|
|
|
Paolo Palmieri, Associate Professor (pap7@pitt.edu) |
|
|
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) |
|
|
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 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Download here
the supporting multimedia materials file). A review of
the book by the late Curtis Wilson. |
|
|
My Mellen books
are supported by multimedia materials and videos of experiments which are
available upon request to the author. |
|
(2016)
Hermes and the Telescope. In the
Crucible of Galileo's Life-World. Peter Lang 
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.