Giovanni Piana and the philosophy of arithmetic

Abstract

The science of arithmetic has been a constant interest in all of Giovanni Piana's reflection. The aim of this essay is to show how this interest can help to illustrate the main articulations of the thought of the Italian phenomenologist. This path passes through the difference, established by Piana, between a prearithmetic level and an arithmetic level as a reflection of the Husserlian distinc-tion between an ante-predicative level and a predicative level. Furthermore, the pre-arithmetic / arithmetic pair brings the distinction between ante-predicative and predicative beyond the sphere of verbal language in which predication takes place. As will be seen, the result is a generalized differentiation between a prelinguistic level and a linguistic level, in which music is an important example of the potential scope of this theme.