Law and Chance

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Written by one of the foremost Italian philosophers of the 20th century, Emanuele Severino's Law and Chance (Legge e Caso) explores the metaphysical categories that underpin the theoretical and practical domination of contemporary science. According to Severino, it is only by tracing the origin of the power of science to the Greek meanings of being and nothingness that it becomes possible to understand not only how science succeeds in achieving its aims, but also how it establishes the very meaning of its own success and power. Severino is increasingly being recognised as a truly foundational thinker in the formation of contemporary theory. The first English translation of this important work, Law and Chance is crucial reading for anyone engaged with the intersection between philosophy and science.

Reviews

Emanuele Severino always knew how to ask the most compelling, even frightening questions. If you fear the unlimited power of science, then ask yourself, why shouldnt power be limitless What could put a limit to it Perhaps only a philosophy that challenges the very notions of being and becoming. * Alessandro Carrera, Director in Italian Studies, University of Houston, USA *
Severinos Law and Chance contains a most lucid presentation of a fundamental aspect of his vast philosophical oeuvre: a continuing confrontation with epistemology and with the theories of contemporary science. Severino highlights the shift between the deterministic paradigm that characterized modern science up to the end of the 19th century and the logic that governed science after Einsteins relativity and the developments of quantum theory. The possibility of determining the laws of chance constitutes a revolution for the entirety of the contemporary technical-scientific system. However, what does chance mean Does chance already presuppose an order What turns an event into an instance of chance, if not its being part of an order Is there then a law that precedes every law of chance These are some of the questions that render Severinos contribution a necessary one. * Massimo Cacciari, author of "The Withholding Power " *

Author Bio

Emanuele Severino (1929 2020) was an Italian philosopher. An original thinker and public intellectual, he is considered one of the most important Italian thinkers of the 20th century. Damiano Sacco is a philosopher and translator and fellow of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, Germany.