Corso di laurea magistrale in Filosofia

The course aims to reconstruct an important phase in the history of scientific philosophy in the early twentieth century. It will provide conceptual and historiographical tools for a correct understanding and for a critical analysis of works by Russell, Carnap and other classical authors in scientific philosophy. Furthermore, it will examine different positions in the early twentieth-century debate on the scientificity of philosophy, from neo-Kantianism to the Vienna Circle. Based on the background provided in the course, the students will be especially challenged to form their own judgment on these philosophical theses and their reception in contemporary philosophy.

After attending the course, students will be expected: a) to have acquire knowledge and demonstrate understanding of the philosophical texts presented during the course; b) to be able to apply the notions learned during the course to central issues in nineteenth-century and contemporary philosophy; c) to have improved their critical skills in engaging with the course materials; d) to have improved their communicative skills by participating actively in the discussions; e) to demonstrate their learning skills by elaborating on the course materials.

Lectures and seminar-style discussions.

The oral examination will test the students' knowledge and understanding of the course materials, their capacity to situate the primary sources in their historical context and to analyze their philosophical contents, the ability to engage with the philosophical problems discussed during the course in a critical way, the acquisition of argumentative skills.
Students who cannot attend the course are required to prepare for the oral examination with the help of additional literature. They are kindly asked to contact the instructor in advance for advice on this literature.

The course deals with the development of various conceptions of scientific philosophy in the early twentieth century. The analysis of important works and programmatic texts by Russell, Husserl, Cassirer, and Carnap will show some of the themes that are common to different attempts to define new standards for the scientificity of philosophy, in particular the criticism of metaphysical systems, the abandonment of the speculative method in favor of continuity with scientific results, the search for a systematic approach to philosophical problems by the use of new conceptual tools provided by mathematics and logic.
The course will then address some of the central issues that have been debated among the proponents of scientific philosophy: How to delimit the field of philosophy from that of the different scientific inquiries? What distinguishes the philosophical method from the method of the empirical sciences? Is it possible to develop a science of consciousness? Is it possible to define an objective viewpoint common to different scientific and common sense perspectives? What are the social and political implications of scientific thought?
Furthermore, the course will address the legacy of the early twentieth-century debate on scientific philosophy, which played an important role in the development of different philosophical traditions known today as analytic and continental, as well as in the history of philosophy of science.

Exam programm

1) Carnap, Rudolf. La costruzione logica del mondo, traduzione di E. Severino dall'originale tedesco (1928), Torino: Unione tipografico-editrice torinese, 1997 (o altre edizioni).
2) Two texts among:
– Russell, Bertrand. Misticismo e logica e altri saggi, traduzione di L. Pavolini dall'originale inglese (1917), Milano: Longanesi, 1970 (o altre edizioni).
– Husserl, Edmund. La filosofia come scienza rigorosa, traduzione di C. Sinigaglia dall'originale tedesco (1910), Roma: Laterza, 2005 (o altre edizioni).
– Cassirer, Ernst / Couturat, Louis. Kant e la matematica, traduzione di C. Savi, Milano: Guerini, 1991.
– Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap. La concezione scientifica del mondo: il Circolo di Vienna, traduzione di S. Tugnoli Pattaro dall'originale tedesco (1929), Roma: Laterza, 1979 (o altre edizioni).
3) One text among:
– Coffa, Alberto J. La tradizione semantica da Kant a Carnap, traduzione di G. Farabegoli, Bologna: il Mulino, 1998.
– Friedman, Michael. Dinamiche della ragione: Le rivoluzioni scientifiche e il problema della razionalità, tradizione di C. Gabbani, Milano: Guerini, 2006.
– Richardson, Alan. Carnap's Construction of the World: The Aufbau and the emergence of logical empiricism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
– Stadler, Friedrich (ed.), The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism: Re-evaluation and Future Perspectives, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003.

Students who cannot attend the course are required to prepare for the oral examination with the help of additional literature. They are kindly asked to contact the instructor in advance for advice on this literature.

It is possible to conduct the exam in Italian, English or German.