Search

International audience

International audience

International audience

In this article I will show the basic ideas and current discussions in philosophy of chemistry, a relatively new field of philosophy of science. I will begin from the typical contraposition between reductionism and emergentism and then I will show how scientists and philosophers take into account chemical conceptual problems. This will be our guideline for an overview starting from atoms and ending up to macroscopic substances. Finally, I will show how the question of the natural kinds, few discussed up to now in philosophy of chemistry, is crucial for epistemological and ontological characterization of the different concepts of chemistry, and, thus, of the whole chemical science. In questo breve articolo presenterò i concetti di base e gli argomenti di discussione attuali della filosofia della chimica, un settore relativamente nuovo della filosofia della scienza. Partendo dalla contrapposizione tipica tra riduzionismo ed emergentismo mostrerò in che modo scienziati e filosofi considerano i problemi concettuali della chimica. Questo sarà il filo conduttore di una panoramica che dagli atomi arriverà alle sostanze macroscopiche. Mostrerò infine come la questione dei generi naturali, ancora poco affrontata in filosofia della chimica, sia cruciale per caratterizzare epistemologicamente e ontologicamente i diversi concetti della chimica e quindi dell'intera scienza chimica.

This doctoral thesis is focused on the history of the Roman Church between the end of the 18th Century and the beginning of the 19th Century. Using Francesco Luigi Fontana’s biography, I will describe the ecclesiastical dynamics and the different sensibilities of the curiali (the members of the Roman Curia) who cooperated with the barnabite to find a solution for both intraecclesiali and extraecclesiali problems submitted to Rome from all over the world.Consequently I will outline the developments in policymaking, in order to represent a non-monolithic Roman Curia, in which –conversely– different solutions were examined before making a definitive political decision.Furthermore this doctoral thesis reflects upon the problems linked to the paradigm chosen and upon the opportunity to use a biography and the category of intransigenza –employed in this study to interpret the intellectual, political and ecclesiological opinions of the curiali– to determine the crucial issues and to identify the elements of continuity of ecclesiastical history., Cette thèse porte sur l’histoire de l’Église catholique romaine entre la fin du XVIIIe et les premières décennies du XIXe siècle. L’itinéraire du barnabite Francesco Luigi Fontana constitue un prisme pertinent pour éclairer d’un jour nouveau les dynamiques internes à la Curie romaine et les sensibilités des collaborateurs de Fontana, lesquelles permettent aussi d’expliquer les solutions apportées aux nombreuses questions intra- et extraecclésiales soumises à Rome. L’étude des prises de décisions fait apparaître une Curie non monolithique mais au sein de laquelle plusieurs solutions étaient envisagées avant l’adoption de celle définitive.Au-delà même de cette perspective, l’enjeu de la présente recherche est d’ordre méthodologique, s’agissant du type d’analyse à conduire et des catégories à adopter pour comprendre les prises de position intellectuelles, politiques et ecclésiologiques des membres de la Curie. Un autre questionnement a trait à l’exercice, qui fait l’objet de récents approfondissements historiographiques, de la biographie et en l’espèce de la figure d’un cardinal placé à la croisée de plusieurs thématiques majeures de la période considérée, interrogeant enfin certains éléments de continuité de l’histoire de la papauté et du catholicisme de la fin de l’époque moderne au début de la période contemporaine