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Giovanni Vailati 1863–1963: Notes and Reflections upon a Centennial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

H. S. Harris
H. S. Harris
Affiliation:
Tork University
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Type
Notes—Discussion
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , December 1963 , pp. 328 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1963

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References

1 Calderoni sent copies of the issues of Leonardo between November 1904 and February 1905, which contained the first discussions of pragmatism to be published in Italy, to Peirce, and Peirce's comments can be read in the letter published in part in Collected Papers 8.205–213. As far as I can discover this was the only direct contact between Peirce and his Italian admirers. No letters from Peirce survive in the Vailati archive in Milan and the absence of any reference to correspondence with him in the letters that Vailati exchanged with Calderoni, Prezzolini, Papini and the Turin mathematicians strongly suggests that there never was any correspondence between them. There were, on the other hand, fairly frequent contacts between Papini and Prezzolini, and James and Schiller.

2 Letter of June 16, 1898. The letters of Vailati to Lady Welby together with copies or summaries of her letters to him were preserved by her and are still in the possession of the Welby family. Through the courtesy of her grandson, Sir Oliver Welby, I was able to examine them and have copies made while on my way back to Toronto after attending the Centennial Convention of Vailati Studies in Milan.

3 Published in the Nation, Vol. 77, 15 Oct. 1903, 308–309; reprinted in Lieb, (ed.) C. S. Peirce's Letters to Lady Welby, (New Haven, 1953), pp. 49–50Google Scholar and in Collected Papers 8. 171–175.

4 “The Attack on Distinctions” and “On Material Representations of Deductive Processes”, Journal of Philosophy, 4, 1907, 701–709, and 5, 1908, 309–316Google Scholar; “Pragmatism and Mathematical Logic” and “A Pragmatic Zoologist”, Monist, 16, 1906, 481–491 and 18, 1908, 142–151CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the articles in the Monist the translator (H. D. Austin) was named; the Journal of Philosophy translator is not named, which suggests that as far as the editors were concerned the translations originated with Vailati himself.

James' friendly interest in the Florentine group is evidenced by his article on “Papini and the Pragmatist Movement in Italy” (Journal of Philosophy, 1906); and he was not the only American student to pay attention to them (cf. Riley, I. W., “Continental Critics of Pragmatism II”, Journal of Philosophy, 8, 1911,. 289–294Google Scholar).

5 “Il pragmatismo italiano”, Rivista di psicologia, 1923.

6 Lady Welby herself only discovered that her obscure Italian correspondent was a man of international reputation when she read Russell's Principles of Mathematics. She confessed to Vailati in her letter of November 14, 1903 that “Although I was aware of your eminence as a philosopher, I am ashamed to say that I did not know that you were also one of the greatest of Continental mathematicians. I have only discovered this through endeavouring to study with enthusiastic interest Mr. Bertrand Russell's “Principles of Mathematics”. In view of her ignorance of Italian the initial concessive clause is a transparently polite fiction. When she later had Vailati's articles translated, she rather hesitantly offered to send copies to Russell if he would like to see them. Russell does not seem to have taken up this offer, but he sent his subscription for Vailati's Scritti when the project to publish them was announced. Vailati's views are often cited in his friend Enriques', F. book The Historic Development of Logic (London, Methuen, 1930)Google Scholar; and he was noticed again in Stebbing's, L. S.Modern Introduction to Logic (New York, Holt, 1929)Google Scholar. His name appears in William, and Kneale's, MarthaThe Development of Logic (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar but only in connection with the rediscovery of Saccheri's work.

7 Ethics, Vol. 40, 1929/1930, pp. 416–424Google Scholar.

8 The bibliography of F. Rossi-Landi's “Materiale per lo studio di Vailati” (Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, 1958, no. 1), includes the Manifesto of the Vienna Circle (1929) “Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung”; and Neurath, O., “Unified Science as Encyclopaedic Integration” (International Encyclopaedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, No. 1, Chicago, 1938)Google Scholar. But I do not find Vailati's name in the Neurath article and I suspect that it does not occur in the Manifesto, which I have not managed to obtain. Rossi-Landi does give notice that he has included some items not directly concerned with Vailati. This is a pity because it means that no estimate of Vailati's international reputation can be based on his survey unless every item is first checked.

9 “Some Modern Italian Philosophers: I. The Knife-Grinders”, The Listener, 1957.

10 G. Vailati, Il metodo della filosofia, Bari, Laterza, 1957. The new complete edition will be published by Einaudi (Milan).

11 The actual programme of the Convention was as follows:

First Session: Vailati and pragmatism in America and Italy

H. S. Harris, Logical Pragmatism and the Task of Philosophy in Peirce and Vailati.

G. Villa, Alcuni aspetti del pragmatismo di Vailati.

A. Pasquinelli, Filosofia e scienza in G. Vailati e C. S. Peirce.

A. Santucci, Vailati e il pragmatismo americano.

S. Marcucci, Alcuni giudizi di Vailati su “classici” della filosofia.

Second Session: Methodology, language, and logic

R. Restaino, Di alcuni tesi storico-metodologiche vailatiane nelle due prolusioni del 1896 e 1897.

F. Barone, Vailati e l'analisi del linguaggio.

L. Peroni, Vailati e una proposta di lettura di Saccheri.

L. Geymonat, Alcune considerazioni sull'interesse di Vailati per la logica. At the conclusion of the second session the convention moved in a body to Crema where after a civic reception and a banquet, Professor E. Garin of the University of Florence gave a commemorative address on “Vailati nella cultura del suo tempo”.

Third Session: Psychology, Ethics, History, Education, Politics and Economics M. Brodbeck: L'ontologia implicita del Vailati.

C. Zanoni, Some Reflections on Vailati's ethical Philosophy. (Only a summary in Italian was read, the author being absent)

M. A. del Torre, La metodologia della ricerca storica in G. Vailati.

P. Facchi, Nuove considerazioni sull'applicabilita dei concetti di causa ed effetto nelle scienze storiche.

F. Cafaro, Le idee pedagogiche di G. Vailati.

N. Bobbio, Vailati e Pareto.

U. Segre, Vailati e la discussione sul socialismo.

L. Parinetto, Vailati e Fogazzaro.

S. Polacco, I tropi della logica e la semiotica generale di G. Vailati.