PHILOSOPHIES OF SCIENCE
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
There is no prerequisite
How learning is verified
The only oral oral final check is planned during which the following will be evaluated:
- the ability to properly understand the reading of a text;
- adequate knowledge of examination texts;
- the ability to develop one's own independent critical reflection.
In the course of the oral interview, the acquisition and correct understanding of the contents of the mandatory texts is to be ascertained and studied in full. Specific questions will be asked about the contents of the examination texts, which will cover an assessment of the ability of interdisciplinary critical analysis and autonomy of judgment.
In addition, knowledge of the topics covered in the books of your choice (at least one question) will be required.
The final vote will take into account the accuracy and quality of the responses (70%), as well as the communication skills shown during the interview (10%) and the ability to adequately justify claims, analyses and judgments (20%).
Training goals
The course aims to define and analyze philosophical reflection with an integrated, historical, philosophical and narrative approach to contemporary, able to deal with, with adequate critical capacity, philosophical themes. For this reason, the course aims to provide the main methodological tools useful for understanding the specific cultural context of the 20th century, fostering a plurality of hermeneutic approaches that, especially in the contemporary age, have philosophical reflection. A special attention will be given to the critical analysis of the texts with the aim of grasping the essential lines, as well as the development of the different conceptual forms and the explicitness of the different categories and the examination of the language used Author taken into account.
Through a direct relationship with the sources (in all its formats) a critical understanding of the texts taken into account is favoured in the learner, favoring a historical and conceptual deepening in comparative and interdisciplinary form as a tool conceptual understanding of the qualifying changes of the contemporary world. This promotes a hermeneutic approach that can adopt forms of analysis and critical skills specific to contemporary philosophical reflection
Learning outcomes include
- knowledge of the conceptual notion of scientific philosophy
- ability to read a text critically, inserting it within its precise theoretical context
- ability to explain the different traditions of thought present within a given theoretical proposal
- ability to grasp the open problems of the texts studied
- ability to apply the acquired knowledge independently, in order to initiate a self-contained critical reflection on the open problems of the contemporary
The course will cover the theme Albert Einstein epistemologist and the theory of relativity and, specifically, will analyze the following topics: the physical-epistemological reflection developed by Einstein having as privileged reference texts his scientific autobiography, the popular exposition of the theory of relativity and the volume written by Einstein and Infeld on The evolution of physics in order to be able to specify the following conceptual points: the relationship between appearance and reality; the existence of matter and the nature of matter; idealism; empiricism; induction; knowledge a priori; the problem of universals; intuition; the relationship between truth and falsehood; the limits of scientific knowledge and the value of epistemological reflection; the science/philosophy relationship; the role of logical inferences; the role of reason as a privileged tool to build critical reflection.
Reference texts
Mandatory reference texts:
- A. Einstein, Autobiografia scientifica, trad. it. di Augusto Gamba, P. Boringhieri, Torino 1979 (limited to Einstein's Autobiography) (or any other edition of this Autobiografia come quella che figura in Albert Einstein: scienziato e filosofo, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, Boringhieri, Torino 1958, or the one that appears in A. Einstein, Opere scelte, a cura di Enrico Bellone, Bollati-Boringhieri, Torino 1988, etc.)
- A. Einstein, Relatività: esposizione divulgativa, trad. it. di Virginia Geymonat, Boringhieri, Torino 1960 (several times reissued)
Recommended introductory text
- A. Einstein – Leopold Infeld, L'evoluzione della fisica: lo sviluppo delle idee dai concetti iniziali alla relatività e ai quanti, trad. it. di Adele Graziadei, Boringhieri, Torino 1985 (several times reissued)
Two books of your choice include the following:
- Abrham Pais, Sottile è il Signore. La scienza e la vita di Albert Einstein, trad. it. di Lanfranco Belloni, a cura di Tullio Cannillo, Boringhieri, Torino 1991 (several times reissued)
- B. Russell, L’ABC della teoria della relatività, Longanesi, Milano 1960 (several times reissued)
- Tullio Regge, Spazio, tempo, relatività, Loescher, Torino 1981
- Silvio Bergia, Einstein e la relativià, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1978 (several times reissued)
- Leopold Infeld, Albert Einstein, Einaudi, Torino 1984 (several times reissued)
- Hermann Bondi, La relatività e il senso comune, Zanichelli, Bologna 1965 (several times reissued)
- Lev Davidovič Landau – Jurij Borisovic Rumer, Che cos'è la relatività?, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1983
- Aleksej A. Tyapkin, Relatività Speciale, Jaca Book, Milano 1993;
- Robert Resnick, Introduzione alla relatività ristretta, Ambrosiana, Milano1979
- Alberto Bandini Buti, La relatività, Delfino, Milano 1983;
- Giulio Cortini, La relatività ristretta, Loescher, Torino 1981.
- Paolo Campogalliani, Prima di Einstein. Quiete, moto e relatività, Editrice La Scuola, Brescia 1983;
- Vittorio Silvestrini, Guida alla teoria della relatività. Dalle previsioni di Einstein alle conferme sperimentali, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1982
- Albert Einstein filosofo e metodologo. Atti del convegno di Cesena (25-26 novembre 2005), a cura di Vincenzo Fano, Fabio Minazzi e Isabella Tassani, «Il Protagora», anno XXXV, gennaio-giugno 2007, quinta serie, n. 9.
- Einstein 1916-2016, Atti del ciclo di conferenze sulla teoria della Relatività generale (Brescia 6, 7, 14 aprile 2016), a cura di Nicola Zurlo e Gianluigi Piardi, Università degli Studi di Brescia-Associazione scientifica “Osvaldo De Donato”, Brescia 2018
The training objectives of the course will be achieved through the way of the frontal lessons (for a total of 30 hours) which provide for the analytical and collective discussion of the texts taken in direct reference.