Scuola di Studi Superiori "Ferdinando Rossi" dell'Università degli Studi di Torino - SSST

The course aims at presenting and discussing some aspects of the multifaceted network of relationships between the development and transformation of scientific, literary, and philosophical disciplines, on the one hand, and the social context in which they are produced, on the other hand, thus highlighting in an integrated and comparative way the main and peculiar elements of each of the three different fields (scientific, literary, philosophical).

At the end of the course, the students will be required to write a short essay on a topic agreed upon with the instructors.

Module 1 - Introduction

Teaching staff : Paolo Tripodi/Guido Bonino

The general setting of the course, based on the methodological attitude of the so-called external history, will be introduced. The sociological tools will allow us to highlight the fact that the success and, to a certain extent, even the form and content of (scientific or philosophical) ideas and (literary) styles can be explained not only in terms of good theoretical, ideal, or even aesthetic "reasons", but also because of external "causes" of a social nature.

Module 2 - Science and Society

Teaching staff : Paola Borgna

From Sociology of Knowledge to Sociology of Scientific Knowledge and Science and Technology Studies (STS): identifying the links between social conditions, historical situation, individual and collective subjects and the forms of knowledge and its applications.

Module 3 - Literature and Society

Teaching staff : Davide Dalmas

The module is dedicated to Pierre Bourdieu’s science des œuvres, with a general introduction to his thought and readings from Les règles de l’art (1998), the book that systematises a long theoretical and research work on the practices of cultural production, and in particular on the genesis and structure of the French literary field in the 19th century.

Module 4 - Philosophy and Society

Teaching staff : Guido Bonino/Paolo Tripodi

Some case-studies, representative of the intertwining in the history of philosophy between "internal" disciplinary dynamics and "external" causal factors (social, institutional, etc.) will be presented. Among them: the sociological analysis of the dispute over psychologism in Germany at the end of the 19th century; the thesis of G. Lukács on the historical-social equivalence of neo-positivism and existentialism; the influence of political and institutional factors in the development of contemporary Anglo-American analytic philosophy.