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 magazinesL'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" ; or Derrida's "there is nothing beyond the text" ''."
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.
An atheist, Pera co-authored a book with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, titled Senza radici, 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, 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."
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,, Mondadori, Milano 2008; with a letter-preface by Pope Benedict XVI
