Description
Book SynopsisWritten by one of the foremost Italian philosophers of the 20th century, Emanuele Severino's Law and Chance (Legge e Caso) explores the metaphysical categories that underpin the theoretical and practical domination of contemporary science. According to Severino, it is only by tracing the origin of the power of science to the Greek meanings of being and nothingness that it becomes possible to understand not only how science succeeds in achieving its aims, but also how it establishes the very meaning of its own success and power. Severino is increasingly being recognised as a truly foundational thinker in the formation of contemporary theory. The first English translation of this important work, Law and Chance is crucial reading for anyone engaged with the intersection between philosophy and science.
Trade ReviewEmanuele Severino always knew how to ask the most compelling, even frightening questions. If you fear the unlimited power of science, then ask yourself, why shouldn’t power be limitless? What could put a limit to it? Perhaps only a philosophy that challenges the very notions of being and becoming. * Alessandro Carrera, Director in Italian Studies, University of Houston, USA *
Severino’s
Law and Chance contains a most lucid presentation of a fundamental aspect of his vast philosophical oeuvre: a continuing confrontation with epistemology and with the theories of contemporary science. Severino highlights the shift between the deterministic paradigm that characterized modern science up to the end of the 19th century and the logic that governed science after Einstein’s relativity and the developments of quantum theory. The possibility of determining the
laws of chance constitutes a revolution for the entirety of the contemporary technical-scientific system. However, what does
chance mean? Does
chance already presuppose an order? What turns an event into an instance of chance, if not its being part of an order? Is there then a law that precedes every
law of chance? These are some of the questions that render Severino’s contribution a
necessary one. * Massimo Cacciari, author of "The Withholding Power " *
Table of ContentsForeword: Emanuele Severino: Beyond the Alienated Soul of Tradition and Contemporary Philosophical Thought,
Ines Testoni & Giulio Goggi The Translation of Destiny, and The Destiny of Translation,
Damiano Sacco Law and Chance 1. The Immutables, Nothingness, Chance 2. From Epistemic to Scientific Domination 3. The Greek Meaning of Nothingness in Modern Science 4. The Will to Power as Interpretation
Notes On The Problem Of Intersubjectivity In R. Carnap’s “The Logical Structure Of The World” 1. The Unity of Knowledge 2. Experience and the Intersubjectivity of Knowledge 3. The Protocol-Statement Debate 4. The Presupposition of Intersubjectivity in The Logical Structure of the World 5. Intersubjective Knowledge qua Structural Knowledge 6. Intersubjectivity and Objectivity 7. The Concept of Construction 8. Realist Language Formulation of the Concept of Construction 9. The Realist and Constructional Meaning of Intersubjectivity in the Structure 10. The Constructional Order according to Cognitive Primacy 11. Elementary Lived Experiences and the Reason for their Unanalysability 12. The Method of Quasi-Analysis. Goodman’s Critical Observations 13. Scientific-Ordinary Knowledge and Constructional Systems
