Organon F
Volume 30, May 2023, Issue 2, Pages 171–181
ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)
Discussion Note | Special issue on Author Meets Critics Symposium: Discussion on The Relevance of Models
The Originality of Leszek Nowak’s Philosophical and Epistemological Thought
Giacomo Borbone
One of the central aspects of contemporary epistemology lies in the difference between abstraction and idealization. While the former consists of the generalization of empirical facts, with the latter, those factors deemed secondary are neglected in order to operationalize instead those factors deemed essential. In the early years of the twentieth century, authors such as Cassirer and Husserl acutely pointed out the limitations of abstraction, reevaluating instead the idealizing character of scientific concepts. This distinction was also the subject of an important epistemological work published in 1980, namely The Structure of Idealization by Polish philosopher of science Leszek Nowak. At this point a question arises. In what does the originality of Leszek Nowak’s reflection consist of? It could be said that Nowak’s importance here is twofold: terminological and systematic. From the terminological point of view Nowak made a very clear distinction between abstraction and idealization, which instead in authors such as Cassirer and Husserl are much more blurred or veiled. From the systematic point of view Nowak has extensively analyzed the way mature science works. In other words, Nowak highlighted the limits – but also the values – of contemporary epistemology by comparing the latter with the idealizational approach to science.
Cassirer; Husserl; idealization; Leszek Nowak; Neopositivism; Poznań School of Methodology.
Author
Giacomo Borbone
Affiliation
University of Catania
Address
Department of Formative Processes, University of Catania, Piazza Bellini 19 I-95131 Catania, Italy
Received
30 November 2022
Accepted
15 February 2023
Publishers
Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
APA
Borbone, G. (2023). The Originality of Leszek Nowak’s Philosophical and Epistemological Thought. Organon F, 30(2), 171–181. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2023.30209
Chicago
Borbone, Giacomo. 2023. "The Originality of Leszek Nowak’s Philosophical and Epistemological Thought." Organon F 30 (2): 171–181. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2023.30209
Harvard
Borbone, G. (2023). The Originality of Leszek Nowak’s Philosophical and Epistemological Thought. Organon F, 30(2), pp. 171–181. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2023.30209
© Giacomo Borbone
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