Logic as a Positive Science

Logic as a Positive Science represents the fruit of more than two decades of the philosophical work of Galvano Della Volpe. Its publication was first announced in 1947 under the title Critica del 'Conosci te stesso' (Critique of 'Know Thyself') and in 1948 as the 'second edition' of Critica dei principi logici (Critique of Logical Principles), a study of Kant and Hegel first published in the early 1940s, before Delia Volpe became a Marxist. As late as January 1951 an article in the journal Pensiero critico announced it yet again, this time as Introduzione materialistica alla logica (Materialist Introduction to Logic). But this article was published many months after its submission to the journal, and the first edition of Logica come scienza positiva had in fact appeared in August 1950. The central concern of Logic as a Positive Science is to establish a scientific logic free of any aprioristic speculation. Delia Volpe argues that there can be no specifically philosophical logic, or method of producing true knowledge. On the contrary, there is only one logic and one method: that of modern, experimental science. The establishment of this proposition is, according to the dictates of his method itself, part and parcel of a description of what that logic is, and how it is distinct from and superior to any other. Della Volpe maintains that the liberation of philosophy from idealist speculation is itself a historical process, and critical consideration of that process is integral to the constitution of a genuinely scientific logic and methodology.