ORIGINALITY OF LESZEK NOWAK’S PHILOSOPHICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL THOUGHT

One of the central aspects of contemporary epistemology lies in the difference between abstraction and idealization. While the former consists of the generalization of empirical facts, with the latter, those factors deemed secondary are neglected in order to operationalize instead those factors deemed essential. In the early years of the twentieth century, the authors such as Cassirer and Husserl acutely pointed out the limitations of abstraction, re-evaluating instead the idealizing character of scientific concepts. This distinction was also the subject of an important epistemological work published in 1980, namely The Structure of Idealization by Polish philosopher of science Leszek Nowak. At this point a question arises. In what does the originality of Leszek Nowak’s reflection consist of? It could be said that Nowak’s importance is here twofold: terminological and systematic. From the terminological point of view Nowak made a very clear distinction between abstraction and idealization, which instead in the authors such as Cassirer and Husserl are much more blurred or veiled. From the systematic point of view Nowak has extensively analysed the way mature science works. In other words, Nowak highlighted the limits – but also the values – of contemporary epistemology by comparing the latter with the idealizational approach to science.