Scientific aim of the project

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The crisis of the positivistic model of knowledge and of its fundamental tenets (the Myth of the Given, the radical separation between concepts and experience and between facts and norms, ecc.) has produced a radical rethinking in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science of the mind-world relationship (in the light of the evidence about the conceptual structure of experience), but also of the relationship between empirical sciences and humanities, which cannot be longer distinguished on the ground of the traditional dichotomy between value judgments and factual judgments and also appear to have in common a dialectic and critical-hermeneutical methodology.

In this context, the aim of the project is to inquiry the effects of this epistemological turn on the fundamental notions of the theory of knowledge (such as truth, rationality, justification, experience, ecc.) within a naturalistic, holistic and non-relativistic approach. This approach should be capable of developing, to use John McDowell’s terminology, a third view between Davidson and Rorty’s relativistic coherentism and the Myth of the Given, which takes into account both the achievements of contemporary science and philosophy of science and the results on the interpretative, active nature of knowledge and understanding as it can be found in the Continental, hermeneutical tradition.

Methodology

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The project will be carried out in a constant dialogue with the academic community seen as a whole, with specific attention devoted to the interdisciplinary nature of research and to its close link with higher-education level teaching, aiming at reconstructing the historical genealogy of specific concepts and problems and the lines of thoughts debating over the themes at issue.

The Workshop of Critical Social Philosophy will organize conferences, seminars and workshops aiming at putting students from every level of the academic community (PhD, MA, BA) and young scholars in dialogue with recognized international experts on the themes at issue, aiming at giving a contribution to the internationalization of research and teaching and at framing the research into networks involved in National and European research projects.  

Expected results

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The project aims at the dissemination of the products of research through publication of Proceedings, research monographs and papers, but it also aims at having a significant impact on academic education through the supervision of dissertations on the research themes at every level of academic education (PhD, MA, BA).