Background
Martinetti, Piero was born on August 21, 1872 in Canavese. Aosta, Italy.
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Piero Martinetti
Edit ProfilePhilosopher of positivism Infls: Schuppe
Career
Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Milan- 1906-1931. Resigned in protest at the oath required by the fascists.
Views
Martinetti’s work defends the possibility of 3 certain form of metaphysics. Positivists, he claimshave fallen into the vulgar habit of thinking metaphysics as anti-scientific a priori deductionScientific metaphysics, however, attends to factinterprets the data but looks for their sense. P°s Kantian idealism is rejected and a new inductiv*j metaphysics inaugurated. Beginning a posterio^ one ascends by successive syntheses to a grasp the absolute. In that ascent the first stage is the se as a mere sentient consciousness. There is, however, the irresistible belief that my states of consciousness are not private but continually ■nteract with the consciousnesses of others. This g!ves me a glimpse of something that transcends mc, and leads me to the next level, the logical level °f synthesis where we use such concepts as substance and cause. The final stage is absolute unity, which is that which informs all other unities aud that to which they all aspire. Of that unity we can have no concept but only an intuition by utcans of symbols, the most complex of all of which is language. Through language we have a glimpse, however imperfect, of absolute unity. Martnetti claims that each of the steps towards lhe absolute is necessitated by what has gone before, but each is a step towards liberation. One such step is morality, at which stage we realize the asPiration to see life sub specie aeternitatis and so Participate in an impersonal vision of reality. At ‘he level above morality comes religion, a first stage of which is myth, which pulls religion towards the sensible, and which yields art as an ltTIPerfeet representation of the absolute.
