Abstract

Within Popper's philosophy of science there is a tension between two different and opposite tendencies of thought: one consists in a decisive critique of the neopositivistic philosophy of science, the other preserves instead some assumptions of gnoseology and ontology of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The attempt to resolve the tension between these two tendencies of thought constitutes the spring that has guided the internal development of Popperian epistemology, from the falsificationism of Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie and Logik der Forschung to the more recent theory of World 3. The thesis of a co-presence in Popper's thought of neo-positivistic and antíneopositivistic themes is here understood in a radical sense, which invests the gnoseological and ontological foundations of Popperian epistemology. The development of this thesis takes place by discussing the relevant literature of both the English and German linguistic area. Finally, the author has attempted to enucleate from Popperian epistemology those elements of thought that, if properly developed, would have allowed a re-reading in operational terms of the notion of scientific objectivity and would have made superfluous any Platonic theory of science, such as the Popperian theory of World 3, plagued by serious internal difficulties.