PICS Project

INTEREPISTEME: The effect of interdisciplinary collaboration on early 20th century epistemologies

A comparison among the Peano School, the Vienna Circle, and the Editorial Board of the Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale: protostructuralism and proto-pluralistic logicism.


A three-year(2018-2020) International Scientific Cooperation Project (PICS)  funded by CNRS under the direction of Paola Cantù (Centre Gilles Gaston Granger (UMR 7304), Université Aix-Marseille) and Georg Schiemer (Institut für Philosophie, Universität Wien)


The main objective of the project is a comparative investigation of three distinct collaborative and interdisciplinary epistemologies developed by:

  1. the members of the Peano School (Peano, Vailati, Padoa, Burali-Forti, Pieri, Vacca);
  2. the editorial board of the Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale (RMM) (Léon, Brunschvicg, Halévy, Couturat, Winter, Weber, Lalande);
  3. several members and collaborators of the Vienna Circle (Hahn, Menger, Carnap, and Gödel among others).

This comparative study will show various points of connection between the collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches and certain educational and political aims, such as the vulgarization of scientific knowledge, and the criticism of disciplinary and national boundaries. But it will also focus on the relations of these non-mainstream epistemologies to logicism and structuralism, investigated the underestimated influence of positivism, empiricism, neo-criticism and Leibniz’s philosophy.