Institutional Agency:

• Istituto per la Storia del Pensiero Filosofico e Scientifico Moderno - CNR, Milano (IT) [website of the Institute]

Principal Investigator:

• Prof. Enrico Rambaldi [homepage]

Team members:

• Dr. G. Cerchiai
• Prof. T. Gregory (ILIESI-CNR, Roma)

Internal collaborators:

• Prof. E. Franzini (Università degli studi di Milano)
• Prof. Renato Pettoello (Università degli Studi di Milano)
• Dr. Andrea Pinotti (Università degli studi di Milano)
• Dr. Paolo Valore (Università degli studi di Milano)

National Funding Agency:

• Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche [website of the CNR]

Some of the issues that will be investigated by this Unit are:

• When did "Consciousness" appear as a specific notion in the European philosophical investigation?
• How did this concept evolve, change and acquire its actual multiple meaning?
• How is "Consciousness" related to analogous concepts, as "Feeling", "Self-awareness", and "Self-consciousness"? Are they all synonyms or not?
• What are the social and cultural connotations of consciousness and of related terms in the Western philosophical lexicon? Are such connotations consistent with an interactive view of consciousness, or does it elude them?
• What role did culture play for the appearance and the shaping of "Consciousness"? And, more specifically, what role did modern philosophers play in the evolution of this term and the related concept?

In order to understand the development of the term "Consciousness" in the European Culture and to focus the issues which come out from his historical meaning, some authors/concepts can provide a privileged point of view.

The équipe of ILIESI will study the origins of the term "Consciousness" from Renaissance to Enlightenment. The research will be focused on historical-philosophical aspects of the theory and language of perception and emotions/passions (in the most significant authors from Galilei to Kant). Mens, perceptio, spiritus, affectus and other terms will be investigated not only in the classical texts of philosophy, but also in dictionaries, encyclopaedia and translations which are very important instruments for the diffusion of ideas in modern Europe (Locke's Essay of human understanding became a very influential book throuth Coste's translation).

As it will result from the research carried out by the ILIESI, in modern philosophy the notion of emotion, and in general all the complexity of the psychological elements which can be defined as "preconceptual knowledge" are coming alongside and are playing an ever more relevant role in the study of human consciousness. The analysis of the emotional working provides a privileged perspective for an investigation of the progressive constitution of the self: 1. in relation to the exterior world (projection of the own interpretation schemes on nature); 2. as it is tied with society (arising of individual consciousness on the basis of the relationship with the others); 3. in connection with language and the reciprocal interaction between linguistic evolution and mental evolution.

Among the most important philosophers of modern times who (even in direct opposition to some fundamental aspects of the new rationalism embodied by the Cartesian thought) systematically developed this kind of problems, a fundamental role is certainly played by Giambattista Vico, which will be studied by the équipe of ISPF. The Cartesian order of ideas, according to Vico, stems from the possibility of reconstructing from a unique first principle (the rational deduction of the individual cogito) and on the basis only of the lumen naturalis, the whole complexity of culture. After having criticized the contemporary ratio studiorum through the methodical application of the systematic doubt, Descartes addresses his criticism to that world of "prejudices", myths and traditions which cannot be captured within a strictly scientific and rational thought. According to Vico it is necessary to turn the question over completely and to restart the path exactly from that world of prejudices in order to analyse their formation and to look within the historic, philosophical and philological relationship between the individual and collective consciousness for the laws governing the constitution itself of civilization.

«Gli uomini prima sentono senz'avvertire», Vico writes in the Scienza Nuova in 1744, «dappoi avvertiscono con animo perturbato e commosso, finalmente riflettono con mente pura. Questa degnità è 'l principio delle sentenze poetiche, che sono formate con sensi di passioni e d'affetti, a differenza delle sentenze filosofiche, che si formano dalla riflessione con raziocinî» (Giambattista Vico, La scienza nuova 1744, in Id. Opere, a cura di Andrea Battistini, Mondadori, Milano 1990, 2 voll., vol. I, p. 515. Translation: «Men first feel without realizing, then they realize with a perturbed and affected soul, finally they reflect with pure mind. This axiom is the principle of poetic sentences, which are formed with these feelings of passions and affections, in opposition to the philosophical statements, which are based on reflection through rationality»). The study of the formation of the individual and collective consciousness is based, therefore, on the possibility of recovering through a historic and anthropologic research, a comprehension of the first poetic, fantastic and mythological languages through which the self has initially structured itself relating to others selfs and to the world. The examination of capabilities such as memory, fantasy and ingenium and their tight ties with the primary bodily functions become themselves essential elements for the understanding of the deepest structure of the self. Research on myths and their particular language, finally, reveals the first arising of human self-awareness.

In view of a thorough examination of the different trajectories of the notion of consciousness in the philosophy and in the history of western philosophy, the study of Vico's thoughts therefore allows to obtain a deeper insight, also from the historic-philosophical point of view, in the directions of the present CRP. Moreover, the connection between the research of ISPF and the research of ILIESI will allow to focus attention on the following questions:

1. Birth and development of the mind-body problem in some moments and authors of the European philosophic tradition.

2. History of the ideas of emotion, fantasy, physicality in some moments of the European philosophic tradition.

3. History of the ideas on the relation between languages and constitution of the individual and collective consciousness in the European philosophical tradition.

Background analysis and Theory development (labels and research hypotheses)

As the aim of this unit is to follow the understanding of the idea of consciousness by studying the sources from an historic-philosophical perspective, we have to approach the same problem which is the focus of the CRP by trying to understand how the philosophical tradition has contributed to the origin of the modern concept of consciousness both in rational and non-rational expressions (see above). From an interdisciplinary point of view it is possible to summarize the mutual relation of the different scientific methodologies of the Principal Investigators in the definition of consciousness through the diagram represented by figure 1.

Figure 1

Cross-examination and Integration (CRP vision and synergies)

The specificity of our IP is represented by the belief that the philological investigation is the first step towards understanding the evolution of the term consciousness, so that the critical restoration of the texts is the principal aim of the unit. In order to test the CRP vision, this particular point of view will have to be integrated with the philosophical analysis of the authors and, finally, with the history of the concepts (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Therefore, from an historic-philosophical point of view, the work plan will necessarily overlap 1: the philological analysis of the texts (cfr. e.g. IP Essential references: [7], [8], [10], [19]) with 2: the philosophical research of the ideas (cfr. e.g. IP Essential references: [16], [21], [22]). The organization of periodical interdisciplinary conferences will allow to compare the historical results with the results of the other units of the CRP. All these elements will permit to coordinate the history of philosophy within the CRP's project.

Particular connections are expected to develop with:

• IP-01 (The Social Dimension of Consciousness). All three kinds of consciousness on which our CRP is focused (phenomenal consciousness, self-consciousness, sense of self) co-develop with social cognition. Social dimension of consciousness is also affected by its cultural roots and can be therefore investigated by an historical analysis of concepts. The research on the modern European tradition, and specifically on Vico's thought, can additionally show how the study of the social dimension of consciousness arose in the history of ideas.
• IP-02 (Making Up Minds: Consciousness and Social Cognition). «Nihil enim tam novit mens, quam id quod sibi praesto est: nec menti magis quidquam praesto est, quam ipsa sibi» (Aug. De Trin. XIV, 18). The issue of "self-consciousness" as it was formulated by Augustine and the belief of a privileged tie between individual reason and individual sense of self became one of the most important philosophical guideline from the Middle Ages until the thought of Descartes. Vice versa, we can say that the relationship between consciousness and natural world came up as one of the principal issues during the Renaissance (cfr. IP Essential references: [12]). The analysis of the philosophical lexicon in pre-Cartesian thought allows to contextualize from an historical perspective the opposition between the "internalist" and the "externalist" concept of consciousness.
• IP-04 (Emotional Feelings and Subject-Object Relationships). The research of the IP 04 starts from the assumption that both empathic engagement and detachment are part of our responses to arts. The history of philosophy embodies a different approach to the same question. As it has been shown by the philosophy of Vico, we think that from a cultural perspective these different approaches can be harmonized within the study of our sense of emotion and self.
  
  

The methodologies applied will be those typical of the historic-philosophical investigation:

• Research of the sources in the archives.
• Philological analysis and reconstruction of the texts.
• Monographic study of ideas, terminology and of concepts through publication of essays, articles and reports.
• Comparison of the results obtained by the community of scholars through the organization of meetings, seminars and workshops.
  
  

YEAR 1. Critical analysis of texts and research of the sources. Article on “Vico e le emozioni”. Publication of essays about the history of the term “consciousness” during the Modern Age.

YEAR 2. Prosecution of the critical analysis of texts. Papers and articles on the history of concept of “consciousness”.

YEAR 3. CONTACT conference devoted to assess the results of the CRP.

Following the CNCC suggestion (“How has our conception of consciousness developed across human history?”), the historic-philosophical approach intends to show how the notion of consciousness developed into the modern concept of self and, through the analysis of texts and the study of some “key authors/concepts”, how the different disciplines involved in the investigation of consciousness have developed.

Deliverables and milestones

The ISPF-ILIESI Unit will be in charge of the organization of a meeting/workshop to be organized by month 10. This meeting will be focused on Background Analysis, and it will be aimed to discuss the preliminary results of each IPs. This workshop will comprehend an internal meeting of the CRP members which will be followed by an international workshop. Furthermore, the ISPF has also opened a project to store in electronic format his bibliographical collections and critical editions. Of particular interest is the procedure that allows the comparison between different ancient editions, text annotations and critical editions. The project is the result of the collaboration with the Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale (ILC-CNR, Pisa). The ILIESI will participate to the project publishing, in electronic format, lemma of dictionaries, glossaries and other linguistical instruments. Researches will be focused on the language of Consciousness, analysis of texts and translations, editions of philosophical texts.

The conclusions of the ISPF-ILIESI investigations will result in technical reports throughout the project and in publications on relevant journals by the completion of the project.