Rethinking the Newtonian Revolution

 

1° marzo 2006
ore 11.00 - 13.00 e 14.30 - 16.30

 

Edificio S. Niccolò, 4° piano Aula 456

Via Roma 56, Siena

 

Incontro con J. B. Shank (University of Minnesota) e Koffi Maglo (MIT) coordinato da Niccolò Guicciardini (Siena)

 

Recent research on the science of Isaac Newton and its legacy has raised new questions about its place within the history of science. Once credited with singlehandedly launching physics and mathematics into the modern era, this research has not so much displaced Newton as posed anew the question of his precise historical achievements. This seminar brings together a cultural historian, a philosopher, and a historian of mathematics all with strong interests in Newtonian science and its reception.

 

Letture consigliate:

 

I.                I. B. Cohen, La rivoluzione newtoniana, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1982

II.              M.J. Osler, ed., Rethinking the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge, CUP, 2000

III.            Early Science and Medicine (2004) vol.  9(3) special issue on Newton and Newtonianism (papers by Shapiro, Shank and Guicciardini)

IV.           Koffi  Maglo, “The Reception of Newton's Gravitational Theory by Huygens, Varignon, and Maupertuis: How Normal Science may be Revolutionary" Perspectives on Science - Volume 11, Number 2, Summer 2003, pp. 135-169

 

 

Koffi Maglo is visiting MIT from the University of Cincinnati. He studied up to his B.A. in Togo and holds a Ph.D. (1998) from the University of Burgundy in France. He did postdoctoral studies at Virginia Tech in the USA (1999-2001). He currently collaborates with the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. His research interests include the history of gravitational theory, the constitution of scientific reality in population genetics, the epistemic status of the race concept in genomic and biomedical research, and issues of theory justification in both Analytic and Continental philosophy of science. He has published on Bachelard and positivism and on Kuhn and Newton.

 

J. B. Shank: I am beginning my fourth year at Minnesota, having completed my dissertation in European History and Humanities at Stanford in 2000. The interdisciplinary character of my degree defines well my scholarly orientation. At root I am a student of early modern intellectual and cultural history with a bias toward the history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Within this broad field my interests range widely and I tend to get most interested when I find ostensibly distinct topics intersecting. The history of science has been at the center of my work for some time, especially the history of the Scientific Revolution. I am also interested in the history of political thought, particularly its "scientization" in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For this reason the rise of the modern social and human sciences has attracted my attention and I have written about such topics as the rise of liberal economic science. These topics point directly to the European Enlightenment, the anchor of much of my work. My forthcoming book entitled Before Voltaire: Newtonianism and the Origins of Enlightenment in France attempts to explain the origins of the French Enlightenment, and my approach, which is at once intellectual and socio-cultural, typifies the more general approach I take to European history. The particular history of France is also a primary focus of my attention, and topics such as absolutism, Old Regime society, the rise of civil and commercial society, and the French Revolution, therefore, are key sites of inquiry for me. At Minnesota, I have taught graduate courses on  thought, the European Enlightenment, and the French Revolution, and undergraduate surveys of Western thought and culture.

 

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Laboratorio di informatica umanistica
Dipartimento di studi storico-sociali e filosofici

5 aprile 2006
ore 14.30-17.30

Massimo Bucciantini, seminario sul libro di Pierpaolo Antonello, Il ménage a quattro. Scienza, filosofia, tecnica nella letteratura italiana del Novecento, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2005.

6 aprile 2006
ore 9.30-13.00

Walter Bernardi, seminario sul libro di Adriano Prosperi, Dare l'anima. Storia di un infanticidio, Torino, Einaudi, 2005.

(Si raccomanda la lettura preventiva dei due libri).

Iª giornata

 Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Accademia dei Fisiocritici

- Siena -

13 aprile 2005

 

ore 11.00-13.00: Niccolò Guicciardini, “Le relazioni fra meccanica e geometria da Galileo a Newton”.

ore 14.30-16.30: Francesca Vannozzi, “Il ruolo delle accademie scientifiche nel dibattito della scienza del XVIII e XIX secolo in Italia”.

Seguirà una visita delle collezioni dell'Accademia, con particolare riguardo alla "Sala Paolo Mascagni", nel corso della quale sarà distibuito ai partecipanti materiale illustrativo relativo all’Accademia e alla sala.

In preparazione ai seminari e alla visita si consiglia di visitare il sito dei Fisiocritici: www.accademiafisiocritici.it e di consultare i capitoli relativi alla nascita della scienza moderna di P. Rossi, Storia della scienza moderna e contemporanea (UTET).

Per raggiungere l'Accademia (Prato Sant'Agostino, Piazzetta Silvio Gigli; tel. 0577/47002), si consiglia di uscire dalla Superstrada Firenze-Siena, all'uscita Siena Sud, per poi seguire le indicazioni per Porta Tufi, Parcheggio “Il Campo”.

Per ulteriori informazioni, contattare la Prof.sa Vannozzi: 0577/234146
vannozzi@unisi.it

 

IIª giornata

Dipartimento di studi storico-sociali e filosofici

Viale Cittadini, 33

- Arezzo -

 

27 aprile 2005

ore 14.30-17.30: Walter Bernardi, “La controversia sull’elettricità animale tra Galvani e Volta”.

28 aprile 2005

ore 9.30-12.30: Massimo Bucciantini, “Scienza e letteratura”

Testi di riferimento in preparazione delle lezioni: W. Bernardi, I fluidi della vita. Alle origini della controversia sull’elettricità animale, Firenze, Olschki, 1992; Cultura scientifica e cultura umanistica: contrasto o integrazione?, a cura di Giorgio Olcese, Genova, Edizioni San Marco dei Giustiniani, 2004.

Per informazioni contattare il Prof. Bernardi: 333.8420280; bernardi@unisi.it