A Note on the Nature of Philosophy

Nell'ambito della sezione "Italian Philosophical Traditions" del World Congress of Philosophy, terrò una relazione su "Epistemologia e filosofia della praxis. Le "scienze sperimentali e naturali" nei Quaderni del carcere di Antonio Gramsci" nella quale anticiperò alcune delle principali piste di ricerca del mio lavoro dottorale!

Eternity&Contradiction - Journal of Fundamental Ontology, 2022

In the article, we aim at understanding the metaphilosophical implications of Emanuele Severino's concept of philosophy, asking what contribution it can offer to solving the question concerning the scope, form and consequent legitimation of philosophy as a discipline, which occupied the philosophical discourse with more and more urgency over the last few years.

ETS, 2012

Over the last decades, a renewed interest for metaphilosophical issues has prompted many philosophers in the analytic tradition to raise questions on the epistemic status and the methodology of philosophical inquiry. Reflection has focused especially on the nature and reliability of intuitions, on the notion of a priori and on the plausibility of the idea that philosophical knowledge can be gained, as the phrase goes, “in the armchair”. This attitude stems from various sources, such as the cognitive turn that has shaped a consistent part of recent Anglophone philosophy, the revival of metaphysics encouraged by Kripke’s rehabilitation of de re necessity, and the formulation of new accounts of analyticity and a priori knowledge. In part, however, metaphilosophical issues have become so urgent for analytical philosophers as a result of the increasing attraction of so-called “experimental philosophy”. Upholders of experimental philosophy are driven by the idea that phi-losophical inquiry cannot afford to ignore the data gathered by empirical sciences. Considering the tendency to discount empirical results and to retreat into the domain of the a priori as a relatively recent development in philosophical methodology, they advocate a return to an earlier idea of philosophy, conceived as the study of the deepest questions raised by the human condition, a study necessarily open to the contributions of various empirical disciplines, such as psychology, cognitive sciences, social sciences and history. Moreover, in the last fifteen years or so, practitioners of experimental philosophy have collected several sets of empirical data, from which they wish to draw significant consequences about the plausibility of various philosophical views concerning linguistic reference, the nature of knowledge, various issues in moral philosophy and several other subjects. Many ex-perimental philosophers believe that empirical research can enhance the reliability of philosophical inquiry by helping its practitioners to detect their own susceptibilities to bias and error. The aim of these experimental philosophers is to make a “positive” contribution to the practice of philosophical analysis. Some experimental philosophers, however, are more radical: their “negative programme” is to show that the traditional way of doing philosophy, with its reliance on counterfactual reasoning and intuitions prompted by mental experiments, is intrinsically unreliable. As one would expect, this more radical position has sparked serious concern among practitioners of traditional philosophical analysis, who have reacted to its challenge in various ways: by questioning the soundness of the methodology employed by experimental philosophers in collecting their data, by denying that such empirical data can have any genuine bearing on philosophical research, or by refining their own view of the nature of the intuitions and/or methods employed in conceptual and/or philosophical analysis. This issue of Discipline filosofiche includes two opening articles by two leading exponents of the opposite sides of the debate, Ernest Sosa and Jonathan Weinberg, and collects papers representing a wide range of approaches and positions on many of the issues raised by this clash of metaphilosophical paradigms.

Jacques Derrida first dwelled on a right to philosophy in his Du droit à la philosophie, 1990. Since that book, inside the philosophical practices movements, many things have changed: philosophy is not only a school discipline but it is also a practice that is performed in many places, even unexpected, such as prisons, municipalities, hospitals, children gardens and primary schools and the idea of the existence of the right to philosophy has been growing up. We usually ask for a right when we think it is denied without a reason. Is there anyone who denies this right? And what has now become the so “popular” and “hyper-specialized” philosophy? What would we expect the philosophy to be in the next years? How could philosophical dissemination reach a sharing elaboration of philosophizing? What are the risks and the benefits of this process? Chapters in English, Italian, Spanish and Portoguese. All the abstracts are in English.

Reports from the Department of Philosophy, 2019

This study belongs firmly to the genre of metaphilosophy, as it reflects on topics pertaining to the subject matter, method and aim of philosophy itself by using philosophy’s own usual tools and approaches. The contents of this study are divided into four main chapters, which have their own specific topics and goals. In the first chapter the various manifestations of philosophy’s multifaceted identity are under focus. We can clarify the diversity evident in philosophy by introducing the notion of conception of philosophy. These are sets of philosophical theses, which present us with their disinctive takes on philosophy’s topics, methods and purposes. Conceptions of philosophy must, however, be strictly separated from other related phenomena (such as schools, traditions and movements), which are in their own ways involved in creating the pluralism existing in philosophy. To close the chapter I argue for the importance of these themes. The second chapter examines the distinctive point of view and aim of metaphilosophical reflection and chronicles its past. I also defend the value of this inquiry. Although metaphilosophising as a form of philosophical research has a long past, it has only recently emerged as its own distinct branch in philosophy. Thus philosophers still use this name in numerous different ways, and there has not previously been many in-depth overviews of the nature of metaphilosophical reflection itself. To remedy this situation, I clarify the nature of metaphilosophy as a ”philosophy of philosophy” of sorts, which is best viewed as an internal enterprise operating within the bounds of philosophy proper. I also examine the potential problematics inherent in this arrangement. The third chapter presents as a metaphilosophical case study the so-called naturalism-question. This issue pertains to the way how to properly construe the role, province and stature of philosophy in relation to the undertakings of empirical special sciences. However, in the discussions between naturalists and anti-naturalists (who are in this work represented by advocates of the view known as metaphilosophical rationalism), there exists misunderstandings and toxic forms of rhetoric. I point out these aspects in hopes of making them more apparent. At the chapter’ end I also consider the significance of the naturalismquestion for the near future of philosophy. The fourth chapter studies the methodology of the so-called armchair philosophy, that is, intuitions and the thought experiments which are used to elicit and articualte such intuitions. Despite the attention these methods have received in the recent metaphilosophical literature, there still exists confusions and disagreements in this topic. I hope to set at least few of these issues straight with my metaphilosophical examination of these themes.

"Quaderni della ricerca" n. 2, pp. 173-198, 2012

Philosophica, 1984

Phainomenon. Journal of Phenomenological Philosophy, 2022

This paper reads Husserl's phenomenology as an attempt to solve the crisis of our civilization. It is well known that for him the deep roots of this crisis are related to a misunderstanding of the idea of rationality that leads to skepticism and relativism. It is also well known that in order to overcome this situation Husserl will propound a new idea of reason and rationality that will supposedly fulfill the old dream with which philosophy was born in Greece: To be episteme, rigorous science valid at all times and in all places. Taking this general thesis into account, the paper will defend that Husserl is a foundationalist thinker and that the idea of philosophy as strenge Wissenschaft is present throughout his whole work, including, of course, Ideen I. This in some way "classic" interpretation tries to discuss other recent ways of understanding the whole Husserlian project, particularly Dan Zahavi's reading, in which the foundationalist position is downplayed.