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Paolo Palmieri,
Associate Professor (pap7@pitt.edu) |
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My
research interests focus on the traditions that shaped the values of
modernity over a period spanning the late middle ages
to the twentieth century. I am fascinated by the creativity processes at the
crossroads of art, science, and technology. My pedagogical and philosophical
interests include Montessori method, pragmatism, phenomenology,
post-humanism, heresy and mysticism, and their intersections with the natural
and humane sciences. I
am the Editor of a book series:
History and Philosophy of Science: Heresy, Crossroads, and Intersections
(Peter Lang) |
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Education and Work 2002 PhD
History and Philosophy of Science (STS University College, University of
London ) 1998
Degree Philosophy, University of Bologna 1989-1995
Engineer Ferrari Formula One Racing Team 1987
Degree Aeronautical Engineering, Polytechnic of Milan BOOKS |
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(Download here
the supporting multimedia materials file). A review of
the book by the late Curtis Wilson. |
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My Mellen
books are supported by multimedia materials and videos of experiments which
are available upon request to the author. INTERACTIVE
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(2016)
Hermes and the Telescope. In the
Crucible of Galileo's Life-World. Peter Lang 
(2024)PEANO IS A NUMBER: The
Imprintation Theory of Arithmetic Kindle Interactive Edition On PAPERS
(2017) Galileo′s Thought
Experiments.
The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments.
(2017) On scientia
and regressus. Routledge
Companion to Sixteenth Century Philosophy.
(2014) ′The postilion′s
horn sounds′: a complementarity approach to the phenomenology of
sound-consciousness? Husserl Studies
30, 129-151.
(2012) Signals, cochlear
mechanics and pragmatism: a new vista on human hearing? Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence
24, 527-545.
(2011) A morphological theory of
human hearing. In: WHAT FIRE IS IN MINE
EARS: Progress in Auditory Biomechanics. Proceedings of the 11th International
Mechanics of Hearing Workshop. Editor(s): Christopher A. Shera, Elizabeth
S. Olson. Melville, NY: The American Institute of Physics, 363-368.
(2011) Il mondo di carta di Giovanni Vailati. Annuario del centro studi Giovanni Vailati. 2008/2009, 19-25.
(2009) A phenomenology of Galileo′s
experiments with pendulums. The British Journal for the History of Science
42, 479-513. Download here the First
View paper with supporting document.
(2009) Experimental history:
swinging pendulums and melting shellac. Endeavour 33, 88-92.
(2009) Response to Maarten Van
Dyck′s commentary. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
40, 319-321.
(2009) Superposition: on
Cavalieri′s practice of mathematics. Archive for History of Exact
Sciences 63, 471-495.
(2009) Radical mathematical
Thomism: beings of reason and divine decrees in Torricelli′s philosophy
of mathematics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40,
131-142.
(2008) Galileus
deceptus, non minime decepit: A re-appraisal of a counter-argument in Dialogo to the extrusion effect of a rotating earth.
Journal for the History of Astronomy 39, 425-452.
(2008) Breaking the circle: the
emergence of Archimedean mechanics in the late Renaissance. Archive for
History of Exact Sciences 62, 301-346.
(2008) The empirical basis of
equilibrium: Mach, Vailati, and the lever. Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science 39, 42-53.
(2007) Science and authority in
Giacomo Zabarella. History of Science 45,
404-42.
(2006) A new look at Galileo′s
search for mathematical proofs. Archive for History of Exact Sciences
60, 285-317.
(2005) Galileo′s
construction of idealized fall in the void. History of Science 43,
343-389.
(2005) ′Spuntar
lo scoglio piu′ duro′:
did Galileo ever think the most beautiful thought experiment in the history of
science? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 36, 223-240.
(2005) The cognitive development
of Galileo′s theory of buoyancy. Archive for History of Exact Sciences
50, 189-222.
(2003) Mental models in Galileo′s
early mathematization of nature. Studies in History and Philosophy of
Science 34, 229-264.
(2001) The obscurity of the equimultiples. Clavius′ and Galileo′s
foundational studies of Euclid′s theory of proportions. Archive for
History of Exact Sciences 55, 555-597.
(2001 Galileo and the discovery
of the phases of Venus. Journal for the History of Astronomy 32,
109-129.
(2001) Galileo did not steal the
discovery of Venus′ phases: a counter-argument to Westfall. In: Largo campo di filosofare.
Eurosymposium Galileo 2001. Editor(s): Montesinos, J., & Solis, C. La
Orotava, Fundacion Canaria Orotava de Historia de la Ciencia, 2001, 433-444.
(1998) Re-examining Galileo′s
theory of tides. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 53, 223-375.
Recent Presentations
2018
American Association for Italian Studies, Annual Conference, Sorrento, Italy,
June 14-17
2017
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, March 30 - April 1,
Minneapolis, MN
2017
Pennsylvania Circle of Ancient Philosophy, Duquesne University, March 3-5,
Pittsburgh, PA
2016 3
Societies Meeting BSHS, CSHPS, HSS, 22-25 June, University of Alberta, Canada
2015
54th Annual SPEP Conference, October 8-10, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
2015
4th Joint Conference of the IAAP (International Association for Analytical
Psychology) and the IAJS (International Association of Jungian Studies), July
9-12, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
2015
Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, June 15-17, Saint Louis
University, St. Louis, Missouri Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
2014
Invited Lecture (with R. Mundy), Center for the Study of Music and Philosophy,
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA
2014
Invited Lecture, St John′s College, Santa Fe, NM
2014
39th Annual Conference of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle, Geneva,
Switzerland
2014
Intellectual Hinterlands, Victoria College, University of Toronto, Canada
2014 Invited
Lecture, American Physical Society Meeting, Savannah, Georgia
2014
Invited Lecture, Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation 4, Pittsburgh, PA
Teaching
UNDERGRADUATE
HPS 1531 Man and the Cosmos in the European Renaissance
In
this course, we will explore the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci, his
struggle to become a truly cosmic being. Leonardo was a queer, in love with
beauty, ugliness, and the anarchy of the imagination. He painted, drew, and
created androgynous realities that defy ontological categories. His manuscripts
and paintings are material reflections of his quest for the divine and the
infinite. Leonardo united the masculine and the feminine natures as the Greek
philosopher Plato had theorized. You will actively experiment with ideas such
as sexuality, attraction, diversity, the body and its language, the non-human
animal, the elements, the dream of flight and the mystery of birds,
engineering, graphic design, spirituality and religious symbolism. All are
welcome to express their intellectual, artistic, and LGBTQIA orientation. There
are no exams, no quizzes, and no prerequisites. The instructor is Rainbow
Alliance trained.
HPS 0685 Mathematics and Culture
Mathematics and Culture investigates the cultural origins of
early modern European mathematics. The course focuses on arithmetic, mechanics,
and
other
mathematical disciplines, placing them in the context of the mercantile
societies that revolutionized the social, economic, and intellectual structures
of early modern Europe. The course is based on both primary and secondary
readings. Students will explore notions such as commodity, circulation,
abstraction, algorithm, value, and theory of proportion. They will learn how to
expand their conceptual vocabulary, how to reflect critically on the cultural
basis of mathematics, and thus appreciate better the roots of its pervasive
role in contemporary science and society. There are no prerequisites, all are
welcome.
HPS 0430 Galileo and the Creation of Modern Science
The Italian
physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was a decisive figure in
the rise of modern science. First, he ushered in a new era in astronomy when he
aimed a 30-powered telescope at the sky in 1610. Second, he revolutionized the
concept of science when he argued that the book of nature is written in the
language of mathematics. Finally, he astounded the theologians, who eventually
condemned him to life imprisonment, when he claimed that the scientist′s
search for the truth must not be constrained by religious authority. This
course studies Galileo in the broader intellectual, social, and religious
context of early modern Europe.
HPS
0700 History and Philosophy of Musical Science
Do you
really love music? Musical science teaches you why! In this course, you will
learn about musical science in antiquity, music in the scientific revolution,
musical science and aesthetics, animal music, psychoacoustics, and the nature
of harmony. Musical science has shaped the history of human civilization. It
has informed not only hearing but thinking. This course focuses on reading
historical and philosophical texts, listening to sound and music, and a
hands-on approach to learning.
HPS
0515 Magic, Medicine and Science
In Western
civilization, magic, medicine, and science have always been deeply related to
one another. This course introduces students from all backgrounds to humanistic
ecology, an interdisciplinary method of learning which combines the history of
magic, medicine, and science with the humanities. Humanistic ecology teaches
how to integrate scientific research, philosophy, pedagogy, literature, and
health in a holistic framework. Students will learn about classical forms of
self-transformation, healing, and knowing, which have been the foundations of
Western civilization for more than two millennia, and which will help them find
original pathways to knowledge and wellbeing.
HPS
1508 Classics in History of Science: Galileo′s Two New Sciences
Four
hundred years ago Galileo Galilei aimed a telescope at the sky. He
revolutionized astronomy. Equally revolutionary were his theories and
experiments in physics, published in his masterpiece Two New Sciences. In this
course we will learn why Galileo′s theories and experiments in physics
were revolutionary. We read Galileo′s Two New Sciences, setting it in the
context of the history and philosophy of Western science and civilization.
GRADUATE
HPS 2522 Women in (and out of) science
This open-platform seminar questions the
presence and absence of women in science from antiquity to the twenty-first
century. The pedagogy of the seminar is student-centered and promotes
intellectual and identity emancipation. Participants are welcome from all
academic fields and perspectives, including (but not limited to!) Africana, the
history and philosophy of science, philosophy, psychoanalysis, feminism,
literature, cultural studies, fine arts, theater, ethnicity and different
abilities. We will debate visibility, oppression, objectification, seclusion,
the denial of sexuality, violence, institutional racism, and the role of
hierarchies in marking disciplinary boundaries [place holder for participant
suggestions]. Examples of women in classical science include Virginia Galilei,
Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Emilie du Chatelet, Clemence Royer. We will read women
scholars who have contributed to women science studies, for instance, Joy
Harvey, Banu Subramaniam, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, Justine Larbalestier [place
holder for participant suggestions]. Readings, writing and creative projects,
punctuated silence, and colorful patterns of resistance are encouraged.
Activism and disobedience on diversity, sexual preference, political and
linguistic difference, and ethnicity are welcome. There are no prerequisites.
HPS 2522 Scholasticism
This
seminar explores the intellectual movement known as European Scholasticism,
comparing and contrasting its nature with the debates it spawned. Scholasticism
inherited ancient Greek philosophy and recast it in the framework of
Christianity, shaping a worldview that laid the philosophical foundations of
Western civilization. History and philosophy of science, analytic philosophy,
and higher education institutions such as the university have their roots in
Scholasticism, which spanned the late Middles Ages to the end of the
seventeenth century. We investigate the scholastic origins of fundamental
philosophical categories such as method, reality, essence, science, causality,
demonstration, substance, order, analysis and synthesis.
HPS 2522 Helmholtz (with Mazviita Chirimuuta)
Hermann
von Helmholtz (1821-1894) played a major role in the history of science and
philosophy. This seminar will explore Helmholtz′s fundamental
contributions especially to the neurophysiology of hearing (including topics
such as perception of sound, frequency analysis, harmony) and vision (including
topics such as color and depth perception). We will examine Helmholtz′s
influential idea of perception as ′unconscious inference′ and we
will also consider his work in physics and the popularization of science. We
will place Helmholtz in the intellectual and cultural context of the nineteenth
century, investigate the debates that informed his philosophy of science, and
look at the lasting influence that he had on twentieth-century science and
philosophy. For example, we will read some recent work in perceptual theory
which casts unconscious inference in Bayesian terms.
HPS
2522 Human/Animal in Western Civilization
This seminar explores the liminality that has continually demarcated the
frontier between human and animal in the history of Western civilization. We
will engage diverse historical-philosophical approaches to the question of what
constitutes human as opposed to animal, beginning with ancient Greek
philosophy, and tracing contemporary ideas back to their origins in the
Graeco-Christian worldview. The seminar investigates the shifting human/animal
frontier during the Renaissance and the scientific revolution of the
seventeenth-century, in the Enlightenment and Romanticism, and in contemporary
thought. By reconstructing the genesis of human/animal debates, the seminar
transgresses the bounds of sectarian divisions between styles of thinking.
HPS
2522 History and Philosophy of Musical Science
This
seminar explores historical and philosophical questions concerning music as a
form of knowledge in the history of Western civilization (with some
ethno-musicological excursuses relatively beyond). These questions include (but
are not limited to): The emergence of music theory in antiquity; the role of
music in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century; the relation
between music as a science and musical aesthetics; music and mathematics; music
and cognition in humans and animals; the foundations of modern psychoacoustics;
the nature of harmony.
HPS 2511 Genesis and Geology
This
seminar explores the development of changing views on the nature of fossils and
their contribution to the understanding of the history of the earth from the
Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Religious controversies on the age of
the earth and natural-philosophical inquiry into the meaning of fossils
contributed to the emergence of fundamental scientific notions, such as
evolution, catastrophism, uniformitarianism, and geological time.
HPS 2522 Galileo and All That
This
seminar focuses on Galileo′s contributions to the cultural revolution of
the seventeenth century, including the astronomical discoveries, the physics of
falling bodies, the philosophy of nature, the harmony of religion and science.
The seminar approaches Galileo in the broader humanistic, philosophical,
mathematical and religious context of early modern Europe. His ingenious
experiments are re-enacted in the HPS laboratory where his creative pathways
towards knowledge are reconstructed. The seminar traces his lasting legacy in
the controversies that shaped the history and philosophy of modern science.
HPS
2524 Experimental History of and Philosophy Science
In this
seminar, we take an experimental approach to the history and philosophy of
science. We engage both in theoretical discussion and in experiment design,
implementation, and interpretation. We learn about landmark experiments in the
history of science, and have hands-on activities in the HPS laboratory. The
seminar offers a challenging educational setting, emphasizing active
participation rather than passive transmission of doctrines.
HPS 2522 History and Philosophy of Early Calculus
This
seminar explores historical and philosophical questions concerning early
calculus. These questions include: Indivisibles quantities vs. infinitesimal
quantities, the problem of tangents, fluxions vs. differentials, analysis/
synthesis, limits/ integration, discovery/ emergence/ justification in
mathematics.
HPS
2518 The Unity of Science
This
seminar focuses on the changing conceptions of the structure and unity/disunity
of science as a whole in the modern era. The seminar explores how these
conceptions relate to questions regarding the proper domain of the sciences,
the notion of method, skepticism and foundationalism.