HISTORICAL EPISTEMOLOGY

This year's course introduces students to historical epistemology through the study of the vexed issue of the Scientific Revolution, approached from a theoretical-historical perspective.
Firstly, students will be introduced to historical epistemology in general, seen as an HPS integrated approach. After this general introduction, the course will be devoted to the reading and discussion of a series of sources from the history of early-modern science (Copernicus, Calcagnini, Galileo, Bruno, and others). These authors and their works will be considered through broad theoretical and historiographical lenses, borrowed from canonical theses, texts, and authors (such as Zilsel, Koyré, Kuhn, Hessen, Kula, and others): Where did the idea of a Scientific Revolution that would deliver to modernity a new approach to nature originate? Is the development of science continuous or discontinuous? Does it have practical or spiritual roots? What is the role of practice, logic and erudition in the formation of modern scientific culture? What is the function of abstractions in science, particularly mathematical ones? Where to locate genesis, validity and ends of modern science?

- Introduce students to the main currents and issues in historical epistemology, regarded as the last major attempt to organically connect history and philosophy of science.
- Address the fundamental question of the origin of modern science from the perspective of historical epistemology.
- Familiarization with key thinkers and texts of historical epistemology and the Scientific Revolution.
- Acquire the ability to analyze and discuss modern philosophical texts and interpret them critically.

• Enthusiasm and readiness to engage with challenging philosophical readings.
• A fair knowledge of English, for certain didactic materials as well as in case of meeting with foreign scholars in some of the classes.

This class is divided into two parts:
1. a general introduction to fundamental themes and authors of historical epistemology (a historical-theoretical approach to science that brings together its history of science and the philosophy of science)
2. a reflection on the science-philosophy-history nexus on the basis of a series of readings of reference texts.

• Per un inquadramento generale si farà riferimento a: Massimiliano Badino, Gerardo Ienna e Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Epistemologia storica: Correnti, temi e problemi (Roma: Carocci, 2022).
• Alcuni di testi di epistemologia storica (facoltativi per i frequentanti e in parte messi a disposizione su moodle), serviranno come riferimenti teorici e storiografici per la lettura di fonti primarie di storia della scienza, in particolare:
o Edgar Zilsel, “The Sociological Roots of Science,” Social Studies of Science 30/6 (2000 [1942]): pp. 935–939;
o Thomas S. Kuhn, La rivoluzione copernicana: l'astronomia planetaria nello sviluppo del pensiero occidentale (Torino, 1972), alcune sezioni;
o Alexandre Koyré, Studi galileiani (1979), alcune sezioni;
o Boris Hessen, Le radici sociali ed economiche della meccanica di Newton, a cura di Gerardo Ienna, trad. Giulia Rispoli (Roma: Castelvecchi, 2017), 119-150;
o Ernst Bloch, Das Materialismusproblem, seine Geschichte und Substanz (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1972), Anhang “Avicenna und die aristotelische Linke”, pp. 479-546.
• Fonti primarie (obbligatorie) del corso:
o Celio Calcagnini, Il cielo sta fermo, la Terra si muove, ovvero sul moto perenne della Terra [ca. 1518], a cura di Alberto Bardi e Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Roma: Castelvecchi, 2022);
o Niccolò Copernico, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium [1543], una scelta, in particolare dal primo libro, trad. it. Di Anna de Pace in Niccolò Copernico e la fondazione del cosmo eliocentrico: Con testo, traduzione e commentario del Libro I de Le rivoluzioni celesti (Milano: Mondadori, 2009).
o Niccolò Copernico, Monetae cudendae ratio [1526], trad. it. in, a cura di Francesco Barone (Torino: UTET, 1979).
o Galileo Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo [1632], in Opere, vol. 2 (Torino: UTET, 2005), a cura di Franz Brunetti, giornata quarta.
o Giordano Bruno, De la causa principio et uno [1584], in Dialoghi filosofici italiani, a cura di Michele Ciliberto (Milano: Mondadori, 2000), pp. 159-296, una scelta.

The students' preparation will be verified through interaction with students during the course and through a final oral exam centered on the course texts. Primary sources are compulsory for attending students, while contextualization and theory sources are compulsory for nonattending students only.

oral

The teaching will be divided
• in a part of frontal teaching, in which the professor will introduce students to the topics of the course,
• and in a dialogic-seminar part, in which students will interact with their classmates and the professor on the basis of texts they have been assigned and they have to read in preparation for the lessons.

Italian