The Ethical Inflection of the Strenge Wissenschaft : Carlo Sini with and beyond Husserl

This article explores Carlo Sini’s intellectual trajectory, from his formation within the “School of Milan” under Enzo Paci to his original formulation of the “thought of practices’. By examining the inextricable entanglement of biography and philosophy, the study illustrates how Sini interprets Husserlian phenomenology not as a static doctrine, but as a genealogical exercise. Central to this analysis is the critique of the naive positive sciences and the paradoxical nature of the beginning, which Sini identifies as being always already begun within the Lebenswelt. Ultimately, the Husserlian project of philosophy as a rigorous science is transformed into an ethics of thought. In Sini’s mature reflection, rigorous science must abandon the claim of absolute theoretical purity to ground itself in the materiality of alphabetic writing and social practices, positioning philosophy as a conscious inhabitation of the tradition.