In this essay I claim that thought experiments have invariably been very important to inquire into the foundations of natural science (in particolar physics). In particular, they have proved essential to test the stability of allegedly clear but ultimately contradictory concepts, that were nonetheless at the basis of widely shared scientific theories. By quickly reviewing some famous Gedankenexperimenten proposed by Einstein against the completeness of (Bohr’s interpretation of) quantum mechanics, I will try to ask how could they possibly have the (...) critical role that they always had. (shrink)

Lucretius devotes some sections of his De rerum natura to the treatment of dreams. He is particularly interested in the phenomenon of dream deception, namely the belief that the dreamt object is the object itself. This psychological phenomenon has some both unwanted and philosophically interesting implications. Firstly, from an ethical point of view, it can stimulate uncontrolled worries and feelings in the dreamer that undermine his/her mental tranquility and health. Secondly, from a physiological perspective, it seems to reveal a failure (...) in the mechanism undergoing the formation of mental representation. Thirdly, from the epistemological point of view, it seems to compromise the veracity of mental representations. This paper aims to explain how Lucretius dealt with this phenomenon. In particular, it will show how he succeeded, on the one hand, to explain the nature and the origin of dream deception and of its emotional aspect, and, on the other hand, to preserve the informative contents of dreams and their correspondence to reality. For this purpose the present essay will address the following issues: which is the condition of the soul and of the mind while sleeping; what kind of mental activity is dreaming; which is the nature and the origin of the simulacra responsible for dreams; which is the contents of dreams and how dream deception comes about; and finally why and how dream deception emotionally effects the dreamer. (shrink)

Analysing the notebooks and the references to Lucretius in Marx's works, Morfino concludes that it is possible to excavate a major discontinuity in Marx's interpretation. The Lucretius of the juvenile notebooks on Epicureanism, who functions as a model of abstract self-consciousness, is overtaken, in the scattered references from the period of Die deutsche Ideologie and Das Kapital, by a Lucretius for whom nature becomes a continuous process of transformation of its parts - a process in which the human species is (...) itself immersed. (shrink)

Con il presente lavoro l'A. si propone di dimostrare che l'introduzione nel lessico tecnico latino di materia, come traduzione di hyle, è antecedente al De inventione ciceroniano e al De rerum natura di Lucrezio, i primi testi a presentare questa innovazione nei campi rispettivamente della retorica e della filosofia. Dall'esame dei passi più significativi delle due opere, tra quelli in cui compare materia, e da considerazioni esterne ai testi stessi, si ricava, a giudizio dell'A., che il termine venne utilizzato (...) come parte integrante de/lessico tecnico preesistente, poiché mancano quegli elementi che accompagnano una neoformazione semantica alla sua prima comparsa certificandone, esplicitamente o implicitamente, la valenza traslata. (shrink)

La fine del mondo costituisce uno dei temi centrali del De rerum natura, testo che rappresenta inoltre la nostra principale fonte sull'escatologia cosmica epicurea. Mosso dall'intento d'indagare questo aspetto cruciale (che non è mai stato in precedenza oggetto di studi monografici), questo libro propone un commento delle principali sezioni escatologiche del poema: i finali del primo e del secondo libro, i vv. 91-415 del quinto e la rassegna dei fenomeni meteorologici più violenti nel sesto. L'analisi delle fonti filosofiche e degli (...) obbiettivi polemici permette di dare risposte alla questione del "fondamentalismo" di Lucrezio, ponendo inoltre le basi per un esame del suo peculiare "sublime apocalittico". Le appendici forniscono ulteriori considerazioni sull'immaginario escatologico lucreziano, concentrandosi sul modello offerto da Empedocle, le strategie comunicative del poeta e la possibile influenza del trattato pseudo-aristotelico De mundo. Questo esame mostra che il poeta richiama dottrine e fonti filosofiche successive a Epicuro, senza però cadere nell'eclettismo: uomo del suo tempo, Lucrezio "attualizza" le dottrine del maestro, proponendole come risposta per le angosce della propria epoca. (shrink)

The so-called parahypotaxis is a syntactical phenomenon, common in late Latin but attested sporadically already in classical Latin, consisting in the pleonastic use of a copulative conjunction (et or atque) at the beginning of the principal clause after a subordinate, especially temporal clause. In this paper I propose to recognize a case of parahypotaxis in a difficult passage of Lucretius’ De rerum natura (6, 577-584), differently explained by former interpreters. As an appendix, I discuss a passage of Vergil’s Aeneid (9, (...) 47-53), where the same phenomenon can be identified. (shrink)

The article proposes to re-examine the Lucretian formula naturae species ratioque (1.146–148 = 2.59–61 = 3.91–93 = 6.39–41), the meaning of which has prompted some critical debate. The examination begins from an analysis of rhetoric and argument in the sections in which the phrase occurs, with the goal of demonstrating that the meaning ‘rational vision of nature’ is more apt to the context and to Lucretius’ poetic and philosophical programme, which often relies on metaphors drawn from the semantic field of (...) vision to describe the comprehension of natural phenomena and the didactic aim of the work. In the light of this, the final part of the paper discusses the textual problem concerning lines 6.56–57 (= 90–91), which are normally considered spurious but which can be understood better in the light of the Lucretian conception of philosophy (and of poetry) as penetrating vision. (shrink)