Department of
History and Philosophy of Science
Paolo Palmieri Associate Professor
I practice the history and philosophy of modern science, and modern science itself. I focus on the intellectual traditions that shaped the values of modernity. I am fascinated by the creativity processes at the crossroads of art, science, and technology. To learn about the interplay of cognition and practices, I design computer models, real experiments, and perform laboratory experimentation.
Education
2002 PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science, University of London LINK
1998 DEGREE in Philosophy, University of Bologna LINK
1987 DEGREE in Aeronautical Engineering, Polytechnic of Milan LINK
Non-Academic Employment
1989-1995 Engineer Ferrari Formula One Racing Team LINK
Selected Publications
BOOK
• (2008) Reenacting Galileo’s Experiments: Rediscovering the Techniques of Seventeenth-Century Science. Foreword by William R. Shea. The Mellen Press, ISBN10: 0-7734-5018- ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5018- 9 Pages: 304 Year: 2008. LINK
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“No one has examined in such detail and with such patience how Galileo arrived at his results. Palmieri extends our understanding of what Galileo wanted to achieve and how he went about getting his pioneering results, and his book will be welcomed by everyone interested in the genesis of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth-century.” – William R. Shea, Galileo Professor of History of Science, University of Padua, Italy
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“A particular strength of this book is the way that it places Galileo in his intellectual context. It is rare to find such detailed study of Galileo’s contemporaries or recent predecessors, either those working in similar problems to Galileo or those defending Scholastic views. Such work is of considerable importance.” – Prof. Andrew Gregory, Senior Lecturer, History of Science, University College, London, UK |
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“Scholars go astray if they interpret Galileo’s writings in the light of remembered elementary lessons in physics. Palmieri would have us enter the experimental scene in its complexity, by actual experiment if feasible or by computer simulation where the factors are multiple and numerical integration with variation of parameters is needed to discover what they portend.” – Prof. Curtis Wilson, St. John’s College, Emeritus |
This book is accompanied by numerous videos of experiments which are available at www.exphps.org or www.pitt.edu/~exphps.
PAPERS
• (in press) “A phenomenology of Galileo’s experiments with pendulums”, The British Journal for the History of Science. Download here the First View paper with supporting document.
• (in press) “Experimental history: swinging pendulums and melting shellac”, Endeavour. In Press version LINK
• (2009) “Response to Maarten Van Dyck’s commentary”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40, 319-321. LINK
• (2009) “Superposition: on Cavalieri’s practice of mathematics”, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 63, 471-495. LINK
• (2009) “Radical mathematical Thomism: beings of reason and divine decrees in Torricelli’s philosophy of mathematics”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40, 131-142. LINK
• (2008) “Galileus deceptus, non minime decepit: A re-appraisal of a counter-argument in Dialogo to the extrusion effect of a rotating earth”, Journal for the History of Astronomy 39, 425-452. LINK
• (2008) “Breaking the circle: the emergence of Archimedean mechanics in the late Renaissance”, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 62, 301-346. LINK
• (2008) “The empirical basis of equilibrium: Mach, Vailati, and the lever”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 39, 42-53. LINK
• (2007) “Science and authority in Giacomo Zabarella”, History of Science 45, 404-42. LINK
• (2006) “A new look at Galileo’s search for mathematical proofs”, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 60, 285-317. LINK
• (2005) “Galileo’s construction of idealized fall in the void”, History of Science 43, 343-389. LINK
• (2005) “'…spuntar lo scoglio più duro': did Galileo ever think the most beautiful thought experiment in the history of science?”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 36, 223-240. LINK
• (2005) “The cognitive development of Galileo’s theory of buoyancy”, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 50, 189-222. LINK
• (2003) “Mental models in Galileo’s early mathematization of nature”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 34, 229-264. LINK
• (2001a) “The obscurity of the equimultiples. Clavius’ and Galileo’s foundational studies of Euclid’s theory of proportions”, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 55, 555-597. LINK
• (2001) “Galileo and the discovery of the phases of Venus”, Journal for the History of Astronomy 32, 109-129. LINK
• (1998) “Re-examining Galileo’s theory of tides”, Archive for History
of Exact Sciences 53, 223-375.
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Works in Progress
Experimental history and philosophy of science
A research program with the objective of exploring a new approach to the history and philosophy of science. Experimental history and philosophy of science (ExpHPS) consists in re-creating as faithfully as possible the experimental apparatus of landmark experiments in the history of science, and in re-performing the experiments. ExpHPS asks questions about knowledge shaped by experiment. ExpHPS, we hope, will cast new light on the history and philosophy of science and on the processes of science itself. Please visit www.exphps.org or www.pitt.edu/~exphps for the latest on the project.
HUMAN HEARING
This project aims at developing an integrated approach to hearing in humans. It combines the methods of the history and philosophy of sound perception in humans, with psychoacoustic experimentation with human subjects and computer modeling of the physiology of human hearing.
Phonurgia
A research project on the soundscapes of experiment in early modern science. Early modern European society was still an orally dominated culture in which sound and the human voice played a decisive role in shaping scientific knowledge. Galileo, Descartes, Mersenne, Kircher, Huygens and Newton, among many others, experienced the profound relatedness of sound and cognition. The project investigates this all but lost dimension of early modern experimentation.
Pragmatism, Experience and Nature
An
experimental, pedagogical and historical-philosophical exploration of the structure of human
experience, especially controlled experiment. The project draws
inspiration from the philosophy of experience of John Dewey and the
historical pragmatism of Giovanni Vailati. It is motivated by the
disturbing conviction that “…what will remain of philosophy will be a
series of problems capable of investigation by the observational methods
of the true sciences,— the truth about which can be reached without those
interminable misunderstandings and disputes which have made the highest of
the positive sciences a mere amusement for idle intellects, a sort of
chess,— idle pleasure its purpose, and reading out of a book its method”
[CSP].
Recent Presentations
November 2008 Pittsburgh, PA, HSS Annual Meeting (Joint Meeting with PSA) Comparative study of experimentation in c17-18
October 2007 Stanford, CA, CNRS/ Paris Two-year workshop, invitation-based. Diagrams in mathematics and mathematization of natural sciences up to the modern age. Invited paper.
May 2006 Invited Paper at the University of Padua, Italy, “Cattedra Galileiana di Storia della Scienza” series.
Selected Courses Taught
HPS 0430 Galileo and the creation of modern science
The Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the decisive figure in the rise of modern science. First, he ushered in a new era in astronomy when he aimed a 30-powered telescope at the sky in 1610. Second, he revolutionized the concept of science when he argued that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. Finally, he astounded the theologians, who eventually condemned him to life imprisonment, when he claimed that the scientist’s search for the truth must not be constrained by religious authority. This course studies Galileo in the broader intellectual, social, and religious context of early modern Europe.
HPS 0515 Magic, Medicine and Science
Science and medicine are nowadays conceived of as two spheres of human activity independent of religious and magical concerns. Science, however, is the result of a long process of formation, starting in Antiquity and culminating in the late seventeenth century, with the so-called Scientific Revolution. Before the Scientific Revolution science, magic, and medicine were strongly related. This course examines the process by which science and medicine became independent spheres of human endeavour in the modern Western world.
HPS 2522 History and philosophy of early calculus
This seminar explores historical and philosophical questions concerning early calculus. These questions include: Indivisibles quantities vs. infinitesimal quantities, the problem of tangents, fluxions vs. differentials, analysis/ synthesis, limits/ integration, discovery/ emergence/ justification in mathematics.
HPS 2518 The unity of science
This seminar focuses on the changing conceptions of the structure and unity/disunity of science as a whole in the modern era. The goal is to see how these conceptions relate to questions regarding the proper domain of the sciences, the notion of method, scepticism and foundationalism.
When I Do Not Teach...
I dabble in painting and sound design.
