Philosophy
The Philosophy Section of the Humanities Department has a long tradition. A number of leading figures in twentieth-century Italian philosophy have taught and done research in Pavia, among whom we should mention at least Ludovico Geymonat, Giulio Preti, Uberto Scarpelli, Franco Alessio, Fiorella De Michelis, Mario Vegetti, and Egle Becchi.
The research develops in three main areas of study: the history of philosophy from antiquity to contemporary thought, philosophical investigations of a more markedly theoretical character, and research with a pedagogical and psychological orientation.
Research in ancient philosophy focuses on Plato's philosophical thought in its various aspects - from metaphysics to politics - and its reception and diffusion, particularly in Medieval Platonism and Neoplatonism.
Research in medieval philosophy pays special attention to the relationship between philosophy and science, especially with regard to medicine, physiognomy, and medieval embryological theories. Also of note in this area is the related interest in gender issues.
Modern and contemporary philosophical thought is approached first and foremost with reference to Renaissance thought and, within this framework, the difference between humans and animals (from both ontological and ethical perspectives), the problematic boundary between magic and science, and the tradition of German mysticism.
Interest in classical German philosophy, in its various aspects - from metaphysics to ethics and aesthetics - and in its sources and repercussions is a characteristic feature of research on modern and contemporary philosophy, with particular emphasis on Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx.
Related in part to these studies are investigations into the Italian philosophical tradition, which move from Vico but then discuss twentieth-century thought in the neo-idealist tradition and Italian "critical" Marxism, beginning with Gramsci.
Specific attention is also paid to the Enlightenment as a European phenomenon, also in a comparative perspective, in the different declinations of this philosophical movement.
Theoretical investigations develop in different strands of inquiry, highlighting points of contact between intersecting topics. One strand of research in the theoretical sphere is the focus on issues of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in the phenomenological German and French traditions, in particular in Husserlian and Merleau-Pontian thought. This area of research is also connected to hermeneutics, philosophical anthropology, historical epistemology, and the philosophy and history of psychiatry in the wake of Foucault's investigations.
The Section contains research in the philosophy of science, cognitive philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of language, with different thematic directions. Some strands of inquiry consist of the philosophy of geometry, epistemology referring particularly to computational epistemology, the analysis of abductive reasoning, and the critical analysis of science and technology, also with reference to the topic of human values and the problem of violence.
A further strand is an investigation in analytic epistemology (evidence and a priori) also in connection with the philosophy of language (truth, realism, and anti-realism) and social epistemology, with further reference to the relations between epistemology and ethics with regard to such notions as justification and responsibility.
Research in moral philosophy is concerned with the history of modern and contemporary ethics and various questions of theoretical ethics, both metaethical (objectivity, relativism) and normative (moral responsibility, deontology, consequentialism) in nature, including questions of applied ethics and bioethics. In addition to the focus on the historical dimension of aesthetics, research in the latter area, with particular emphasis on analytic aesthetics, is oriented toward the analysis of aesthetic normativity.
Pedagogical Research
Research in pedagogy also moves on several fronts, historical, theoretical, and experimental in nature. Research concerns the analysis of pedagogical devices and educational practices from a diachronic perspective, accompanied by the study of the connections between ideologies, strategies, and materiality in educational phenomena over the long term: the history of schools, school practices, and teacher training, as well as the history of the body as an object of education and the history of school evaluation, between yesterday and today.
Another strand of inquiry, related to the previous ones, concerns the pedagogy of childhood, preschool contexts, the study of the nature of childhood play and its meaning, observation, and promotion.
Psychological Research
Finally, psychologically oriented research, on the one hand, concerns the psychology of emotions - particularly the cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying emotional experience and its influence on social behavior and social cognition, that is, the study, including on an experimental basis, of the social interactions that enable the understanding of others' minds (mental and emotional states).
Within the field of dynamic psychology, research focuses on the study of normative and pathological developmental processes of the child's mind and, in this context, the role of epistemic trust. Research also concerns the study of personality assessment tools and the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy.