Ordinary Academicians

Riccardo Pozzo

Prof.

Riccardo Pozzo

Date of birth 07 June 1959

Place Milan, Italy (Europe)

Nomination 20 April 2021

Field Philosophy, Science and Technology Studies

Title Professor of the History of Philosophy

  • Biography
  • Publications
  • Self-Presentation

Most important awards, prizes and academies
Order of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany; first cohort fellow of the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies; chairman of the 24th World Congress of Philosophy Beijing 2018 Program Committee; member of the 25th World Congress of Philosophy Roma 2024 Italian Organizing Committee; full member of the Institut International de Philosophie; corresponding member of the Accademia degli Agiati

Summary of scientific research
Pozzo is a philosopher with a background in logic and philosophy of science. His approach relies on the use of concept modeling for textual content documentation and elaboration. During his tenure at CNR, he pushed forward the participation of Italy to the European research infrastructures for social sciences and humanities CESSDA, CLARIN, DARIAH, EHRI, ERIHS, ESS, OPERAS, RESILIENCE, and SHARE. His research is focused on reflection and inclusion as societal processes that shape our understanding of what cultural innovation stands for. Tackling epistemological challenges related to humanities-led cross-disciplinary issues such as human-centered artificial intelligence, happiness and well-being, he aims at a change in the mindset as regards target groups active in social infrastructures such as education, life-long learning, healthcare, urban development and regeneration. The focus is on the introduction of the notion of cultural innovation, which requires adapting the process of co-creation. Pozzo has made an unprecedented attempt in pointing out processes and outcomes of cultural innovation while showing their operationalization in empirical case studies.

Main publications
Monographs: History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society (New York/Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021); Adversus Ramistas: Kontroversen über die Natur der Logik am Ende der Renaissance (Basel: Schwabe, 2012); Georg Friedrich Meiers Vernunftlehre: Eine historisch-systematische Untersuchung (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 2000); Kant und das Problem einer Einleitung in die Logik: Ein Beitrag zur Rekonstruktion der historischen Hintergründe von Kants Logik-Kolleg (Frankfurt: Lang, 1989), translated into Spanish: Kant y el problema de una introducción a la lógica, transl. Javier Sánchez-Arjona Voser (Madrid: Maia, 2016); Hegel: Introductio in Philosophiam: Dagli studi ginnasiali alla prima logica (1782-1801) (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1989). Papers: (corresponding author, coauthors Hansmichael Hohenegger and Antonio Lamarra) “Neuaufgefundene Exemplare des Erstdrucks der Nova dilucidatio”, Kant-Studien 112 (2021), #1, 133-136. DOI: 10.1515/kant-2021-0015;“Bilingualism and Multilingualism in Chinese and Western Philosophy", 中国学第八辑China Studies Quarterly 8, 56-67; (corresponding author, coauthor Vania Virgili) “Community Readiness for Local COVID-19 Management,” Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. 5: 602200. DOI: 10.3389/frma.2020.602200; (corresponding author, coauthors Andrea Filippetti, Mario Paolucci and Vania Virgili) “What does Cultural Innovation stand for? Dimension, Processes and Outcomes of a new Category of Innovation”, Science and Public Policy 47 (2020), #3, 425-433. DOI: 10.1093/scipol/scaa023; “Epistemological Challenges of Engaging Humanities-led Cross-disciplinary Migration Research Issues”, in Briefs on Methodological, Ethical and Epistemological Issues (2019), No. 11, 1-8. www.migrationresearch.com; “Innovation for the Reflective Society”, fteval Journal for Research and Technology Policy Evaluation 46 (2019), 53-55. DOI: 10.22163/fteval.2019.367; “G. F. Meiers rhetorisierte Logik und die freien Künste”, Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 36 (2018), #2, 160-178. DOI: 10.1525/rh.2018.36.2.160; (corresponding author, coauthor Vania Virgili) “Social and Cultural Innovation: Research Infrastructures Tackling Migration”, Diogenes: International Journal of Human Sciences 64 (2017). DOI: 10.1177/0392192117739822; “Digital Humanities, Digital Cultural Heritage e l’istanza Open”, Archeologia e Calcolatori, supplemento 9 (2017), 133-138. ISSN: 1120-6861. DOI: 10.19282/ACS.9.2017.06; (corresponding author, coauthor Vania Virgili) “Governing Cultural Diversity: Common Goods, Shared Experiences, Spaces for Exchange”, Economia della cultura: Rivista trimestrale dell’Associazione per l’Economia della Cultura 26 (2016), #1, 41-47. DOI: 10.1446/84035; “Ius-Lex-Corpus: Corpus Mysticum", Trans/Form/Ação: Revista de Filosofia 37 (2014), edição especial, 245-252. DOI: 0.1590/S0101-3173201400ne00013; “Storia storica e storia filosofica della filosofia nel XX e XXI secolo”, Archivio di storia della cultura 27 (2014), 361-372; “Generi letterari: Programmschriften filosofiche nella Germania della Aufklärung”, Quaestio: The Yearbook for the History of Metaphyics 11 (2011), 111-130. DOI: 10.14484/J.QUAESTIO.1.103020; “Schiavitù attiva, proprietà intellettuale e diritti umani”, Intersezioni: Rivista di storia delle idee 30 (2010), 145-156; “L’ontologia nei manuali di metafisica della Aufklärung”, Quaestio: The Yearbook for the History of Metaphysics 9 (2009), 177-193; “Cornelius Martini sull’oggetto della metafisica”, Medioevo 24 (2009), 305-314; “The Epistemic Standpoint from Kant to Hegel”, Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 16 (2007), #2, 52-66; “La ricezione di Kant in Svizzera: 1788-1804”, Rivista di storia della filosofia 60 (2006), #4, 23-32; “Immanuel Kant on Intellectual Property”, Trans/Form/Ação: Revista de Filosofia 29 (2006), 11-18. DOI: 10.1590/S0101-31732006000200002; “Prejudices and Horizons: The Philosophy of G. F. Meier", Journal of the History of Philosophy 43 (2005), 185-202. DOI: 10.1353/hph.2005.0122; “Kant on the Five Intellectual Virtues”, in The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy, ed. Riccardo Pozzo, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, vol. 39 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 173-192. ISBN: 0813213479; “Georg Friedrich Meier, Immanuel Kant und die friderizianische Universitätspolitik”, Jahrbuch für Universitätsgeschichte 7 (2004), 147-167; “Ramus and Other Renaissance Philosophers on Subjectivity”, Topoi 22 (2002), #1, 5-13; (coauthor, coauthor Michael Oberhausen) “The Place of Science in Kant’s University”, History of Science 40 (2002), #2, 353-368. ISSN: 0073-2753; “Dall’‘intellectus purus’ alla ‘reine Vernunft’: Note sul passaggio dal latino al tedesco prima e dopo Kant”, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 80 [82] (2001), #2, 231-245.

Riccardo Pozzo holds the chair of the History of Philosophy at Rome’s Tor Vergata University, Department of History, Humanities and Society. His research focuses on reflection and inclusion as social processes that shape our understanding of what constitutes cultural innovation, a new category of innovation economics, of which he has made the unprecedented attempt to indicate dimensions, processes and outcomes while showing their operationalization in empirical case studies. Having graduated from the State University of Milan in 1983, he completed his education in Germany – Dr.phil. – at the University of Saarland in 1988 and Habilitation at the University of Trier in 1995. In 1996 he was appointed to the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. In 2003 the University of Verona called him back to become the chair of the History of Philosophy. From 2009 to 2012 he directed the Institute for the European Intellectual Lexicon and History of Ideas at Italy’s National Research Council. From 2012 to 2017, when he was head of the Department of Human and Social Sciences, Cultural Heritage of the National Research Council, he implemented Italy’s participation in the European research infrastructures for social and cultural innovation, CESSDA, CLARIN, DARIAH, EHRI, ERIHS, ESS, OPERAS, RESILIENCE and SHARE. In 2022 he was elected ordinary member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, in 2021 ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in 2020 corresponding member of the Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and in 2012 titular member of the Institut International de Philosophie, of which he is currently vice president; in 2014 he was awarded the Order of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is currently serving on the Italian organizing committee of the World Congress of Philosophy Rome 2024. He has published five monographs: Hegel: Introductio in Philosophiam (La Nuova Italia 1989); Kant und das Problem einer Einleitung in die Logik (Lang 1989 – trans. by Javier Sánchez-Arjona, Maia 2016); Georg Friedrich Meiers Vernunftlehre (Frommann-Holzboog 2000); Adversus Ramistas (Schwabe 2012); History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society (De Gruyter 2021).

Areas of Competence

Logic and Philosophy of Science, History of Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy, Science and Technology Studies.

Introductory: The Classical Mind, The Modern Mind.

Upper-division: Reasoning and Argumentation, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Religion, History of Concepts, Senior Seminar.

Graduate seminars: Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Mencius, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus, Porphyrius, Aquinas, Ficinus, Wang Yangming, Bruno, Spinoza, Locke, Wolff, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Freud, Cassirer, Heidegger, Gadamer, Klibansky, Arendt, Habermas, Berque.

Areas of Research

Pozzo is a philosopher with a background in the history of logic. His innovative approach to intellectual lexicography relies on information technologies for linguistic and textual content documentation and elaboration.

During his tenure at CNR, he implemented the participation of Italy in European research infrastructures for social sciences and humanities, i.e., CLARIN-Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure, DARIAH-Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities, E-RIHS-European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science, and OPERAS-Design for Open Access Publications in European Research Area for Social Sciences and Humanities.

Pozzo’s research is focused on reflection and inclusion as societal processes that shape our understanding of what cultural innovation stands for. He works in science and technology studies, cultural heritage, and migration, which are cross-disciplinary domains that involve all social sciences and humanities with mathematics, physics, chemistry, life sciences and medicine, environmental sciences, logistics, agri-food and ICT.

History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society. Like many other disciplines today, the history of philosophy is also taking a global perspective. This research is about innovation, reflection and inclusion. The study has the ambition of providing new impulses to research in the history of philosophy by showing the possibilities and limits of new approaches common to diverse philosophical traditions. It aims to break ground for rethinking the discipline of the history of philosophy within a global framework. It offers new definitions and stocktaking of best practices focused on European-Chinese cultural interactions, which can be taken as the start for extending the model to other cultures – China being the most populous country in the world and the fourth country of origin of non-nationals in EU member states. Cultural innovation is something tangible that tops up social and technological innovation by providing the reflective society with spaces of exchange in which citizens engage in sharing their experiences while appropriating common goods content. We are talking of public spaces such as universities, academies, libraries, museums, and science centers, but also of any place in which co-creation activities may occur, e.g. research infrastructures such as DARIAH-Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and the Humanities. At this level, social innovation becomes reflective and generates cultural innovation.

Social and Cultural Innovation. The focus is on introducing the notion of cultural innovation, which requires adapting the process of co-creation, as it is pivotal for the theoretical framework. The argument starts with the first conceptualization of cultural innovation as an additional and autonomous dimension of the complex processes of innovation. Here, the dimension of cultural innovation is contrasted against other forms of innovation. Based on such conceptualization, in a second step, the research makes an unprecedented attempt to point out processes and outcomes of cultural innovation while showing their operationalization in some empirical case studies. Policy implications and verification strategies result from the final proposed definition.

Research and Innovation Agenda on Migration. Migration has become a benchmark of political decision-making and a decisive segment of the economic, environmental, ethical, sanitary and cultural development of society. Research on migration finds a place at the frontiers of science. It integrates technological innovation with social innovation and eventually with cultural innovation, thus providing substantial added value to citizens of a global community. The migrant crisis poses to Europe a challenge whose dimensions are comparable to those of the ecological crisis of the last quarter of the previous century, whose icon was the acid rains and was overcome through an epochal effort in research that brought about an industrial reconversion and a change in the mindset of the citizens. Today, the migrant crisis requires a cross-disciplinary research agenda. It involves the whole domains of social sciences, humanities and cultural heritage together with mathematics, physics, chemistry, life sciences and medicine, environmental sciences, logistics, agri-food and ICT. Migration asks for a change of paradigm that involves all disciplines in the direction of a new hybrid consideration in which top-down modelling of phenomena finds a unique synthesis with the discovery of new cognitions bottom-up, which emerge from the immense masses of available data. It proposes a holistic approach that embraces the sectors of cultural, social, environmental and economic sustainability. The idea is to aggregate research performing organizations, universities, research infrastructures and cultural institutions for actions on migrations, cultural heritage, interreligious and intercultural dialogue, security, agri-food, and health. The main goal is to deal with every aspect of science and technology related to migration.

Professional Address

Dipartimento di Storia, Patrimonio Culturale, Formazione e Società
Università di Roma Tor Vergata
via Columbia 1, I-00133 Rome
Italy