Denise Vincenti – författare

Natura incognita explores the theme of the “unknown nature,” offering an interdisciplinary perspective that bridges the history of science with other fields of enquiry, such as the history of philosophy, museology, environmental and animal studies.Far from exhaustive yet remarkably rich, the volume brings a collection of previously unpublished contributions by early-career scholars that together provide an overview of current research trends in the Italian history of science community. The essays employ diverse methodologies, all rooted in a careful analysis of textual, archival, material, and visual sources from which local and global stories of science emerge. These contributions were originally presented at the Early Career Conference of the Italian Society for the History of Science (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn – Naples, September 6–8, 2023), and cover a wide range of scientific fields, from botany to zoology, medicine to mental sciences, physics to earth sciences, with a particular focus on the tools and techniques used in the study of nature. The timeframe is broad, taking the reader on a journey from antiquity through the early modern era and well into the 20th century. Overall, the book highlights how the production of new scientific knowledge and practices results from a sustained, long-standing interest in the natural world.Scholars and students interested in the evolving landscape of the history of science will find this reading an illuminating resource.

Natura incognita explores the theme of the “unknown nature,” offering an interdisciplinary perspective that bridges the history of science with other fields of enquiry, such as the history of philosophy, museology, environmental and animal studies.Far from exhaustive yet remarkably rich, the volume brings a collection of previously unpublished contributions by early-career scholars that together provide an overview of current research trends in the Italian history of science community. The essays employ diverse methodologies, all rooted in a careful analysis of textual, archival, material, and visual sources from which local and global stories of science emerge. These contributions were originally presented at the Early Career Conference of the Italian Society for the History of Science (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn – Naples, September 6–8, 2023), and cover a wide range of scientific fields, from botany to zoology, medicine to mental sciences, physics to earth sciences, with a particular focus on the tools and techniques used in the study of nature. The timeframe is broad, taking the reader on a journey from antiquity through the early modern era and well into the 20th century. Overall, the book highlights how the production of new scientific knowledge and practices results from a sustained, long-standing interest in the natural world.Scholars and students interested in the evolving landscape of the history of science will find this reading an illuminating resource.

This book offers the first comprehensive study of medieval and modern debates on the nature of touch – its objects, limits, and operations – from the mid thirteenth century to the early twentieth century. Spanning the period from the rise of Aristotelian university curricula to the flourishing of experimental psychology, it demonstrates how touch recurrently emerged as a central concern in philosophical and scientific inquiry.In recent years, scholarly interest in the history of sense perception, perceptual theories, and the physiology of the sensory organs has grown significantly. This volume advances these fields by bringing to the fore a foundational question that has engaged philosophers, teachers, practitioners, and physicians for centuries, yet has not received sustained and focused analysis at the intersection of the history of philosophy and the sciences: what is touch?The nine chapters of this collection, authored by leading specialists, illuminate the core debates surrounding touch and emphasize their broader intellectual significance. With a chronological scope spanning more than six centuries, the book will appeal to a wide community of scholars in philosophy and the sciences, as well as to advanced students and researchers, responding to the growing interest in the study of sense perception in general and touch in particular.