Abstract

The paper focuses on Paolo Rossi's idea of the history of philosophy, and on its methodological premises, according to which he criticizes both the idealistic and neo-scholastic models of historiography and follows a personal path in the Italian philosophical scene of the Fifties. The claim that the history of philosophy should not be separated from other specific historical areas comes out even in Rossi's conception of the history of science, in which he stressed the link between the different scientific fields and the connections between their theoretical constructs and their objective conditions. The paper analyses the main features of Rossi's practice of historiography, that led him to his great works in both the history of philosophy and the History of science.