According to the standard interpretation, Italian pragmatism is split into two groups. On the one hand is the mathematician Giovanni Vailati, Peano’s former collaborator, and his disciple, the economist Mario Calderoni. On the other hand, there are the two “brats,” Giovanni Papini and Giuseppe Prezzolini, naïve philosophers with eccentric ideas. While Vailati and Calderoni followed Peirce’s mathematical and logical pragmatism, the other two articulated a “magical” pragmatism, a kind of relativist, post-modern version of the original American (...) movement. The paper shows that this narrative is incomplete. During the years 1905-6, while Vailati was living in Florence, Italian pragmatists listed three kinds of pragmatism among themselves. Relying on the third stripe, attributed to Vailati, they found a more Unitarian, theoretical project that united the will to belief and the precision of reasoning. The unity did not last very long because Vailati moved from Florence in 1906. However, the common project from 1905-6 remains the highest peak of their awareness of pragmatism and, possibly, an original way to interpret it. (shrink)

Ettore Regàlia.--Herbert Spencer.--F. C. S. Schiller.--Giorgio Hegel.--Giorgio Berkeley.--Giovanni Ruskin.--Rodolfo Eucken.--Federico Nietzsche.--Carlo Michelstaedter.--Giambattista Vico.--Enrico Bergson.--Giovanni Vailati.--Otto Weininger.--Mario Galderoni.--Ciuang-tse.--La Toscana e la filosofia italiana.--Nota bibliografica (p. 351) Indice alfabetico.

This paper is a contribution to the study of the four classical Italian pragmatists: Papini, Prezzolini, Vailati and Calderoni. They are seen more as representatives of a pragmatist movement than as singular systematic thinkers. The center of Italian pragmatism was the periodical, Leonardo, where these authors discussed and presented an original and provocative understanding of pragmatist philosophy. Thier understanding of pragmatist philosophy has often been underestimated by the subsequent literature. They showed a good comprehension of the novelty brought by (...) American pragmatism but, ignoring some of the most important epistemic aspects of Peirce’s and James’s theories, their philosophical proposals often missed consistency. However, even in their misunderstandings, they signaled a need and possibly a weakness of the whole pragmatist movement. Italian pragmatists underlined the importance of the concreteness of individuals in the realization of universal laws of mathematics and logic, physics and psychology. But, this attitude suffered from some serious tensions between metaphysical assumptions and methodological claims. (shrink)

The paper introduces Vailati’s life and works, investigating Vailati’s education, the relation to Peano and his school, and the interest for pragmatism and modernism. A detailed analysis of Vailati’s scientific and didactic activities, shows that he held, like Peano, a a strong interest for the history of science and a pluralist, anti-dogmatic and anti-foundationalist conception of definitions in mathematics, logic and philosophy of language. Vailati’s understanding of mathematical logic as a form of pragmatism is not a (...) faithful interpretation of Peano’s conception, but it is essential to understand the relations of Peano’s logic with other philosophical traditions and some epistemological aspects of Peano’s perspective, such as the search for a universal language. (shrink)

L’influenza dell’ideologia risorgimentale si indirizza a rendere centrale, nell’Italia di fine Ottocento, le tematiche della costruzione dello stato e dell’educazione dei cittadini, e stimola lo stesso Giovanni Vailati, seguito dall’allievo Mario Calderoni, a imbastire un discorso sulla valenza educativa del fare cultura e ad attribuire all’uomo di cultura ufficio di sommo educatore. Il dibattito vailatiano sull’«educazione liberale» verte su tre aree di discussione: a] «unità del sapere» come ideale educativo; b] definizione di filosofia; c] definizione di storia delle (...) scienze. (shrink)

_Logic and Pragmatism_ features a number of the key writings of Giovanni Vailati, the Italian mathematician and philosopher renowned for his work in mechanics, geometry, logic, and epistemology. The selections in this book—many of which are available here for the first time in English—focus on Vailati’s significant contributions to the field of pragmatism. Accompanying these pieces are introductory essays by the volume’s editors that outline the traits of Vailati’s pragmatism and provide insights into the scholar’s life.