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Introduction 2

than objects that are ideal (or vice versa), or to attribute some type of physical ex-istence to every entity.

The common thread of Fundierung in uences not only the philosophy of math -ematics but also the other principal elds of Rotas philosophical investigation: hisre ection on objectivism, his rereading of Heideggerian hermeneutics, his critiqueof analytic philosophy, and his critique of scientism. Objectivism was a crucial is-sue for many contemporary philosophersHusserl in particular. But one of Rotasmost original contributions was his attempt to single out objectivism as an obstaclenot only for philosophical research but also (and above all) for scienti c research.His objection to objectivism does not consist in a critique of science tout court, butrather of reductionism entangled in the most classical philosophical aporias by itsinability to grasp the complexity of the relation between the whole and its parts.

This is a question of great topical interest, as was demonstrated by the internationalconference held at the Universit Statale in Milan in 2009, on the occasion of thetenth anniversary of Rotas death.2

For Rota, these dif culties can be overcome if, through the relation of Fundier- ung , the full importance of the autonomy of a phenomenons levels of descriptioncan be grasped. His re ections in this regard are contained in his most importanttext, signi cantly titled The End of Objectivity , which collects the lessons of his phi-

losophy courses at MIT (Rota, 1991a).3

In this vein, the title of my book is in u -enced by Fundierung ; Husserls star-shape in the Third Logical Investigation is used toexemplify a particular type of foundation ( Fundierung ) between the whole and theparts that Rota transformed into one of the keystones of his thinking.

The theme of Fundierung also conditions Rotas rereading of Heidegger, par-ticularly regarding the problem of sense ( Sinn ), its contextual nature, and its con-nection with a physical substrate. This perspective underlies his philosophical proj-ect for a pluralistic cultural and scienti c attitude where, alongside non-dogmaticobjectivism, phenomenology can carve out a space of its own, creating a fruitfuldialogue between scienti c enterprise and philosophical re ection.

This type of approach, like that of other scholars of continental origin, met with erce opposition on the philosophical scene in the United States. Rota re -sponded with a wealth of essays and articles in which he voices an equally vig-orous criticism of analytical philosophy. This polemic, moreover, interacted withhis interest in issues relative to teaching, to scienti c education, and to diffusion,turning his philosophical works into an important reference point for all those whoare interested in understanding and overcoming the fracture between analytic and

continental philosophy.4

2 See DAntona, Damiani, Marra, Palombi (Eds.), (2009).3 This is a 457-page compendium of heavily edited lecture notes from Rotas annual courses atMIT between 1974 and 1991. See also Rota (2007).4 Regarding this fracture see DAgostini (1997), pp. 123166, and Picardi (1999).

2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

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