Antonio Livi, Biografia

Nato a Prato (Italia), il 25 agosto 1938.

Le sue più importanti attività culturali e accademiche sono:

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Membro dell'"Arcipelago", International Society for the Unity of Sciences (Genova), a partire dalla sua istituzione nel  1990.

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Fondatore e direttore (dal 1984 al 1999) di "Cultura e libri", mensile di orientamento bibliografico.

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Fondatore e direttore (dal 1994) della "Grande Enciclopedia Epistemologica", collana di monografie di argomento epistemologico.

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Fondatore e direttore di "Sensus communis", an international quartely for studies and research on alethic logic (dal 1999).

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Docente di Logica e Filosofia della conoscenza nella Università Pontificia Lateranense (1993-1996); Professore stabile ordinario della stessa materia dal  1996.

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Docente di Antropologia alla Libera Università "Campus Bio-medico" (Rome) nell'anno accademico 1993-1994.

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Visting professor nell'Università di Navarra (Spagna) e nell'Università Pontificia della Santa Croce (Roma) dal 1996.

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Decano della Facultà di Filosofia della Università Pontificia Lateranense dal 2002.

Sintesi delle ricerche epistemologiche :

The main subject of his research is the truth-value of knowledge in its different levels or meanings: ordinary knowledge, scientific inquiry, and religious belief (especially Christian faith).

This subject was formerly developed studying the relationship between Christian faith and philosophy, with an analysis and a critique of the opinions maintained around the year 1931 in France by rationalist scholars (as Emile Bréhier and Léon Brunschvicg) against Catholic philosophers (as Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, and Maurice Blondel), in the well known discussion about "Christian philosophy". The opinion of other Catholic philosophers, who were in disagreement with Maritain and Gilson for their alleged "fideism", was also analysed. The conclusions of this research was an idea of philosophy which is just what Aquinas has teached and performed in his own times and with his own language, that is an intellectual work which is as far from rationalism as from skepticism, since it has the consciousness both of its possibilities and of its limits. According to this notion of philosophy as an "open system", the positive influence of Christian revelation on the development of a truly philosophical research is not only a reasonable abstract possibility, but also a matter of fact as a result of historical inquiry on philosophy, as it has been developed from the second century of the Christian age up to the twentieth century.

After reaching these conclusions, is studies dealed with the foundation of truth according to contemporary logic and philosophy of language. In this field he discovered the great relevance of the notion of "common sense", originally created by modern philosophers as Claude Buffier, Thomas Reid, and Giambattista Vico, and after them developped by Friedrich Jacobi, Jaime Balmes, John Henry Newman, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange. Between contemporay philosophers, the epistemological value of common sense was re-discovered by some others philosophers as Hannah Arendt and Hans-Georg Gadamer in Germany, Mortimer Adler in the United States of America, Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson in France, and Enrico Castelli and Luigi Pareyson in Italy. Upon the basis of their studies, Antonio Livi attempted to build up a complete theory of common sense, including a demonstration of its real presence in the background of all human knowledges, and also a demonstration of its performative action in the life of mind when concerned with truth.

This theory is a useful logical means in order to show the primacy of experience upon science, and also the absolute need of rational human premises for understanding and accepting God’s revelation, according to John Paul II’s Encyclical, Fides et ratio.