The Experimental Phenomenology of Paolo Bozzi

Paolo Bozzi, a pupil of Gaetano Kanizsa and Cesare Musatti, is the most important exponent of Italian experimental phenomenology. His theoretical perspective, influenced by the Gestaltpsychologie, Mach’s empiriocriticism, Peirce and James’ pragmatism and Wittgenstein’s philosophy, is based on two fundamental theses. The first is related to the non-privative character of the perception: the phenomenon (Erscheinung) enjoys a full effectuality which can in no way be reduced, as a long philosophical tradition would have it, to an obscure and deceptive dimension. The second is related to the non-conceptual character of perception, according to which perception as such has its own structure and dignity. The reference framework is that of empirical realism, shared by Husserl’s phenomenology and the Kantian tradition, enriched by a sophisticated ontology of the observable able to mediate theoretical instance and experimental apparatus.