RICERCA ITALIANA     

Renaissance legacy and the genesis of early modern philosophy. Texts editions and studies on the history of european philosophy from Montaigne to the early Enlightenment

Abstract

This research project (coordinated by Gianni Paganini) proposes to analyze the crucial phases of the historical process that led to the genesis and affirmation of “modern” reason; the perspective is wide from the geographical point of view (as it touches the main European countries) and from the historical point of view (as it extends chronologically from the late Renaissance to the early Enlightenment).
During the period in question, many fundamental paradigms were elaborated: by their interconnections and successions they established the basis for constructing an original relationship between philosophy, scientific knowledge, political and religious ideas, forms of organization of culture.
Obviously, we cannot think of a unique model, but of a plurality of models; nevertheless it is undeniable that all these paradigms, despite their many important differences in basis and orientation, are founded on the centrality of “ratio”; they try to apply rational methods to all the fields of knowledge. The present project focuses specifically on the historical-philosophical aspects of this process; but it also investigates their ramifications in cultural areas going from metaphysics to the theory of knowledge, from physical to moral sciences, from theology to politics, from history to physics and medicine; it also considers with particular attention the ways in which the new knowledges organize and spread. The proponents of the research project are convinced that we >>>

Principal Investigator

Gianenrico Paganini Università degli Studi del PIEMONTE ORIENTALE "Amedeo Avogadro"-Vercelli

Research Objectives

The research programme aims at analysing the genesis, affirmation and role of a new conception of nature, which involved the formation of a new idea of man, during the time span between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Between the Renaissance and the scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries, there is no doubt that a new type of humanism became established that was profoundly different from the anthropocentric humanism of the 15th century, just as the 17th and 18th centuries were not anti-humanist, as the "received wisdom" imposed by Foucault's studies claims, but rather they developed the conception of man in scientific terms, placing that conception within the wider framework of natural laws and causality. Alongside the obvious analytical interest of the individual parts of the research, which will be in looked at in greater depth below, we point up here the more general contribution that such studies will make to a renewal of historiographic perspectives in a wider horizon. The common goal of the work of the different Units will be to show -- in a historical and documented fashion -- that between the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, in different but contemporary cultural spheres, a new conception of nature and of the science connected to it produced an equally new philosophical anthropology, and that the scientific renewal became very closely interwoven with the image of man. Another novel aspect will consist in looking at the ways in which >>>

First Results

The results we intend to obtain can be divided in three main categories:

1) critical editions of texts (inedited, rare, or whenever still unpublished according to philological standards), which will provide notes, critical apparatus, historical introductions; 2) historical and interpretive studies, intending to reconstruct the philosophical substance, the factual genesis and cultural diffusion of the investigated subjects; 3) promoting a review, collective volumes, and scientific conferences concerning the historical subjects of the research.


Here you can find the main products, divided year by year:

First year

Editions of texts

N. Panichi : French edition of (1580) "Civil Conversazione " by Guazzo, publ. by Vrin (Paris)
G. Ernst: T. Campanella, “Ethica”
G. Ernst: T. Campanella, “Lettere”
E. Canone: G. Bruno, “De gli eroici furori”
D. Giovannozzi, E. Canone: Leone Ebreo, “Dialoghi d’amore”

G. Mori: critical edition of the L’Avis aux réfugiés by Pierre Bayle (Champion, Paris, Vie des Huguenots)

G. Mori: General Introduction to the electronic edition of Pierre Bayle (Champion)
F. Tomasoni: Italian edition of Mendelssohn’s Phaidon

Historical Studies (Volumes)

L. Spruit: “Catholic Church and Modern Science. Documents from the Roman Archives of the Holy Office and the Index”, vol. I
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Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The time has long gone when generally accepted historiography identified the philosophical conception of nature typical of modernity tout court with mechanism. Although this type of analysis produced very significant fruit (with the classical studies of Koyré, Lenoble, Dijksterhuis and Jammer, to mention only the principal ones) it was effectively replaced by a new wave of studies that paid more attention to the links and points of continuity between the new science and the new philosophy of the 17th century and their historical and cultural roots in previous eras. First and foremost, in direct continuity with some pioneering research by Gilson, a new generation of scholars stressed the metaphysical dimension of modern philosophy. Although proceeding from different presuppositions and employing different methods, scholars like J.-L, Marion, J.-R. Armogathe, V. Carraud, A. Funkenstein and C. Leijenhorst determined which part of medieval, scholastic and late-scholastic philosophy contributed to the formation and approach of the philosophies of some great moderns, whereas Funkenstein undertook an original attempt to interpret the continuity of medieval discussions on theology and on divine omnipotence within the constitution of modern scientific thought. The works of Des Chene, Gaukroger and others further developed this perspective. A different approach, but one that has been applied more rarely, is to determine the links and historical connections with Renaissance philosophy >>>