Seven Epistemological Essays From Hobbes to Popper, With Nietzsche, Duhem and Peirce

Seven Epistemological Essays From Hobbes to Popper, With Nietzsche, Duhem and Peirce

We are fortunate in these pages to have seven essays by Angèle Kremer Marietti, best known in the English-speaking world as a distinguished interpreter of Comte and Nietzsche. The essays sample her vast work – forty books authored in forty years – over the entire history of modern philosophy. To English readers probably the most striking feature of Marietti’s work is her refusal to recognise a break between so-called ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ traditions in philosophy. Her ability to see a continuous philosophical conversation across the traditions and centuries stems from her focus on science, and especially what could be called the ‘positivist problematique’. By this I mean the attempt to establish a formal language of thought and inquiry that enjoys the authority of metaphysics without incurring unjustifiable ontological commitments traditionally associated with that philosophical discipline. The focus thus turns to the construction and maintenance of rules of scientific conduct, otherwise known as methodology.

Steve Fuller

Professor of Sociology

University of Warwick

United Kingdom