Epistemology and didactics in Federigo Enriques

Federigo Enriques (1871-1946) is a key personality of Italian culture of the first half of the XX century. One of the most prominent mathematicians of his age (the Golden Age of Italian Mathematics), creator with Guido Castelnuovo of the theory of algebraic surfaces, all along his life he wrote epistemological, philosophical and historical essays. He had a role in the European scientific culture of those years comparable with that of other scientists like Enrst Mach, Henri Poincaré, Wilhelm Ostwald — scholars with whom he interacted at several levels. His contributions to the philosophy of science strongly influenced the Wiener Kreis, as Otto Neurath himself acknowledges. He was also always concerned with educational and didactic problems, both on an institutional and on a on-the-field level. The central personality of Italian didactic of the post-second world war period, Emma Castelnuovo, was a pupil of his. In this paper we will try to highlight some features of his epistemology, looking to those which were also foundations of his didactics.