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1504Oltre la fisica normale. Interpretazioni alternative e teorie non standard nella fisica moderna (edited book)ISONOMIA - Epistemologica. 2013.Nella sua straordinaria opera scientifica, Franco Selleri si è sempre opposto alla rinuncia alla comprensione della struttura della realtà e della natura degli oggetti fisici, che egli considera come l’elemento caratterizzante delle principali teorie della fisica del Novecento e che è stata stigmatizzata da Karl Popper come tesi della “fine della strada in fisica”. Sin dalla fine degli anni ’60, egli ha sviluppato quella riflessione critica nei confronti delle teorie fondamentali della fisica mo…Read more
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312The Agency Theory of Causality, Anthropomorphism, and SimultaneityInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 28 (4): 375-395. 2014.The purpose of this article is to examine two important issues concerning the agency theory of causality: the charge of anthropomorphism and the relation of simultaneous causation. After a brief outline of the agency theory, sections 2–4 contain the refutation of the three main forms in which the charge of anthropomorphism is to be found in the literature. It will appear that it is necessary to distinguish between the subjective and the objective aspect of the concept of causation. This will lea…Read more
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153Causality, Teleology, and Thought Experiments in BiologyJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 46 (2): 279-299. 2015.Thought experiments de facto play many different roles in biology: economical, ethical, technical and so forth. This paper, however, is interested in whether there are any distinctive features of biological TEs as such. The question may be settled in the affirmative because TEs in biology have a function that is intimately connected with the epistemological and methodological status of biology. Peculiar to TEs in biology is the fact that the reflexive, typically human concept of finality may be …Read more
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83Zum Verhältnis zwischen Experiment und Gedankenexperiment in den NaturwissenschaftenJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 38 (2): 219-237. 2007.On the relation between experiment and thought experiment in the natural sciences. To understand the reciprocal autonomy and complementarity of thought and real experiment, it is necessary to distinguish between a ‘positive’ (empirical or formal) and a transcendental perspective. Empirically and formally, real and thought experiments are indistinguishable. However, from a reflexive-transcendental viewpoint thought experiment is at the same time irreducible and complementary to real experiment. T…Read more
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80Holism and Reductionism in the Illness/Disease DebateIn Shyam Wuppuluri & Ian Stewart (eds.), From Electrons to Elephants and Elections: Saga of Content and Context, Springer. pp. 743-778. 2022.In the last decades it has become clear that medicine must find some way to combine its scientific and humanistic sides. In other words, an adequate notion of medicine requires an integrative position that mediates between the analytic-reductionist and the normative-holistic tendencies we find therein. This is especially important as these different styles of reasoning separate “illness” (something perceived and managed by the whole individual in concert with their environment) and “disease” (a …Read more
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73On medicine as a human scienceTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 24 (1): 79-94. 2003.All the powerful influences exertedby the subjective-interpersonal dimension onthe organic or technical-functional dimensionof sickness and health do not make anintersubjective test concerning medicaltherapeutic results impossible. Theseinfluences are not arbitrary; on the contrary,they obey laws that are de facto sufficientlystable to allow predictions and explanationssimilar to those of experimental sciences.While, in this respect, the rules concerninghuman action are analogous to the scientif…Read more
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62Pierre Duhem and Ernst Mach on Thought ExperimentsHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 8 (1): 1-27. 2018.The conventional interpretation that Pierre Duhem condemned outright any type of thought experiment in Ernst Mach’s sense should be, at least in large part, rejected. Although Duhem placed particular emphasis on the perils of thought experiments that Mach had overlooked or at least underestimated, he retained the core idea of Mach’s theory, according to which thought experiments cannot break free from the ultimate authority of real-world experiments. This similarity between Duhem’s and Mach’s vi…Read more
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60Mechanisms, Experiments, and Theory-Ladenness: A Realist–Perspectivalist ViewAxiomathes 26 (4): 411-427. 2016.The terms “perspectivism” and “perspectivalism” have been the focus of an intense philosophical discussion with important repercussions for the debate about the role of mechanisms in scientific explanations. However, leading exponents of the new mechanistic philosophy have conceded more than was necessary to the radically subjectivistic perspectivalism, and fell into the opposite error, by retaining not negligible residues of objectivistic views about mechanisms. In order to remove this vacillat…Read more
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54Thought Experiments in Philosophy: A Neo-Kantian and Experimentalist Point of ViewTopoi 38 (4): 771-779. 2019.The paper addresses the question of the nature and limits of philosophical thought experiments. On the one hand, experimental philosophers are right to claim that we need much more laboratory work in order to have more reliable thought experiments, but on the other hand a naturalism that is too radical is incapable of clarifying the peculiarity of thought experiments in philosophy. Starting from a historico-critical reconstruction of Kant’s concept of the “experiments of pure reason”, this paper…Read more
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54On thought experiments and the Kantian a priori in the natural sciences: a reply to Yiftach J.H. FehigeEpistemologia 36 (2): 277-293. 2013.This paper replies to objections that have been raised against my operational-Kantian account of thought experiments by Fehige 2012 and 2013. Fehige also sketches an alternative Neo-Kantian account that utilizes Michael Friedman’s concept of a contingent and changeable a priori. To this I shall reply, first, that Fehige’s objections not only neglect some fundamental points I had made as regards the realizability of TEs, but also underestimate the principle of empiricism, which was rightly defend…Read more
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53Kant und das Gedankenexperiment. Über eine kantische Theorie der Gedankenexperimente in den Naturwissenschaften und in der PhilosophieDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 59 (1): 93-107. 2011.Why, for such a long time, has there been no Kantian point of view among the most influential theories about thought experiments? The primary historical reason the main trends in the philosophy of science have always rejected the existence of a priori knowledge fits a theoretical reason. Kant oscillated between two very different views about the a priori: on the one hand, he attributed to it a particular content, whereas on the other hand he insisted on its purely formal character. The first…Read more
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50Poppers methodologischer individualismus und die sozialwissenschaftenJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 35 (1): 157-173. 2004.Popper's methodological individualism and the social sciences. Popper's philosophy of social sciences poses a dilemma that arises out of the two theses of methodological individualism and situational logic. In order to find a way out of this dilemma, one must raise the question concerning the epistemological and methodological status of the `laws' of the human sciences. There are indeed `rules' from which human actions depart mostly to a negligible extent, but they remain valid or stay in effect…Read more
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47Erkenntnistheoretische und ontologische probleme der theoretischen begriffeJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 28 (1): 19-53. 1997.Operationalism and theoretical entities. The thesis of the“theory ladenness” of observation leads to an antinomy. In order to solve this antinomy a technical operationalism is sketched, according to which theories should in principle not contain anything that cannot be reduced to technical procedures. This implies the rejection of Quine's underdeterminacy thesis and of many views about the theoretical-observational distinction, e.g. neopositivistic views, van Fraassen's view, Sneed-Stegmüller's …Read more
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44Empirical Thought Experiments: A Transcendental-Operational ViewEpistemologia 33 (1): 5-26. 2009.The operational perspective here defended permits a reflexive-transcendental point of view that sharply distinguishes the two concepts, while, at the same time, maintaining the connection between them. On the one hand, simply imagining that the experimental apparatus, counterfactually anticipated in a thought experiment, has really been constructed is sufficient to erase any difference between thought and real experiments. On the other hand, this very ‘imagining’, this capacity of the mind to as…Read more
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42Gödel, Searle, and the Computational Theory of the MindIn Alessandro Giordani & Ciro de Florio (eds.), From Arithmetic to Metaphysics: A Path Through Philosophical Logic, De Gruyter. pp. 41-60. 2018.Marco Buzzoni Gödel, Searle, and the Computational Theory of the (Other) Mind According to Sergio Galvan, some of the arguments offered by Lucas and Penrose are somewhat obscure or even logically invalid, but he accepts their fundamental idea that a human mind does not work as a computational machine. His main point is that there is a qualitative difference between the principles of the logic of provability and those of the logic of evidence and belief. To evaluate this suggestion, I shal…Read more
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40A Neglected Chapter in the History of Philosophy of Mathematical Thought Experiments: Insights from Jean Piaget’s Reception of Edmond GoblotHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11 (1): 282-304. 2021.Since the beginning of the twentieth century, prominent authors including Jean Piaget have drawn attention to Edmond Goblot’s account of mathematical thought experiments. But his contribution to today’s debate has been neglected so far. The main goal of this article is to reconstruct and discuss Goblot’s account of logical operations (the term he used for thought experiments in mathematics) and its interpretation by Piaget against the theoretical background of two open questions in today’s debat…Read more
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40Thought Experiment in the Natural Sciences. An Operational and Reflective-Transcendental ConceptionKönigshausen+Neumann. 2008.This work interprets the notion of thought experiment (TE) from the viewpoint of a functional reading of the a priori, that is, an a priori that is devoid of any particular content. It is true that Kant ascribes some content to the (synthetic) a priori, but only a functional reading of the a priori agrees with the spirit of Kant's philosophy and can be used for developing a consistent account of TEs. On the basis of this concept of the a priori, an account is developed that mediates between Brow…Read more
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36Evandro Agazzi: Scientific Objectivity and Its Contexts (review)Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 47 (1): 257-259. 2016.
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36The operationalistic and hermeneutic status of psychoanalysisJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 32 (1): 131--165. 2001.Hermeneutic and anti-hermeneutic sides in the debate about psychoanalysis are entangled in an epistemological and methodological antinomy, here exemplified by Grünbaum's and Spence's paradigmatic views. Both contain a partial element of truth, which they assert dialectically one against the other (§§ 1 and 2). This antinomy disappears only by reconciling an operationalist approach with man's ability to suspend the effectiveness of the‘laws’ applied to him (§ 3). The hermeneutic way in which the …Read more
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30A Neglected Chapter in the History of Philosophy of Mathematical Thought Experiments: Insights from Jean Piaget’s Reception of Edmond GoblotHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11 (1): 282-304. 2021.Since the beginning of the twentieth century, prominent authors including Jean Piaget have drawn attention to Edmond Goblot’s account of mathematical thought experiments. But his contribution to today’s debate has been neglected so far. The main goal of this article is to reconstruct and discuss Goblot’s account of logical operations (the term he used for thought experiments in mathematics) and its interpretation by Piaget against the theoretical background of two open questions in today’s debat…Read more
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29Medicine as a human science between the singularity of the patient and technical scientific reproducibilityPoiesis and Praxis 1 (3): 171-184. 2003.The often-emphasized tension between the singularity of the patient and technicalâscientific reproducibility in medicine cannot be resolved without a discussion of the epistemological and methodological status of the human sciences. On the one hand, the rules concerning human action are analogous to the scientific laws of nature. They are de facto sufficiently stable to allow predictions and explanations similar to those of experimental sciences. From this point of view, it is only a trivial t…Read more
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24Thought Experiments in Philosophy: A Neo-Kantian and Experimentalist Point of ViewTopoi 38 (4): 771-779. 2019.The paper addresses the question of the nature and limits of philosophical thought experiments. On the one hand, experimental philosophers are right to claim that we need much more laboratory work in order to have more reliable thought experiments, but on the other hand a naturalism that is too radical is incapable of clarifying the peculiarity of thought experiments in philosophy. Starting from a historico-critical reconstruction of Kant’s concept of the “experiments of pure reason”, this paper…Read more
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18On thought experiments and the Kantian a priori in the natural sciences: a reply to Yiftach J.H. FehigeEpistemologia 2 277-293. 2014.
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15Are there Mathematical Thought Experiments?Axiomathes 32 (1): 79-94. 2022.With reference to an already existing and relatively widespread use of the expression in question, mathematical “thought experiments” (“TEs”) involve mathematical reasoning in which visualisation plays a relatively more important role. But to ensure an unambiguous and consistent use of the term, certain conditions have to be met: (1) Contrary to what has happened so far in the literature, the distinction between logical-formal thinking and experimental-operational thinking must not be ignored; (…Read more
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15The Janus-Faced Nature of Philosophy of Science: Eleven ThesesAxiomathes 31 (6): 743-762. 2021.Elsewhere I have tried to provide the justification of both the irreducible distinction of science and philosophy and their inevitable complementarity. Unlike empirical science, philosophy has no limit whatever as far as its possible objects are concerned. To say that there is no limit whatever to the possible objects of philosophy is to say that, strictly speaking, it has no object at all and must find its object outside itself, that is, in common sense knowledge and the natural and human scien…Read more
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13Is Technology an Autonomous Process? Technology, Scientific Experiment, and Human PersonAxiomathes 30 (6): 629-648. 2020.Despite the many turns that philosophy of technology has undergone in recent decades, the question of the nature and limits of technological determinism (TD) has been neglected, because it was considered as solved and overcome, and therefore not worth further discussion. This paper once again raises the problem of TD, by trying to save the opposing, but complementary elements of truth of the two main forms of TD that I shall call “nomological” and “normative”: (a) technology is all-pervasive and…Read more
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11Kantian Accounts of Thought ExperimentsIn James Robert Brown, Yiftach J. H. Fehige & Michael T. Stuart (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, Routledge. 2018.The paper outlines a critical history of the concept of TE from a broadly Kantian viewpoint. The thread of our discussion has been Kant's position on the nature of the a priori and how each neo-Kantian theory of TEs can be understood in terms of its own position on this issue. Section 2 examines some aspects of Kant's philosophy that are related to today's debate on TEs. Section 3 is devoted to the precursors of neo-Kantian accounts of TEs, with a special emphasis on Ørsted's account. This autho…Read more