Marcello Pera

Marcello Pera
President of the Italian Senate
In office 30 May 2001 – 27 April 2006
Preceded by	Nicola Mancino
Succeeded by	Franco Marini
Member of the Senate
In office 9 May 1996 – 14 March 2013
Personal details
Born	(1943-01-28) 28 January 1943 Lucca, Kingdom of Italy
Political party	Independent
Other political affiliations	Italian Socialist Party (until 1994) Forza Italia (1994-2009) The People of Freedom (2009-2012)
Alma mater	University of Pisa
Profession	Philosopher Politician

Marcello Pera (Italian pronunciation: [marˈtʃɛllo ˈpeːra]) (born 28 January 1943) is an Italian philosopher and politician. He was the President of the Italian Senate from 2001 to 2006.

Career

Pera, who was born in Lucca, graduated in accounting, and he worked for the Banca Toscana and for the Camera di Commercio in Lucca. He went on to study philosophy at the University of Pisa, concentrating on the works of Karl Popper and his open society theory, and advocating these principles during the difficult 1970s, the anni di piombo.

His academic career began 1976 at the University of Pisa. He then went on to pursue research activities internationally: Visiting Fellow, University of Pittsburgh, 1984; Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990; Visiting Fellow, Centre for the Philosophy of Natural Sciences, London School of Economics, 1995–96. He taught Theoretical Philosophy from 1989 to 1992 at the University of Catania. In 1992 he became full professor of Philosophy at the University of Pisa.

Marcello Pera has written for the newspapers Corriere della Sera, Il Messaggero, and La Stampa, and to the news magazines L'Espresso and Panorama.

Pera has become a leading opponent of post-modernism and cultural relativism and on this subject he resonates with religious thinkers.

Opposing cultural relativism he declared, "There are... good reasons for deeming that some institutions are better than others. And I deny that such a judgment must necessarily lead to a clash."

Opposing the post modern denial of the possibility of ascertaining objective facts, he says, "Against deconstructivism I do not deny that facts do not exist without interpretation. I refute Nietzsche's thesis that "there are no facts, only interpretations" (F. Nietzsche, Afterthoughts); or Derrida's "there is nothing beyond the text" (J. Derrida, Of Grammatology)."

In the Senate

He was elected as a Senator for Forza Italia in 1996 and 2001. During the XIV Legislature, he was President of the Senate from May 30, 2001 to April 27, 2006. He was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 and 2008.

Dialogue with Pope Benedict XVI

An atheist, Pera co-authored a book with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, titled Senza radici ("Without Roots"), and is the author of the introduction to the book originally titled L'Europa di Benedetto nella crisi delle culture, or in short, The Europe of Benedict, written by Ratzinger shortly before he became the pope. It has been reprinted as Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures.

Pera's 2008 book Perché dobbiamo dirci cristiani ("Why We Must Call Ourselves Christians"), has a letter-preface by Pope Benedict XVI.

Pera is a critic of the policies of Jorge Bergoglio and his attempts to influence Italian politics, in particular his response to the European migrant crisis; he has accused Bergoglio of demanding that European states "commit suicide."

Honour

Foreign honour

• Malaysia : Honorary Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (2003)
• Uruguay : Grand Cordon of the Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (2003)

Publications

• Induzione e metodo scientifico, Pera M., Editrice Tecnico Scientifica, Pisa, 1978
• Popper e la scienza su palafitte, Pera M., Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1981
• Hume, Kant e l'induzione, Pera M., Il Mulino, Bologna, 1982
• Apologia del Metodo, Pera M., Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1982
• La Rana ambigua. La controversia sull'eletricità tra Galvana e Volta, Pera M., Einaudi, Torino, 1986; English translation The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1991
• Scienza e retorica, Pera M., Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1992; translated into English and revised as The Discourses of Science, (Chicago University Press, Chicago 1994
• Senza radici/Without Roots, Pera M., Ratzinger J., Mondadori, Milano 2004, Basic Books, New York 2006; German edition: Sankt Ulrich Verlag, Augsburg 2005; Spanish edition: Peninsula, Barcelona 2006
  • Ratzinger, Joseph; Pera, Marcello (2006). Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam. New York: Basic Books.
• Perché dobbiamo dirci cristiani ("Why We Must Call Ourselves Christians"), Mondadori, Milano 2008; with a letter-preface by Pope Benedict XVI

External links

• Marcello Pera's official site (in Italian and English)