LA CRITICA NIETZSCHEANA DI GIORGIO COLLI ALLA RAGIONE COSTRUTTIVA

Alessio Caselli

A substantial part, although little studied, of Giorgio Colli’s scientific and philosophical activity is dedicated to the criticism of sciences that arose in the modern age with the Galilean revolution. Faithful to the spirit and the letter of Nietzsche, Colli rigorously and unscrupulously applied the Nietzschean critique of moral values outside the restricted sphere of literature, even to the foundations of hard sciences. In the present work, an attempt is made to present some of the most important points of this criticism starting from the “general law of deduction”, derived from a personal re-reading of the Aristotelian modal syllogistics, which, according to Colli, would prevent the construction of coherent theories. Secondly, we will examine the Collian critique of differential calculus, and in particular the criticism of the definition of a mathematical limit. Finally, we will explain the reasons for which Colli rejects Richard Dedekind’s postulate of continuity. These three articulations constitute the backbone of Colli’s attack on the constructive reason of the moderns.