Massimo Pigliucci (MASS-ee-MO Peel-YOU-chee; born January 16, 1964) is an Italian philosopher and biologist who is professor of philosophy at the City College of New York. He is a critic of pseudoscience (including creationism), and an advocate for secularism and science education. His recent work has focused on Stoicism.
Biography Pigliucci was born in Monrovia, Liberia and raised in Rome. He earned a Laurea from Sapienza University of Rome in 1986. He then earned a doctorate in genetics from the University of Ferrara in 1990, a PhD in botany from the University of Connecticut in 1994, and a PhD in the philosophy of science from the University of Tennessee in 2003. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Pigliucci was formerly a professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University. He explored phenotypic plasticity, genotype–environment interactions, natural selection, and the constraints imposed on natural selection by the genetic and developmental makeup of organisms. In 1997, while working at the University of Tennessee, Pigliucci received the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize, awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution to recognize the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding young evolutionary biologist. As a philosopher, Pigliucci is interested in the structure and foundations of evolutionary theory, the relationship between science and philosophy, and the relationship between science and religion. He is a proponent of an extended evolutionary synthesis to unify parts of biology not covered by the "modern synthesis" of the 20th century. Pigliucci has written regularly for Skeptical Inquirer. His article topics include such as climate change denial, intelligent design, pseudoscience, and philosophy. He has also written for Philosophy Now and writes a Substack newsletter called Figs in Winter. He has debated "deniers of evolution" (young-earth creationists and intelligent design proponents), including young earth creationists Duane Gish and Kent Hovind and intelligent design proponents William Dembski and Jonathan Wells, on many occasions.
His video podcast, Ars Vivendi, features conversations with authors and translators who publish about practical ancient philosophy.
Critical thinking and skepticism
Pigliucci is an atheist, but does not believe that science necessarily demands atheism, because of two distinctions: that between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, and that between value judgements and matters of fact. He believes that many scientists and science educators fail to appreciate these differences. Pigliucci has criticized New Atheist writers for embracing what he considers to be scientism (although he largely excludes philosopher Daniel Dennett from this charge). In a discussion of his book Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life, Pigliucci told Skepticality podcast host Derek Colanduno, "Aristotle was the first ancient thinker to really take seriously the idea that you need both empirical facts, you need an evidence-based approach to the world and you need to be able to reflect on the meaning of those facts... If you want answers to moral questions then you don't ask the neurobiologist, you don't ask the evolutionary biologist, you ask the philosopher." Pigliucci describes the mission of skeptics, referencing Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World saying "What skeptics are about is to keep that candle lit and spread it as much as possible". Pigliucci is an event co-host for New York City Skeptics. In 1998, he debated William Lane Craig over the existence of God at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Also in 2001 he debated Craig about the same topic. Massimo Pigliucci criticized the newspaper article by Pope Francis entitled, "An open dialogue with non-believers". Pigliucci viewed the article as a monologue rather than a dialogue and, in a response personally addressed to Pope Francis, wrote that the Pope only offered non-believers "a reaffirmation of entirely unsubstantiated fantasies about God and his Son...followed by a confusion between the concept of love and truth, the whole peppered by a significant amount of historical revisionism and downright denial of the ugliest facets of your Church."
Stoicism Pigliucci became a popularizer of Stoicism and one of the driving forces in Stoicism's resurgence in the United States in the early twenty-first century. His 2015 essay for The New York Times on the topic was one of the most shared articles to date. Pigliucci said he always felt Stoicism was part of his Italian heritage, but he came to practice it after having experimented with Buddhism, though he finds that the two schools of thought share similarities. I actually tried to study Buddhism for a bit, but the parts I managed to get exposed to felt too alien, couched in cultural, linguistic, and conceptual terms that did not resonate with me. By contrast, when I picked up Epictetus, or Marcus, or Seneca, I immediately felt at home.
Neoskepticism In 2021 Pigliucci announced a shift of interest away from straightforward Stoicism and towards, as he said, "a new synthesis, something that I have called Neoskepticism, and which uses the combined insights of the ancient Skeptics and Stoics to craft a better way to think about and especially live one’s life."
On consciousness Pigliucci has criticized David Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness, and he similarly is a critic of panpsychism. While he is a realist about consciousness, he thinks that claiming there is a distinction between the so-called hard and easy problems of consciousness is a category error.
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