Italian Studies in the Philosophy of Science

The impressive record of Italian philosophical research since the end of Fascism thirty-two years ago is shown in many fields: esthetics, social and" personal ethics, history and sociology of philosophy, and magnificently, perhaps above all, in logic, foundations of mathematics and the philosophY, methodology, and intellectual history ofthe empirical sciences. To our pleasure, Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara of the University of Florence gladly agreed to assemble a 'sampler' of recent Italian logical and analytical work on the philosophical foundations of mathematics and physics, along with a number of historical studies of epistemological and mathematical concepts. The twenty-five essays that form this volume will, we expect, encourage English-reading philosophers and scientists to seek further works by these authors and by their teachers, colleagues, and students; and, we hope, to look for those other Italian currents of thought in the philosophy of science for which points of departure are not wholly analytic, and which also deserve study and recognition in the world­ wide philosophical community. Of course, Italy has long been related to that world community in scien­ titlc matters.

Inhalt

I / Foundations of Logic and of Mathematics.- Positively Omitting Types.- Proof Theory and Theory of Meaning.- Free Semantics.- A Temporalization of Modal Semantics.- Semantics for a Class of Intuitionistic Modal Calculi.- 'Since', 'Even If', 'As If'.- What Is Contemporary Logic Talking About?.- Intuition and Rigor: Some Problems of a 'Logic of Discovery' in Mathematics.- Intuitive Proofs and First-Order Derivations: Some Notes on the Metamathematics of First-Order Number Theory.- Constructive Sequent Reduction in Gentzen's First Consistency Proof for Arithmetic.- Inductive Logic and Inductive Statistics.- II / Foundations of Empirical Sciences.- Is There a Logic of Empirical Sciences?.- On Physical Possibility.- Problems of the Proposition-State Structure of Quantum Mechanics.- Quantum Logic and the Two-Slit Experiment.- Causality and Tachyons in Relativity.- Time and Causality.- The Concept of Progress in Physics.- Equilibria, Crystals, Programs, Energetic Models, and Organizational Models.- III / History of the Sciences.- Francesco Patrizi: Heavenly Spheres and Flocks of Cranes.- Leibniz on the Structure of Relations.- Necessary and Contingent Truths in Leibniz.- Kant on Mathematical Definition.- 'Proof', 'Theory', and 'Foundations' in Hilbert's Mathematical Work from 1885 to 1900.- The History of Science as the History of Dictionaries.- Biographical Notes.- Index of Names.