•  18
    This volume examines the limitations of mathematical logic and proposes a new approach to logic intended to overcome them. To this end, the book compares mathematical logic with earlier views of logic, both in the ancient and in the modern age, including those of Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant. From the comparison it is apparent that a basic limitation of mathematical logic is that it narrows down the scope of logic confining it to the study of deduction, without providing…Read more
  •  4
    This monograph addresses the question of the increasing irrelevance of philosophy, which has seen scientists as well as philosophers concluding that philosophy is dead and has dissolved into the sciences. It seeks to answer the question of whether or not philosophy can still be fruitful and what kind of philosophy can be such. The author argues that from its very beginning philosophy has focused on knowledge and methods for acquiring knowledge. This view, however, has generally been abandoned in…Read more
  • 9. Reason and Logic
    In Maria Cristina Amoretti & Nicla Vassallo (eds.), Reason and Rationality, Ontos Verlag. pp. 199-218. 2012.
  •  7
    Mathematics and Experience
    Foundations of Science 1-15. forthcoming.
    The question of whether mathematics depends on experience, including experience of the external world, is problematic because, while it is clear that natural sciences depend on experience, it is not clear that mathematics depends on experience. Indeed, several mathematicians and philosophers think that mathematics does not depend on experience, and this is also the view of mainstream philosophy of mathematics. However, this view has had a deleterious effect on the philosophy of mathematics. This…Read more
  • Qualche problema di filosofia della matematica
    Rivista di Filosofia 60 (2): 135. 1969.
  • Introduzione alla logica (edited book)
    Editori riuniti. 1976.
  • Scienza e storia (edited book)
    Il laboratorio. 1979.
  •  11
    Mainstream philosophy of mathematics, namely the philosophy of mathematics that has prevailed for the past century, claims that the philosophy of mathematics cannot concern itself with the making of mathematics, in particular discovery, but only with finished mathematics, namely mathematics presented in finished form. On this basis, mainstream philosophy of mathematics argues that mathematics is theorem proving by the axiomatic method. This, however, is untenable because it is incompatible with …Read more
  •  66
    Definition in mathematics
    European Journal for Philosophy of Science 8 (3): 605-629. 2018.
    In the past century the received view of definition in mathematics has been the stipulative conception, according to which a definition merely stipulates the meaning of a term in other terms which are supposed to be already well known. The stipulative conception has been so absolutely dominant and accepted as unproblematic that the nature of definition has not been much discussed, yet it is inadequate. This paper examines its shortcomings and proposes an alternative, the heuristic conception.
  • Il ruolo del principio di non contraddizione nelle teorie scientifiche
    Verifiche: Rivista Trimestrale di Scienze Umane 10 (1-3): 129-160. 1981.
  • Reuben Hersh is a champion of maverick philosophy of mathematics. He maintains that mathematics is a human activity, intelligible only in a social context; it is the subject where statements are capable in principle of being proved or disproved, and where proof or disproof bring unanimous agreement by all qualified experts; mathematicians' proof is deduction from established mathematics; mathematical objects exist only in the shared consciousness of human beings. In this paper I describe my seve…Read more
  •  23
    Reconnecting Logic with Discovery
    Topoi 39 (4): 869-880. 2020.
    According to a view going back to Plato, the aim of philosophy is to acquire knowledge and there is a method to acquire knowledge, namely a method of discovery. In the last century, however, this view has been completely abandoned, the attempt to give a rational account of discovery has been given up, and logic has been disconnected from discovery. This paper outlines a way of reconnecting logic with discovery.
  •  21
    Existential instantiation and normalization in sequent natural deduction
    Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 58 (2): 111-148. 1992.
    ellucci, C., Existential instantiation and normalization in sequent natural deduction, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 58 111–148. A sequent conclusion natural deduction system is introduced in which classical logic is treated per se, not as a special case of intuitionistic logic. The system includes an existential instantiation rule and involves restrictions on the discharge rules. Contrary to the standard formula conclusion natural deduction systems for classical logic, its normal derivations…Read more
  •  16
    The nature of the scientific method has been a main concern of philosophy from Plato to Mill. In that period logic has been considered to be a part of the methodology of science. Since Mill, however, the situation has completely changed. Logic has ceased to be a part of the methodology of science, and no Discourse on method has been written. Both logic and the methodology of science have stopped dealing with the process of discovery, and generally with the actual process of scientific research. …Read more
  •  21
    The Role of Notations in Mathematics
    Philosophia 48 (4): 1397-1412. 2020.
    The terms of a mathematical problem become precise and concise if they are expressed in an appropriate notation, therefore notations are useful to mathematics. But are notations only useful, or also essential? According to prevailing view, they are not essential. Contrary to this view, this paper argues that notations are essential to mathematics, because they may play a crucial role in mathematical discovery. Specifically, since notations may consist of symbolic notations, diagrammatic notation…Read more
  •  39
    Diagrams in Mathematics
    Foundations of Science 24 (3): 583-604. 2019.
    In the last few decades there has been a revival of interest in diagrams in mathematics. But the revival, at least at its origin, has been motivated by adherence to the view that the method of mathematics is the axiomatic method, and specifically by the attempt to fit diagrams into the axiomatic method, translating particular diagrams into statements and inference rules of a formal system. This approach does not deal with diagrams qua diagrams, and is incapable of accounting for the role diagram…Read more
  •  443
    Although there have never been so many professional philosophers as today, most of the questions discussed by today’s philosophers are of no interest to cultured people at large. Specifically, several scientists have maintained that philosophy has become an irrelevant subject. Thus philosophy is at a crossroads: either to continue on the present line, which relegates it into irrelevance, or to analyse the reasons of the irrelevance and seek an escape. This paper is an attempt to explore the seco…Read more
  •  69
    Is Mathematics Problem Solving or Theorem Proving?
    Foundations of Science 22 (1): 183-199. 2017.
    The question that is the subject of this article is not intended to be a sociological or statistical question about the practice of today’s mathematicians, but a philosophical question about the nature of mathematics, and specifically the method of mathematics. Since antiquity, saying that mathematics is problem solving has been an expression of the view that the method of mathematics is the analytic method, while saying that mathematics is theorem proving has been an expression of the view that…Read more
  •  24
    Top-Down and Bottom-Up Philosophy of Mathematics
    Foundations of Science 18 (1): 93-106. 2013.
    The philosophy of mathematics of the last few decades is commonly distinguished into mainstream and maverick, to which a ‘third way’ has been recently added, the philosophy of mathematical practice. In this paper the limitations of these trends in the philosophy of mathematics are pointed out, and it is argued that they are due to the fact that all of them are based on a top-down approach, that is, an approach which explains the nature of mathematics in terms of some general unproven assumption.…Read more
  •  158
    Knowledge, Truth and Plausibility
    Axiomathes 24 (4): 517-532. 2014.
    From antiquity several philosophers have claimed that the goal of natural science is truth. In particular, this is a basic tenet of contemporary scientific realism. However, all concepts of truth that have been put forward are inadequate to modern science because they do not provide a criterion of truth. This means that we will generally be unable to recognize a scientific truth when we reach it. As an alternative, this paper argues that the goal of natural science is plausibility and considers …Read more
  •  27
    The Universal Generalization Problem
    Logique Et Analyse 52. 2009.
    The universal generalization problem is the question: What entitles one to conclude that a property established for an individual object holds for any individual object in the domain? This amounts to the question: Why is the rule of universal generalization justified? In the modern and contemporary age Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Mill, Gentzen gave alternative solutions of the universal generalization problem. In this paper I consider Locke’s, Berkeley’s and Gentzen’s solutions and a…Read more
  •  57
    Rethinking Knowledge
    Metaphilosophy 46 (2): 213-234. 2015.
    The view that the subject matter of epistemology is the concept of knowledge is faced with the problem that all attempts so far to define that concept are subject to counterexamples. As an alternative, this article argues that the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is not merely a state of mind but rather a certain kind of response to the environment that is essential for survival. In this perspective, the article outlines…Read more
  • The limitations of mathematical logic either as a tool for the foundations of mathematics, or as a branch of mathematics, or as a tool for artificial intelligence, raise the need for a rethinking of logic. In particular, they raise the need for a reconsideration of the many doors the Founding Fathers of mathematical logic have closed historically. This paper examines three such doors, the view that logic should be a logic of discovery, the view that logic arises from method, and the view that lo…Read more
  •  1
    Mathematical Reasoning and Heuristics (edited book)
    with Donald Gillies
    College Publications. 2005.
    This volume is a collection of papers on philosophy of mathematics which deal with a series of questions quite different from those which occupied the minds of the proponents of the three classic schools: logicism, formalism, and intuitionism. The questions of the volume are not to do with justification in the traditional sense, but with a variety of other topics. Some are concerned with discovery and the growth of mathematics. How does the semantics of mathematics change as the subject develops…Read more
  • Why should the logic of discovery be revived?
    In E. Ippoliti (ed.), Heuristic Reasoning, Springer. pp. 11-27. 2014.
    Three decades ago Laudan posed the challenge: Why should the logic of discovery be revived? This paper tries to answer this question arguing that the logic of discovery should be revived, on the one hand, because, by Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem, mathematical logic fails to be the logic of justification, and only reviving the logic of discovery logic may continue to have an important role. On the other hand, scientists use heuristic tools in their work, and it may be useful to study…Read more
  •  227
    Rethinking Philosophy
    Philosophia 42 (2): 271-288. 2014.
    Can philosophy still be fruitful, and what kind of philosophy can be such? In particular, what kind of philosophy can be legitimized in the face of sciences? The aim of this paper is to answer these questions, listing the characteristics philosophy should have to be fruitful and legitimized in the face of sciences. Since the characteristics in question demand that philosophy search for new knowledge and new rules of discovery, a philosophy with such characteristics may be called the ‘heuristic v…Read more