CONTRIBUTI / 2 / Giovanna Varani
The ardigoian reception of Leibniz in the context of Italian Positivism
For a long time Ardigò was forgotten as a philosopher. He was remembered rather for his contribution to the establishment of experimental psychology. Investigating Ardigò today in his philosophical reception of Leibniz implies ascertaining whether, in his role as a university teacher and linked primarily to didactic concerns, he understood Leibnizian thought and how he interpreted it and, furthermore, if he approached the most well-known critical editions, at least of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or was simply content with popular manuals. With regard to the specificity of Ardigò’s reading of Leibniz, first of all, his theoreticality with indifference towards historical-philological problems should be emphasized as should, in addition, the primacy he assigned to the concept of monad seen, on the one hand, as a typical metaphysical chimera and, on the other hand, as a first, unfinished sketch of a truth to be fully developed in a scientific-experimental setting.
