The prominent philosopher Evandro Agazzi in his book “Scientific Objectivity and Its Contexts” emphasizes that the critique of scientific reason should be sup­plemented by a critique of hermeneutic scientific reason, since during science constructing the reason also acts in the context of some hermeneutic a priori. Such “criticism” can be based on a general theory of interpretation, where under­standing turns out to be the main task of scientific practice. Formulations of the general theory of interpretation can be found, in particular, in Emilio Betti in his two-volume treatise “The General Theory of Interpretation” (1955) and in Paul Thom in his book “Making Sense: A Theory of Interpretation” (2000). At first glance, the principles of the general theory of interpretation can in no way be recognized as the principles of hermeneutic scientific reason. Thus, the prin­ciple of pluralism of interpretations contradicts the standard statement about the monistic nature of science (since the ultimate goal of science is to create a sin­gle and comprehensive description of the world). An analysis of the history of this issue shows that in recent years a number of philosophers and scientists have sup­ported the concept of pluralism of theories and methods of science. The same ap­plies to the principle of modification, according to which the interpreter changes the object of research, adjusting it to his interpretation. However, the direct appli­cation of the principles of the general theory of interpretation in the criticism of scientific hermeneutic reason may not always work. The principle of actuality, when the interpreter is required to be able to transfer someone else’s thought into the relevance of his own historical life, implicitly implies the pluralism of ideals, values and norms of scientific research while this is characteristic of another stage in the development of science – for post-nonclassical science.

The why and the how: Evandro Agazzi on the limits of pragmatic reductionism

The systemic and integral personalism of Evandro Agazzi. A dialog between neuroscience and artificial intelligence

Evandro Agazzi has shown the possibility of a reconciliation between logical empiricism and realism through the proposal of his conception of scientific objectivity, which replaces the notion of entity with that of object, conceived as a structured set of properties. This conception, on the one hand, has been developed from a more empiricist perspective, according to which the reality of the object is shifted to one of its predictable properties, and on the other hand, has produced his fruitful criticism of the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics and his demand for a realist interpretation based on the introduction of new non-classical concepts.

This article is an analytical review of a recent volume written by Evandro Agazzi, namely, The Knowledge of the Invisible. It points out how Agazzi takes his starting point from faith to develop the centrality of reason. One of the central themes is the epistemology of religion. It concludes with a brief mention of the notion of hope.

The merit of Evandro Agazzi’s epistemological reflection can be found in the following proposal: the history of science should be understood and studied as a meeting point between philosophical reflection and scientific research. Science and philosophy are thus closely united. In the words of Kant, science without philosophy is blind and philosophy without science is empty. Not only that: for Agazzi, the philosophy of science helps society as a whole to better understand the cultural (and human) value of science. Conversely, the history of science helps us to understand the perennially progressive nature of our knowledge. Why is this so? Because we can never disregard the intrinsic historicity of scientific knowledge.The historical approach to science also helps us to understand how scientific development always takes place within different choices. Conversely, epistemological reflection also helps historical research to better understand the development of our cognitive and technical heritage. On this basis, Agazzi worked - in collaboration with Ludovico Geymonat - to spread the institutional presence of the philosophy of science and the history of science (as well as mathematical logic) in universities, especially in Italy. Today, all of us are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, since we can better understand the connections between science and philosophy precisely because we can avail ourselves of Evandro Agazzi’s historical contributions.

In current epistemology, there are two opposing attitudes towards the empirical sciences. Onthe one hand, they appear as an essential tool for the advancement of knowledge. On the otherhand, there is doubt about the metaphysical and epistemological bases of this confidence inscientific knowledge, which has led science down paths of skepticism and pragmatism. This paper aims to contribute philosophically to the rationality and ontological status of physics, taking as a starting point some works of the philosopher of science Evandro Agazzi. The article presented hereintroduces Agazzi’s thought and the core issues of his epistemology. It then defines the concepts of rigor and objectivity as understood by Agazzi, and finally establishes criteria of rigor and objectivity for physics, showing how they are verified in two classical experiments. Based on these ideas, it is shown that physics, as the science it is, has criteria of rigor and objectivity that allow it to effectively reach the real, thus responding to the formalist and pragmatist challenge. Thus, the article does notexhaust itself in a description of Agazzi’s thought, but will apply his ideas to the concrete field of physics, making explicit ideas that have not been sufficiently made explicit by the Italian philosopher.

The paper addresses the question of the identity of theology of science, fostering its interpretation as an intertextual narration. The starting point is the consideration of the domain of theology of science, which is viewed as a third domain of truth, according to Hans Urs von Balthasar. An analysis of the Swiss theologian’s perspective on this subject and the concept of God’s unknowability presents a strong counterargument to the claim that the natural sciences serve as a locus theologicus. Theology of science, nonetheless, exists and is engaged in a lively dialogue between science and theology, encompassing both the Revelation of God and the natural world or the Bible and the Book of Nature. What kind of discourse is this? This question concerns the position of theology of science within the field of science, specifically its objectivity and rigour, according to Evandro Agazzi’s analogical notion of science. Both the Bible and the Book of Nature ensure the objectivity of theology of science, while its rigour is established by the narrative paradigm. Therefore, theology of science can be seen as an intertextual narrative that engages both the Bible and the Book of Nature. The narrative paradigm of theology of science is subsequently elucidated, with particular emphasis on its cognitive aspects, narrative reasoning, the corresponding verification method, and Jewish corrective. The conclusion outlines a special task for theology of science in the modern age.

Convergences and Divergences Between the “new realism” and the Realism of Evandro Agazzi

This article aims to show how the scientific realism proposed by the philosopher Evandro Agazzi contributes to the epistemological development of social discursive psychology. To do this, the debates led by Ian Parker and John Greenwood in the early 1990s about scientific and critical realism are addressed. In this debate, the limits of naive empiricism and discursive idealism, which began to predominate in discursive social psychology, are highlighted. Evandro Agazzi's assumptions about scientific realism are then presented to account for the contributions of scientific realism to the epistemological development of discursive social psychology.

Ante las distintas maneras de entender la objetividad científica, con prevalencia del sentido empirista, que propugna una discriminación sobre la cientificidad de las distintas áreas del conocimiento, Evandro Agazzi, con su realismo científico y su concepción epistemológica abierta, configura un concepto de objetividad adecuado para todo quehacer científico y académico. Con su distinción entre objetividad en sentido débil y fuerte, Agazzi sostiene que estas formas de entender la objetividad pueden incluir y armonizar los variados horizontes epistemológicos desde los cuales es posible hacer ciencia.

Review - Varieties of Scientific Realism, Ed. Evandro Agazzi, 2017, Springer.

Evandro Agazzi’s volume Scientific Objectivity and its Contexts is here introduced. First, the genesis and the content of the book are outlined. Secondly, an overview of Agazzi’s philosophy of science is provided. Its main roots are epistemological realism in the Aristotelian/scholastic tradition, and contemporary science-oriented epistemology, especially in Logical Empiricism. As a result, Agazzi’s thought is nicely balanced between empiricism and rationalism, it avoids gnoseologistic dualism by stressing the intentionality of knowledge, and it insists on the operational and referential character of science. Finally, an account is given of Agazzi’s view of the origin and nature of scientific objects, which allows to understand how his sophisticated and “perspectival” realism differs both from naive realism and constructivism.

Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa and Evandro Agazzi, eds., Life: Interpretation and the Sense of Illness within the Human Condition: Medicine and Philosophy in Dialogue

Straipsnyje svarstomas modernybės fenomenas bei pamatinės moderniosios filosofijos ir humanitarinių mokslų nuostatos, susilaukiančios radikalios nūdienos mąstytojų kritikos: atotrūkis tarp faktų ir vertybių, bendruomenę jungiančių saitų susilpnėjimas, mokslinės-technologinės sistemos susiformavimas ir dėl to kylantys svarbūs individų savivokos pokyčiai. Tokie žymūs modernybės kritikai kaip Stephen Toulmin, Leszek Kolakowski, Friedrich August von Hayek ir Louis Dumont tvirtina, jog dekartiškasis racionalumas ir su juo susijusi kieta ir nelanksti geometrinė .tinojimo paradigma jau nebeatitinka nei šiuolaikinio mokslo atradimų, nei žmonių poreikių, ir todėl daug labiau atitinkanti tikrovę būtų biologinė, į evoliuciją ir kaitą orientuota žinojimo paradigma. „Makroskopinis“ mąstymas turėtų užleisti vietą „mikroskopiniam“: ne universalus Metodas, o vietinės „parapijinės“ tiesos ir kultūrinės nuostatos, ne vien „tikslus“, matematiniu gamtamoksliu grįstas žinojimas, bet ir „iracionalios“ vertybės ir papročiai. Mokslo tiesos galioja jo paties konteksto ribose – mokslas, kuris skelbiasi savo tiesomis galįs paaiškinti visą tikrovę,anot mokslo filosofo Evandro Agazzi, neišvengiamai virsta scientizmu, t y. ne mokslu, o moksline ideologija. Straipsnio pabaigoje aptariama nevakarietiškos visuomenės – Meiji laikotarpio Japonijos – reakcija į Vakarų mokslo ir kultūros invaziją. Svarstomas pamatinis konfliktas tarp Vakarų mokslinio metodo ir Azijos moralės bei vertybių pasitelkiant japonų filosofo Kitaro Nishidos, kuriam šios problemos sprendimas tapo viso gyvenimo darbu, pavyzdį.

Book Reviews in this Article: Bioetica e persona edited by Evandro Agazzi. Medicine, Law and Social Change by Leanna Darvall.

My mental development, A.J. Ayer varieties of meaning and truth, Evandro Agazzi Ayer and pragmatism, James Campbell on judging sufficiency of evidence, David S. Clarke the metaphysics of verificationism, Michael Dummett A.J. Ayer's philosophical method, Beth Eames the construction of the physical world, John Foster on Sir Alfred Ayer's theory of truth, Paul Gochet man as a subject for social science, Martin Hollis causation - one thing just happens after another, Ted Honderich Ayer and the Vienna circle, Tscha Hung Oh Boy! You Too! - aesthetic emotivism re-examined, Peter Kivy Ayer on metaphysics - a critical commentary by a kind of metaphysician, Arne Naess Ayer on free will and determinism, D.J. O'Connor Ayerian qualia and the empiricist heritage, Desiree Park Ayer's view on meaning-rules, David Pears remarks on logical empiricism and some of Ayer's achievements - some fifty years later, A. Polikarov and D. Ginev is it necessary that water is h2o?, Hilary Putnam Ayer's philosophy of logic and mathematics, Francisco Miro Quesada C. Ayer and ontology, Anthony Quinton Ayer's treatment of Russell, Emanuelle Riverso Ayer on perception and reality, Ernest Sosa Ayer on other minds, T.L.S. Sprigge Ayer's Hume, Barry Stroud Ayer on morality and feeling - from subjectivism to emotivism and back?, David Wiggins.

<i>Probabilistic Thinking, Thermodynamics, and the Interaction of the History and Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science, Volume II</i>. Jaakko Hintikka , David Gruender , Evandro Agazzi