Mauro Ceruti

Born in 1953, he is an epistemologist and systemic thinker

Born in 1953, he is an epistemologist and systemic thinker, has taught in the University of Ginevra, Paris, Palermo and Bergamo of which he has been the Dean, and now is at the IULM University of Milano. Among the philosophers he has been involved in the elaboration of complex thought, he is one of the pioneers of contemporary inter- and trans-disciplinary research on complex systems. An advocate of New Planetary Humanism.

Umberta Telfener: I remember when I first met him. We were in Città di Castello, it was 1980 at a conference organized by Professor Manuali – guru of Umbrian anti-psychiatry. I am correspondent of the Corriere medico, insert of the Corriere della sera, a young psychologist who has just returned from the United States, very confused about what to do. I arrived late, I had no idea of the program, yet as soon as I listened to the reports by Mauro Ceruti  I understood what I wanted to do when I grew up.
I was struck by the concept of « epistemology », point of view, of loss of neutrality, of personal responsibility. He spoke about the need to monitor the premises and the culture values, of the necessary paradigmatic shift, he insisted on reflecting on the habits of thought. The proposal was to renounce to an abstract and disembodied observer, to reject a mental structure in which facts become facts only if kept in experimental mode – to be passionately involved in the game of hypotheses. Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology was the operative proposal of Mauro, who worked at the time at the University of Geneva, in the Faculty of Educational Sciences.
His thought allowed me to get in touch with a group of « carbonari » who peddle systemics and try to think complex: contextualize, introduce time, connect elements, become curious, show irreverence, doubt …  Always considering a thousand different plans.