Riccardo Martinelli

This essay is about the Wolfgang Köhler’s philosophical ideas expressed in his The Place of Value in a World of Facts of 1938. Köhler, who strongly supports a scientific world view, considers the question as to whether science is able to cope with human values, besides natural facts. Relying upon phenomenological analyses, and on his previous researches in natural philosophy, Köhler introduces his doctrine of “epistemological dualism”. From a historical point of view, this theory exhibits some similarity with the philosophical ideas expressed by Köhler’s Berlin mentor Carl Stumpf. It is argued that Köhler’s epistemological dualism actually supports ontological monism and aims at offering a unified view of natural facts and human values.

Peirce’ s intellectual debt to Kant’ s transcendentalism has been long recognized. In this essay I investigate Kant’ s thoughts on “what is pragmatic” as a source of inspiration for him. Peirce was well acquainted with this often neglected facet of Kant’ s philosophy, that influenced both the core idea and the lexical coinage of his pragmatism. Both thinkers drew attention to the consequences of cognition for human actions. Pointing at the definition of the meaning of a defined notion, however, Peirce narrows remarkably the domain of Kant’ s “pragmatic horizon”. Accordingly, Kant cannot be truly considered a forerunner of Peirce’ s pragmatism.

This essay addresses the interrelations between philosophy and experimental sciences that lie at the heart of Carl Stumpf’s epistemology. Following a biographical exposé demonstrating how Stumpf succeeded in acquiring a dual competence in both philosophical and scientific fields, we examine the vast array of academic disciplines encompassed by his research. Such a biographical treatment aims, indeed, to better promote the thrust of Stumpf’s assertion that philosophical enquiries should always be carried out in close connection with scientific practices, and underlines how philosophico-scientific interactions established his work as a central pillar in the history of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German thought.

Con lo sviluppo dell'antropologia moderna, alcuni problemi filosofici si ripropongono in forma inedita. Riflettere sull'uomo non significa più conoscere se stessi, né parlare di Dio o dell'anima, ma confrontarsi con un essere problematicamente proteso tra determinatezza e libertà, tra "natura" e "mondo". Il volume mostra come lo svolgersi di questa vicenda sia assai meno frammentario e discontinuo di quanto talora si presuma. Il problema antropologico è al centro di un vivace ed aspro dibattito che, dal fiorire dell'antropologia all'epoca di Herder e Kant, giunge, attraversando l'intero sviluppo del pensiero ottocentesco e in particolare le opere di Hegel, Marx, Darwin e Nietzsche, fino all'«antropologia filosofica» e alla critica dell’«antropologismo» da parte di Husserl e Heidegger. E’ su questo sfondo tematico che si comprendono molti degli sviluppi novecenteschi e contemporanei

This essay focuses on realism in ontology and on the problem of defining reality. According to the definition given by many realists, reality is independent of our thoughts, conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, etc. Yet, this merely negative definition of reality has some disadvantages: it implies a dualistic view, and it is incompatible with scientific realism. As an alternative, I introduce and discuss the traditional definition of reality as effectiveness, or capability of acting. I then attempt to determine to what extent this definition can be helpful in the debate concerning ontological realism.