Marco Segala

Lagrange: Why I left Turin and never went back again

ABSTRACT Lagrange was born and lived in Turin until he was 30 years old. Thanks to his fame as one of the most gifted mathematicians of his time, he moved to the Berlin Academy of sciences in 1766. It was a definitive departure: in 1787 he accepted the invitation of the Paris Academy of Sciences and lived in Paris until his death in 1813. He never saw his country and relatives again.Lagranges biographers have considered such a radical separation as motivated by the mathematicians coldness and insensitivity. Against such a view, this paper examines some aspects of Lagranges years in Turin (salary, professional satisfaction, scientific career, relationships with the government) and proposes to consider Lagranges departure and lasting absence from Turin as a response to facts and circumstances which marked his life and career.

Metaphysics and the Sciences in Schopenhauer

This chapter details the formation, nuances, and complexity of Schopenhauer’s philosophy of nature as the conceptual space where science and metaphysics interact. It revises the interpretation of Schopenhauer as a pessimist and contributes to a better understanding of his fame in the cultural context between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Philosophie de la nature et sciences chez Schopenhauer

Dans son œuvre, Schopenhauer a discute en profondeur les sujets scientifiques et a elabore une philosophie de la nature pour encadrer dans son systeme les connaissances developpees par la recherche scientifique. Cet article analyse la philosophie de la nature de Schopenhauer dans le Monde comme volonte et representation et ses variations dans la Volonte dans la nature, les Complements et les Parerga et Paralipomena. On montre que la question du role des sciences dans le systeme du monde comme volonte est centrale dans l’image que Schopenhauer a de la philosophie.

La genèse de la troisième édition de l’Exposition du système du monde. Une analyse du manuscrit de Laplace conservé à l’Observatoire de Paris

L’Exposition du systeme du monde, publie par Laplace en 1796, est l’un des ouvrages scientifiques les plus celebres dans l’histoire des sciences. Il connaitra cinq editions et la troisieme (1808), dont le manuscrit est conserve a l’Observatoire de Paris, introduit des nouveautes interessantes, qui font l’objet d’une double analyse, historique et genetique. L’investigation genetique du manuscrit, avec ses pages riches de ratures et reecritures, permet de reconstruire le processus creatif qui a permis a Laplace de faire evoluer son ouvrage pendant les annees qui suivent et d’en affirmer la nature de grand classique. L’approche genetique a la lecture de ce texte ouvre des perspectives nouvelles et enrichit les etudes menees par l’histoire des sciences.

Schopenhauer and the Empirical Confirmations of Philosophy

This paper focuses on Schopenhauers On the Will in Nature (1836), a book which is generally underestimated by scholars interested in Schopenhauers philosophy. This essay analyses its genesis in Schopenhauers manuscripts, examines its role in Schopenhauers thought and its relationship with The World as Will and Representation, and locates its content and meaning with reference to the philosophical and scientific context. Aim of the article is a better understanding of Schopenhauers treatise, and such a scope is pursued by accurate insight of its central theme: the notion of Bestatigung, that is the scientific corroboration of the philosophical knowledge.