Mauro Ceruti

Mauro Ceruti (born July 16, 1953 in Cremona, Italy) is an Italian philosopher.
He is one of the pioneers and developers of Complex Systems Theories, Methods and Epistemologies, and of the trans-disciplinary research line usually called "Complex Thinking", which aims at the innovation of the paradigms of (scientific) rationality.
Ceruti's philosophical reflections and productions are at the intersection between a plurality of research domains, among which they stimulate inter- and trans-disciplinary debate on complexity: Epistemology (Philosophy and History of Science, History of Ideas, Noology...), Natural Sciences (Physics, Biology, Cosmology, ...), Human Sciences (Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, History, ...), Sciences of Organization and Management, among others.
His writings have been published in Italian, English, French, German, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Turkish.
Research profile.
Mauro Ceruti studied Philosophy at the University of Milan (Italy) with Ludovico Geymonat, focusing on Philosophy and History of Science, and, in particular, on Jean Piaget's Genetic Epistemology. In this period, Ceruti produced on the latter topic an in-depth study and interpretation, which was published later in a book that he wrote together with Gianluca Bocchi.
From 1981 to 1986 Ceruti worked at the University of Geneva, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, and at the Genetic Epistemology International Centre founded by Jean Piaget. In these years, he developed the definition of an innovative research line within Philosophy of Science, based on analyses and elaborations of the epistemological implications of the Evolutionary Sciences. Within this framework, Ceruti developed a research program in Evolutionary Epistemology that draws on contemporary theories of biological evolution, history of ideas and genetic psychology.
Starting from the 80s, Ceruti had been collaborating with Alberto Munari and Donata Fabbri at the Cultural Psychology Center of Geneva, Ilya Prigogine at Université Libre of Brussels, Henri Atlan and Francisco Varela at CREA (Research Center in Applied Epistemology, Paris), Jean-Louis Le Moigne at the MCX (Modelisation of Complexity) Program, and Ervin Laszlo and GERG (General Evolution Research Group, San Diego).
Between 1986 and 1993, Ceruti started to collaborate with Edgar Morin at the CETSAP (Research Center in Transdisciplinary Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Politics, Paris), developing and expanding his Evolutionary Epistemology project to create a new trans-disciplinary research program, dedicated to structure an Anthropology and Epistemology of Complex Systems, as well as a Complex Anthropology and Epistemology.
Since 1985 Ceruti has been organizing a series of symposia, as well as structuring a wide research network on the main research topics of the emerging Sciences of Complex Systems. They included, besides the already mentioned pioneers of these domains of inquiry, also Jerome Bruner, Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Susan Oyama, Isabelle Stengers, William Thompson, Lynn Margulis, James Lovelock, Stephen J. Gould, Niles Eldredge, Brian Goodwin, Evan Thompson, Giulio Giorello, Paul Feyerabend, Paul Watzlawick, and René Thom, among others. These collaborations and synergies found their expression in collective publications, among which is "La sfida della complessità". This work, edited by Ceruti with Gianluca Bocchi, initiated in Italy one of the most relevant philosophical debates of the last decades, and, at the international level, contributed to connect innovative lines of inquiry within the Sciences of Complex Systems in a unitary trans-disciplinary research direction that, since the late 80s, is commonly called "Epistemology of Complex Systems". Together with Ceruti's following books, this work stimulated epistemological reflections on the paradigms of contemporary sciences, and the emergence of new research perspectives in many different disciplines and social practices: from Architecture to Sociology and Anthropology, from Clinical Psychology to Management and Organization Sciences, from Educational Sciences to the Cognitive Sciences and Philosophy of Mind, from History to the Sciences of Globalization.
Between the 80s and the 90s Ceruti founded and directed three scientific journals dedicated to the development of "Complex Thinking": "La Casa di Dedalo, Oikos" and "Pluriverso."
Since 1994 Ceruti has been Professor in the domain of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in different Italian universities: the University of Parma, the Polytechnic of Milan, the University of Palermo, the Bicocca University of Milan, the University of Bergamo (where he founded the Research Center on Complex Systems CERCO, as well as a Doctoral School in Anthropology and Epistemology of Complex Systems), and the IULM University of Milan.
Currently he is member of the following Scientific Committees and Advisory Boards: