La responsabilità di credere. Osservazioni sul pragmatismo etico di Mario Calderoni, in “Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno", n.1, 2016, pp. 427-444.

The wording "responsibility to believe" used in the title of this paper refers to the controversy of Calderoni against the Jamesian version of pragmatism, a controversy that corresponded to his philosophical choice in favor of the ethical value assigned by Peirce to the scientific-experimental method. In this light, I propose a reading of some Calderoni’s arguments concerning the link between construction of beliefs, practical norms and moral or legal responsibility, trying to reassess firstly his criticisms of James and then his conception of philosophy as a practical and therapeutic activity. The latter will be discussed through a comparison between Wittgenstein’s analysis of the intentional verbs and Calderoni’s approach to the issues of freedom, of the definition of voluntary acts as well as of individual responsibility, both moral and legal. In particular, I will focus on the paradigm shift suggested by Wittgenstein in regard to the problem of human will, which seems useful for enhancing Calderoni’s pragmatist insights.