The Specificity of the Italian Situation
In effect, when first introduced in Italy by Giovanni Vailati and Benedetto Croce, Mach’s thought caused fierce debates. Vailati didn’t suffer their consequences in a direct way, since he had a protector in his master Giuseppe Peano, and he died too young.
On the other hand Croce—who unlike Vailati also accepted Henri Poincare’s conclusions—was harshly criticized at once, and from then on he was accused of wanting to “underestimate” science, becoming a victim of a die-hard prejudice until now. This reaction can be explained in some way if we bear in mind the specificity of our (Italian) situation. In Italy when it comes to science, also in a moderately critical key, we live, so to speak, “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”. The never completely metabolized condemnation of Galileo has always been seen as condemnation of science as such, and every time it has been called into questions, a sort of indignant defense against “resurgent obscurantism” has sprung up. This situation has also been supported by a typical inclination of the Italian scientific culture, characterized by the lack of great scientists-philosophers. From Galileo Galilei to Carlo Rubbia we had great experimental physicists, but no one with the predisposition or the interest to question science methodologically or epistemologically. This led to the paradoxical case of Enrico Fermi, who in 1934 was unable to understand what he had done, and he thought he had discovered a new element, without realizing he had instead caused the fission of the atom.Also as concerns historiographical reconstruction, in Italy the history of science has been, in general, the history of the approach to the Galilean revolution, based on the assumption that as soon science was born, there would be no longer “history” but, indeed, only science, or in other words definitive acquisition. Something similar occurred about the way philosophy of science was introduced “officially” in the Italian University by Ludovico Geymonat. Indeed, it has been affected by two background prejudices, a theoretical and a political one.
Geymonat introduced logical neo-positivism in Italy not as a philosophical movement worthy of being known on the historiographical side, but as an alternative theoretical proposal opposing the Crocean underestimation of science, without taking into account that—in the meantime—the neo-positivists themselves had already considered their initial program obsolete. Furthermore, he extremely politicized it, overstating a connection with Marxism that, as a matter of fact, had represented only the personal choice of some neo-positivists. A clear testimony of all of this, limiting myself to just one example, is the way he structured his History of philosophical and scientific thought, in which he emblematically dedicates very little space to Mach and Croce, but around forty pages to Louis Althusser. In accordance with these choices, the Italian scientific debate on the subject has developed in a generic and sometimes superficial way that essentially remained the same up till now if, even after more than a century, some people still talk about Crocean “underevaluation” of science in allusively and quick way, without accurate arguments presented on scientific papers or specific monographs, but just through rapid and vague hints, expressed in general terms, as we feel compelled to do with what is “obvious” (cfr. Gembillo 2006). In other words, a large part of the Italian philosophy of science, before opting for bracketing the problem and identifying itself almost completely with the scientific procedures, manifested itself as a direct or indirect polemic against Mach and Croce. Most certainly there have been important and honorable exceptions, one of which is represented in an eminent manner by the thought of Evandro Agazzi.2
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