Achille Varzi (philosopher)

Achille C. Varzi is an Italian-born philosopher who is John Dewey Professor of philosophy at Columbia University. He graduated from the University of Trento and received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto. Varzi is also Bruno Kessler Honorary Professor at the University of Trento and, since 2017, visiting professor at the Italian Switzerland.

Work

Varzi has made notable contributions to the fields of philosophical logic and metaphysics. His first book, Holes and Other Superficialities, was an exploration of the realist ontology of common sense and naive physics. His more recent work is inspired by a nominalist-conventionalist stance.
Varzi is currently an editor of The Journal of Philosophy and an advisory editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Varzi is also a prolific writer for the general public and contributes regularly to several Italian newspapers.
Achille C. Varzi is a second cousin of the Italian racecar driver Achille Varzi.

Books

Mereology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.I colori del bene, Naples: Orthotes, 2015.Le tribolazioni del filosofare. Comedia Metaphysica ne la quale si tratta de li errori & de le pene de l’Infero, Rome: Laterza, 2014.Ontologie, Paris, Ithaque, 2010.Il mondo messo a fuoco, Rome: Laterza, 2010. Insurmountable Simplicities. Thirty-nine Philosophical Conundrums, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006; also translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Greek, Chinese, Korean.Il pianeta dove scomparivano le cose. Esercizi di immaginazione filosofica, Torini: Einaudi, 2006.Parole, oggetti, eventi e altri argomenti di metafisica, Rome: Carocci, 2001.An Essay in Universal Semantics, Dorrecht, Kluwer, 1999.Parts and Places. The Structures of Spatial Representation, Boston : MIT Press, 1999.Theory and Problems of Logic, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.Holes and Other Superficialities, Boston : MIT Press, 1994.