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The Italian mathematician Mario Pieri (1860–1913) played a major role in the development of algebraic geometry and foundations of mathematics around the turn of the twentieth century. This volume is the second in a series intended to make Pieri's research in diverse fields—mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics, foundations of projective, inversive, and elementary geometry, algebraic and differential geometry, and vector analysis—accessible to today's scholars and to assess its importance (yet little recognized) in historical and modern contexts. The Legacy of Mario Pieri in Foundations and Philosophy of Mathematics examines Pieri's underlying philosophy of mathematics and his research goals, highlighting one of his most influential achievements, his axiomatizations of projective and elementary geometry. Its chapters include three of Pieri's pioneering works, translated by the authors and appearing in English for the first time, as well as an analysis of the role of this research in its larger context. Together, these translations and the accompanying interpretation accurately capture Pieri's expository style, philosophical perspective, and his foundational research, which has influenced generations. With an excellent index, exhaustive references, and engaging discussions that reveal Pieri's work in its historical context, this volume will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in the history and philosophy of mathematics and logic, as well as readers with a general knowledge of geometry at the intermediate level.A list of errata can be found on the author Smith's personal webpage.

This book is the first to present a comprehensive historical picture of the modern Catholic concern with the body and sexuality. The Catholic church is commonly believed to have always opposed birth control and abortion throughout the centuries. Yet the Catholic encounter with modern sexuality has a more complex and interesting history. What was the meaning of sexual purity? Why did eugenics matter to Catholicism? How did the Society of Jesus interpret the idea of overpopulation? Why did Pius XI decide to issue the notorious encyclical Casti connubii on Christian marriage – the first modern papal pronouncement on birth control, abortion, and eugenics? In answering these questions, Lucia Pozzi uncovers new archival and unpublished records to dig into Catholic responses to modern sexual knowledge, showing the Catholic church at times resisting, but also often welcoming, scientific modernity.

Mathematical and philosophical thought about continuity has changed considerably over the ages. Aristotle insisted that continuous substances are not composed of points, and that they can only be divided into parts potentially. There is something viscous about the continuous. It is a unified whole. This is in stark contrast with the prevailing contemporary account, which takes a continuum to be composed of an uncountably infinite set of points. This vlume presents a collective study of key ideas and debates within this history. The opening chapters focus on the ancient world, covering the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander. The treatment of the medieval period focuses on a (relatively) recently discovered manuscript, by Bradwardine, and its relation to medieval views before, during, and after Bradwardine's time. In the so-called early modern period, mathematicians developed the calculus and, with that, the rise of infinitesimal techniques, thus transforming the notion of continuity. The main figures treated here include Galileo, Cavalieri, Leibniz, and Kant. In the early party of the nineteenth century, Bolzano was one of the first important mathematicians and philosophers to insist that continua are composed of points, and he made a heroic attempt to come to grips with the underlying issues concerning the infinite. The two figures most responsible for the contemporary orthodoxy regarding continuity are Cantor and Dedekind. Each is treated in an article, investigating their precursors and influences in both mathematics and philosophy. A new chapter then provides a lucid analysis of the work of the mathematician Paul Du Bois-Reymond, to argue for a constructive account of continuity, in opposition to the dominant Dedekind-Cantor account. This leads to consideration of the contributions of Weyl, Brouwer, and Peirce, who once dubbed the notion of continuity'the master-key which... unlocks the arcana of philosophy'. And we see that later in the twentieth century Whitehead presented a point-free, or gunky, account of continuity, showing how to recover points as a kind of'extensive abstraction'. The final four chapters each focus on a more or less contemporary take on continuity that is outside the Dedekind-Cantor hegemony: a predicative approach, accounts that do not take continua to be composed of points, constructive approaches, and non-Archimedean accounts that make essential use of infinitesimals.

En Italie, comme dans chacun des principaux pays qui ont participé à ce conflit, la Première Guerre mondiale a impliqué une mobilisation de l'ensemble de la société. Cela vaut au niveau économico-productif, ainsi que de l'assistance et des services de santé, de la presse et de l'opinion publique, tout comme de la mise en place de divers comités de soutien. Exemplaire, le cas de la ville de Turin.

This book commemorates the 150th birthday of Corrado Segre, one of the founders of the Italian School of Algebraic Geometry and a crucial figure in the history of Algebraic Geometry. It is the outcome of a conference held in Turin, Italy.One of the book's most unique features is the inclusion of a previously unpublished manuscript by Corrado Segre, together with a scientific commentary. Representing a prelude to Segre's seminal 1894 contribution on the theory of algebraic curves, this manuscript and other important archival sources included in the essays shed new light on the eminent role he played at the international level. Including both survey articles and original research papers, the book is divided into three parts: section one focuses on the implications of Segre's work in a historic light, while section two presents new results in his field, namely Algebraic Geometry. The third part features Segre's unpublished notebook: Sulla Geometria Sugli Enti Algebrici Semplicemente Infiniti (1890-1891). This volume will appeal to scholars in the History of Mathematics, as well as to researchers in the current subfields of Algebraic Geometry.

I. INSEGNAMENTI MATEMATICI NELL'ANTICHITÀ E NEL MEDIOEVO. Dall'Egitto all'Italia antica. Le scuole ad Atene. La scuola matematica di Alessandria. Insegnamenti matematici a Roma. Insegnamenti matematici nell'Alto Medioevo. Il rinnovamento degli studi matematici e le scuole d'abaco. Astronomia e matematica nelle Università del Quattrocento. II. INSEGNAMENTI MATEMATICI IN ITALIA NELL'ETÀ MODERNA. Le Università di Copernico. L'algebra nel Cinquecento e i suoi libri. Torquato Tasso lettore di matematica. Insegnamenti matematici nell'Italia della Controriforma. I Gesuiti tra religione e scienza. Scienza e tecnica tra Cinquecento e Seicento. Galileo e la scuola galileiana. Giovanni Poleni e l'insegnamento della matematica. Matematica e fisica nei collegi del Settecento. Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich come professore. Gli Elementa universae matheseos. Le biblioteche di un collegio dei Gesuiti. La crisi dell'insegnamento scientifico dei Gesuiti. I Gesuiti spagnoli e la cultura scientifica. Matematica e fisica nel Collegio Alberoni. III. DAL PERIODO NAPOLEONICO ALL'UNITÀ D'ITALIA. L'istruzione pubblica nel triennio repubblicano. La legge per la pubblica istruzione del 1802. Insegnamenti matematici e libri elementari nel primo ottocento. Manuali di calcolo infinitesimale. Matematica e istruzione tecnica: il Lombardo-Veneto e il Regno di Sardegna. Matematica e istruzione tecnica: la Toscana, le Legazioni pontificie, le Marche. Emigrazione politica ed esperienze internazionali. IV. NEL PRIMO SECOLO DELL'ITALIA UNITA. Insegnamenti matematici nell'Italia unita. Manuali di calcolo infinitesimale dopo l'Unità. Matematica e matematici nella Scuola Normale di Pisa. Antonio Favaro come professore. I matematici italiani e la Grande Guerra. La matematica nella riforma Gentile. La riforma Gentile e i matematici. La matematica nelle scuole elementari. La riforma della scuola media.