Luca V . Zucchi
LUCA ZUCCHI - CURRICULUM
Via Tiziano n. 9, 20145 Milano, Italy; tel. 0248002852; e-mail [email protected]
Degrees, Competitions, Didactic Activities
6-27-1979; Obtains a Degree in Philosophy (Laurea), magna cum laude, at the Università degli Studi di Milano.
1981/82; Attends courses and seminars (taught by Hilary Putman, Stanley Cavell and John Rawls ) at The Philosophy Department of Harvard University (Mass.); works in New York City for the publishing house Rizzoli International.
1983/95; Teaches History and Philosophy in Classical and Scientific Senior Highschools (Licei); on 8-30-1988 is awarded full tenure in History and Philosophy (Licei), by winning a national competition based on titles and exams.
3-21-1995: Wins a national competition based on titles and exams and is admitted to a PhD program in Philosophy of Science.
1995/1999; Spends long periods abroad doing research for his doctoral thesis, mainly in London (Warburg Institute, Natural History Museum, Linnean Society and Wellcome Institute); collaborates in the didactic activities of the First Chair of Philosophy of Science (prof. Giulio Giorello) at the Università degli Studi di Milano.
2-22-1999: Defends his doctoral thesis, "Il pensiero tassonomico-nomenclatorio di Carl von Linné e la storia della rappresentazione naturalistica" (Carl von Linné's Thought on Taxonomy and Nomenclature and the History of Naturalistic Representation), and receives the degree of Dottore di Ricerca (PhD) in Philosophy of Science from the Università degli Studi di Genova.
9-27-2000; is awarded a Research Appointment at the Human Sciences Department of the Università degli Studi di Ferrara (co-financed by the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia 'Leonardo da Vinci' di Milano); the position has been renewed till 10-2-2007.
From academic year 2001/2002 has been teaching Epistemology of the Human Sciences and Didactics of Contemporary Philosophy in the post-graduate course of the Scuola di Specializzazione per l'Insegnamento secondario (philosophy section), at the Università degli Studi di Ferrara.
Since 2005 is a member of the Società italiana di Logica e Filosofia delle Scienze (SILFS), since 2006 of the Società Italiana di Storia della Scienza (SISS), since 2007 of the History of Science Society (HSS).
Address: via Tiziano 9, 20145 Milano, Italy
Via Tiziano n. 9, 20145 Milano, Italy; tel. 0248002852; e-mail [email protected]
Degrees, Competitions, Didactic Activities
6-27-1979; Obtains a Degree in Philosophy (Laurea), magna cum laude, at the Università degli Studi di Milano.
1981/82; Attends courses and seminars (taught by Hilary Putman, Stanley Cavell and John Rawls ) at The Philosophy Department of Harvard University (Mass.); works in New York City for the publishing house Rizzoli International.
1983/95; Teaches History and Philosophy in Classical and Scientific Senior Highschools (Licei); on 8-30-1988 is awarded full tenure in History and Philosophy (Licei), by winning a national competition based on titles and exams.
3-21-1995: Wins a national competition based on titles and exams and is admitted to a PhD program in Philosophy of Science.
1995/1999; Spends long periods abroad doing research for his doctoral thesis, mainly in London (Warburg Institute, Natural History Museum, Linnean Society and Wellcome Institute); collaborates in the didactic activities of the First Chair of Philosophy of Science (prof. Giulio Giorello) at the Università degli Studi di Milano.
2-22-1999: Defends his doctoral thesis, "Il pensiero tassonomico-nomenclatorio di Carl von Linné e la storia della rappresentazione naturalistica" (Carl von Linné's Thought on Taxonomy and Nomenclature and the History of Naturalistic Representation), and receives the degree of Dottore di Ricerca (PhD) in Philosophy of Science from the Università degli Studi di Genova.
9-27-2000; is awarded a Research Appointment at the Human Sciences Department of the Università degli Studi di Ferrara (co-financed by the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia 'Leonardo da Vinci' di Milano); the position has been renewed till 10-2-2007.
From academic year 2001/2002 has been teaching Epistemology of the Human Sciences and Didactics of Contemporary Philosophy in the post-graduate course of the Scuola di Specializzazione per l'Insegnamento secondario (philosophy section), at the Università degli Studi di Ferrara.
Since 2005 is a member of the Società italiana di Logica e Filosofia delle Scienze (SILFS), since 2006 of the Società Italiana di Storia della Scienza (SISS), since 2007 of the History of Science Society (HSS).
Address: via Tiziano 9, 20145 Milano, Italy
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Papers by Luca V . Zucchi
Spallanzani’s research on “artificial digestion” finds a precedent in the investigations related to the dispute between physiologists of the ‘iatro-chemical’ and ‘iatro-mechanical’ schools which took place in the first half of the seventeenth century. His work is inspired by the experiments conducted by René-Antoine Ferchault de Réamur (1683-1757). Spallanzani developes Réamur’s method and results further to show that digestion, although assisted by a mechanical action in some species, is triggered by gastric juices. The process of digestion is therefore of a chemical nature, and Spallanzani was able to reproduce it in vitro, outside the living body.
Hunter undertook a thorough - albeit often unjustified – critique of Spallanzani’s investigations. Hunter’s ultimate aim is to question the underlying objective of the Italian scientist’s research programme, which was to explain how organic processes are determined by physico-chemical factors. Indeed, this belief constitutes the distinctive feature of modern biology. In opposition to this theoretical premise, Hunter chooses a vitalistic approach, and persistently maintains that the living body is not reducible to purely material phenomena, since a “spiritual” agency (soul) is present in it.
This essay also discusses other relevant issues raised by Spallanzani and Hunter, such as the social and professional role of the physiologist and the euristic function of analogy in the field of biology.
"
Our short essay employs the methodological tools of the two above-mentioned disciplines to address the problem of “Borgia’s poison”. In doing so, the article compares informations on their alleged crimes from various sources of the period, considers the theories and practices of coeval toxicology and appraises the main views of contemporary authors on this issue. Two major questions arise, on one hand unavoidable for their relevance, on the other defying any conclusive solution. Since the relevant evidence of homicidal poisoning is always circumstantial, even the best line of reasoning is bound to provide merely conjectural answers. Furthermore, the documents available for the present enquiry are often derivative, partial and misleading.
The first question concerns the actual use of this lethal agency by pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare. The cases mentioned in the original sources are therefore singly examined in order to extimate the various degrees of credibility of the accusations made against the Borgias, and, in doing so, identify also the several allegations which are completely groundless.
The second question pertains to the nature of the poison. This essay aims thus at proposing a credibile reconstruction both of its chemical composition and of the procedures utilized to create it. Since it obviously is not possible to analyze the substance, the conjectures advanced in our study are based on factors like the reported descriptions of its appearance, the accounts by physicians or lay witnesses regarding symptoms observed in the victims, the course and outcome of their pathological conditions and the results of postmortem examinations. Late medieval and Renaissance records, such as proceedings against poisoners and pharmacological writings, are also considered in our enquiry, as well as notions pertaining to contemporary forensic medicine and criminology. We are hence able to identify and eliminate the numerous unwarranted but persistent suppositions about the properties and the production tecniques of “Borgia’s poison”, and to put forward some hypotheses highly corroborated by the attainable knowledge. The toxic substance used by Alexander VI and Cesare was almost certainly a compound based on “white arsenic” (arsenic trioxide), combined with other elements of animal, vegetal, and — most likely — mineral origin (e. g. antimony, lead).
"
The undertaking to go bejond the pictorial mode of communication with recourse to the written word is investigated in this essay taking also into account Linnaeus' preference for xilography, less detailed and outmoded by his time, rather than the more expensive metal-plate engraving. This choice endorses the image's accessibility over its accuracy. The two fundamental Linnean models of visualization, the Mirror, and the Map, are then analysed. The former regulates the mimetic function in the depiction of the individual species; the latter permits the synoptic expression of the manifold complexity of the relations of affinity and difference between the natural bodies. Finally, images of both the realistic and the diagrammatic kind included in Linnaeus' works are discussed, together with his use of the herbarium, to which pictures are unfavourably compared, since he regards only dried specimens as adequate representations of the species.
Among philosophers and historians of science very often still prevails the belief that a genuine growth of knowledge takes place only in the linguistic/mathematical domain, so that visual representation may carry out just an ancillary role. Accordingly - in the best of instances - visualization can contribute, before an hypothesis has been properly structured, to guide the researcher at a psychological level, and, after the theory has been formulated, to provide an expository or didactic instrument.
Against this theoretical stance - shared by the Logical Empiricists, K. Popper and even E. H. Gombrich - writers like N. R. Hanson, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos and P. Feyerabend have worked at a redefinition of epistemology that brought a better understanding of the part played by images. This has been accomplished by focusing their attention on the factors that participate in the genesis of a conjecture and on the strategies employed to promote and defend a theory, among which a significant function is performed by various modes of visualization.
The paper examines the role of visual representation (naturalistic and diagrammatic) from an epistemological and historiographical point of view. In doing so, it criticizes the rigid dichotomy word/image connected to an essentialistic conception of both terms. The latter has found manifold expressions in Western culture, fueling the unending dispute between iconophobics and iconophiles."
This essay examines the role which images played in the reform of taxonomy and nomenclature established by Linnaeus, who inaugurated modern botanical science. Linnaeus' “sexual system” - founded on the analysis of “the number, the figure, the disposition and the proportion” of the reproductive organs, and therefore on visually recordable characteristics - allowed him to employ previously made illustrations as “iconotypes”. Instead, sixteenth and seventeenth century pictures were originally dependent on criteria of classification based on the use of plants, particularly in medicine, according to their effects and qualities (taste, smell etc.) dinstinct from the visual domain. For Linnaeus, the elements which are significant for taxonomical purposes, express the “essence” of the plant. They are “vegetable letters” that allow man to read a chapter of the Great Book of Nature created by God. This taxonomical approach considers botanical illustration as a means to transmit knowledge which is fully expressed only in the textual form.
The undertaking to go bejond the pictorial mode of communication with recourse to the written word is investigated in this essay taking also into account Linnaeus' preference for xilography, less detailed and outmoded by his time, rather than the more expensive metal-plate engraving. This choice endorses the image's accessibility over its accuracy. The two fundamental Linnean models of visualization, the Mirror, and the Map, are then analysed. The former regulates the mimetic function in the depiction of the individual species; the latter permits the synoptic expression of the manifold complexity of the relations of affinity and difference between the natural bodies. Finally, images of both the realistic and the diagrammatic kind included in Linnaeus' works are discussed, together with his use of the herbarium, to which pictures are unfavourably compared, since he regards only dried specimens as adequate representations of the species.
Spallanzani’s research on “artificial digestion” finds a precedent in the investigations related to the dispute between physiologists of the ‘iatro-chemical’ and ‘iatro-mechanical’ schools which took place in the first half of the seventeenth century. His work is inspired by the experiments conducted by René-Antoine Ferchault de Réamur (1683-1757). Spallanzani developes Réamur’s method and results further to show that digestion, although assisted by a mechanical action in some species, is triggered by gastric juices. The process of digestion is therefore of a chemical nature, and Spallanzani was able to reproduce it in vitro, outside the living body.
Hunter undertook a thorough - albeit often unjustified – critique of Spallanzani’s investigations. Hunter’s ultimate aim is to question the underlying objective of the Italian scientist’s research programme, which was to explain how organic processes are determined by physico-chemical factors. Indeed, this belief constitutes the distinctive feature of modern biology. In opposition to this theoretical premise, Hunter chooses a vitalistic approach, and persistently maintains that the living body is not reducible to purely material phenomena, since a “spiritual” agency (soul) is present in it.
This essay also discusses other relevant issues raised by Spallanzani and Hunter, such as the social and professional role of the physiologist and the euristic function of analogy in the field of biology.
"
Our short essay employs the methodological tools of the two above-mentioned disciplines to address the problem of “Borgia’s poison”. In doing so, the article compares informations on their alleged crimes from various sources of the period, considers the theories and practices of coeval toxicology and appraises the main views of contemporary authors on this issue. Two major questions arise, on one hand unavoidable for their relevance, on the other defying any conclusive solution. Since the relevant evidence of homicidal poisoning is always circumstantial, even the best line of reasoning is bound to provide merely conjectural answers. Furthermore, the documents available for the present enquiry are often derivative, partial and misleading.
The first question concerns the actual use of this lethal agency by pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare. The cases mentioned in the original sources are therefore singly examined in order to extimate the various degrees of credibility of the accusations made against the Borgias, and, in doing so, identify also the several allegations which are completely groundless.
The second question pertains to the nature of the poison. This essay aims thus at proposing a credibile reconstruction both of its chemical composition and of the procedures utilized to create it. Since it obviously is not possible to analyze the substance, the conjectures advanced in our study are based on factors like the reported descriptions of its appearance, the accounts by physicians or lay witnesses regarding symptoms observed in the victims, the course and outcome of their pathological conditions and the results of postmortem examinations. Late medieval and Renaissance records, such as proceedings against poisoners and pharmacological writings, are also considered in our enquiry, as well as notions pertaining to contemporary forensic medicine and criminology. We are hence able to identify and eliminate the numerous unwarranted but persistent suppositions about the properties and the production tecniques of “Borgia’s poison”, and to put forward some hypotheses highly corroborated by the attainable knowledge. The toxic substance used by Alexander VI and Cesare was almost certainly a compound based on “white arsenic” (arsenic trioxide), combined with other elements of animal, vegetal, and — most likely — mineral origin (e. g. antimony, lead).
"
The undertaking to go bejond the pictorial mode of communication with recourse to the written word is investigated in this essay taking also into account Linnaeus' preference for xilography, less detailed and outmoded by his time, rather than the more expensive metal-plate engraving. This choice endorses the image's accessibility over its accuracy. The two fundamental Linnean models of visualization, the Mirror, and the Map, are then analysed. The former regulates the mimetic function in the depiction of the individual species; the latter permits the synoptic expression of the manifold complexity of the relations of affinity and difference between the natural bodies. Finally, images of both the realistic and the diagrammatic kind included in Linnaeus' works are discussed, together with his use of the herbarium, to which pictures are unfavourably compared, since he regards only dried specimens as adequate representations of the species.
Among philosophers and historians of science very often still prevails the belief that a genuine growth of knowledge takes place only in the linguistic/mathematical domain, so that visual representation may carry out just an ancillary role. Accordingly - in the best of instances - visualization can contribute, before an hypothesis has been properly structured, to guide the researcher at a psychological level, and, after the theory has been formulated, to provide an expository or didactic instrument.
Against this theoretical stance - shared by the Logical Empiricists, K. Popper and even E. H. Gombrich - writers like N. R. Hanson, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos and P. Feyerabend have worked at a redefinition of epistemology that brought a better understanding of the part played by images. This has been accomplished by focusing their attention on the factors that participate in the genesis of a conjecture and on the strategies employed to promote and defend a theory, among which a significant function is performed by various modes of visualization.
The paper examines the role of visual representation (naturalistic and diagrammatic) from an epistemological and historiographical point of view. In doing so, it criticizes the rigid dichotomy word/image connected to an essentialistic conception of both terms. The latter has found manifold expressions in Western culture, fueling the unending dispute between iconophobics and iconophiles."
This essay examines the role which images played in the reform of taxonomy and nomenclature established by Linnaeus, who inaugurated modern botanical science. Linnaeus' “sexual system” - founded on the analysis of “the number, the figure, the disposition and the proportion” of the reproductive organs, and therefore on visually recordable characteristics - allowed him to employ previously made illustrations as “iconotypes”. Instead, sixteenth and seventeenth century pictures were originally dependent on criteria of classification based on the use of plants, particularly in medicine, according to their effects and qualities (taste, smell etc.) dinstinct from the visual domain. For Linnaeus, the elements which are significant for taxonomical purposes, express the “essence” of the plant. They are “vegetable letters” that allow man to read a chapter of the Great Book of Nature created by God. This taxonomical approach considers botanical illustration as a means to transmit knowledge which is fully expressed only in the textual form.
The undertaking to go bejond the pictorial mode of communication with recourse to the written word is investigated in this essay taking also into account Linnaeus' preference for xilography, less detailed and outmoded by his time, rather than the more expensive metal-plate engraving. This choice endorses the image's accessibility over its accuracy. The two fundamental Linnean models of visualization, the Mirror, and the Map, are then analysed. The former regulates the mimetic function in the depiction of the individual species; the latter permits the synoptic expression of the manifold complexity of the relations of affinity and difference between the natural bodies. Finally, images of both the realistic and the diagrammatic kind included in Linnaeus' works are discussed, together with his use of the herbarium, to which pictures are unfavourably compared, since he regards only dried specimens as adequate representations of the species.