entry Dec
2008
The Italian Institute
for Philosophical Studies
For whatever reason,
I don’t spend a lot of time hanging out at the Italian
Institute for Philosophical Studies (Istituto Italiano per gli
Studi Filosofici), (maybe I'm too Sophoclean!)
but it’s an interesting place. One of the best public
lectures plus Q & A sessions I ever attended was
there some years ago when researchers, Allen and
Beatrice Gardner, presented findings on their Project
Washoe and the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees. It
was an example of the wide-ranging program at the
Institute, some of which may seem only peripherally
connected with philosophy. (Primate cognition, I
suppose, is one of the border areas.)
The
institute was founded in 1975 in Naples by Gerardo Marotta and
others. At first, it was under the auspices of the Accademia dei Lincei
(known in English as The Lincean Academy), the prestigious
organization founded in 1603 in Rome, at the beginnings of
modern science. (The Institute is thus part of a long
tradition in Naples that even boasts a predecessor to the
Accademia dei Lincei:
the Academia
Secretorum of Giambattista
della Porta).
In
1983, the Institute moved into the 18th-century Palazzo
Serra di Cassano (entrance, photo, right).
At its heart, of course, is the library, the nucleus of
which is more than 100,000 volumes that were collected
over some thirty years of patient searching throughout
Europe. The beautiful premises are sufficiently upscale
for “philosophical studies.” (I know, I know—you don’t
need upscale. Someone famous and philosophical once said
that all you really need is a teacher, a disciple and a
log to sit on. But “upscale” is still nice.) The Palazzo Serra di Cassano
is one of the most remarkable buildings in Naples and
because of the Institute attracts the attention of
scholars throughout the world.
Over the years, the premises have hosted seminars with modern philosophers Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Popper and scientists such as Rita Levi Montalcini, Carlo Rubbia, Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow and Ilya Prigogine, all Nobel Prize winners. The institute seems to be open all the time, at least during the long academic year (from September through late July) and is usually crawling with graduate students, researchers and just ordinary people interested in one or more of the items on the very active seminar schedule or in simply browsing in some of the publications of the Institute.
Their
current webpage displays a wide range of material on a
long list of philosophers, from Socrates and Plato to
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as well as a complete list of
seminars to be held in the coming months. There is
obviously some overlap with another institute in Naples,
the one for Historical Studies founded by Benedetto Croce in 1946. I see, for
example, an upcoming presentation of a recent —and what
looks to be interesting— book entitled The Hamilton Letters, The
Naples Dispatches of Sir William Hamilton. The
Institute provides student and researcher exchanges with
many foreign universities and since 1980 has had its own
School of Graduate Studies.
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