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Carlo Rovelli takes aim at analytic philosophy's naive realism

IAI TV • September 15, 2026 • general

Key Points:

Physicist Carlo Rovelli critiques analytic philosophy's return to realism in his book "On the Equality of All Things," arguing that many twentieth-century philosophers failed to engage with modern science or overly focused on mind and consciousness as special.
Rovelli posits that entities such as electrons, minds, stones, laws, judgments, and galaxies are not fundamentally different in nature, challenging traditional distinctions between them.
He contends that neither science nor philosophy can access ultimate reality, emphasizing the limits of both disciplines in fully explaining existence.
Rovelli highlights the historical and ongoing interplay between science and philosophy, noting that philosophical inquiry is essential when scientific concepts and frameworks are unclear.
On the realism vs. anti-realism debate, Rovelli finds the question of whether electrons are "real" to be poorly framed, as the concept of reality itself is not clearly defined and is part of the philosophical discussion.

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