supposedly provided by mathematical logic. Even in logic, “pluralism” must be the key-word if one does not want to be locked in the cage of conceptions that become rapidly outdated. Dealing with the dichotomy Absolutism/Relativism in logic, it may be observed that the enterprise of logic can…
by Michele Marsonet (University of Genoa) To what extent are we entitled to draw a border line between ontology and epistemology? To many contemporary thinkers a positive answer to this question looks attractive, mainly because it reflects convictions deeply entrenched in our common sense view of the world. However - they argue - anyone wishing to clarify the distinction between the ontological and the epistemological dimensions, without having recourse to unwarranted dogmas, should recognize that such a positive answer poses more problems th…