The change in the government’s approach to the organizational management of Covid-19 has brought back slogans such as “believe in science” and “trust scientists” in the public debate. Not unlike any (very respectable) religious belief, therefore, “Science” is elevated to the rank of divinity to be venerated uncritically, through a host of saints and preachers. In his name, beatifications, excommunications, autodafé and (cultural) trials are promoted, recalling those who condemned Guglielmo Piazza and Gian Giacomo Mora as plagiarists. On the other hand, there was no lack of charlatans, heirs of Alessando di Abonutico, and a myriad of individual “cults” fruit of arrogance, this is a sign of our times, of “knowing what they do not tell us” in pure Napalm style. 51.
The art of innovating
by Mario Di Ciommo
In a rather hasty way, the message promptly conveyed by the media and institutions can be summarized in Dante’s be content with the human race al because. Sure, in the Commedia, Virgil spoke of the existence of God and not of human events, even if tragic, but the sense of the reasoning does not change. The “people” do not understand and cannot understand so it is perfectly useless to go too thin: they must be put in a position to believe, obey and fight (the virus).
To discover the analysis of emotions, one did not have to wait for AI, a TV series was enough
by Andrea Monti
Perhaps, pragmatically, this choice (if it was a choice and not the fruit of unscrupulous necessity) was the only one possible in the condition of permanent emergency in which Italy finds itself. There was no time to bring the whole nation to a level of knowledge such as to develop an awareness such as to understand what was necessary to do, and why one had to take a risk – that of vaccination – not actually calculable but which was necessary run despite everything.
Now is the time for the energy emergency and, after the Russian-Ukrainian one, the script repeats itself: nuclear, frackinglong-term sustainability of a battery-based system … complex themes that, once again, are celebrated in public rites by the new ranks of saints, preachers and charlatans who have taken the place of those who were there before.
On the one hand, as mentioned, this phenomenon is facilitated by the individual arrogance of pretending to know without knowing. On the other hand it is justified by the factual finding that faced with complex problems nobody may know everything what is needed to make informed decisions, not even the various “committees of experts”. This does not, however, legitimize the transformation of Science into its opposite, that is, into a system of substantially unverifiable beliefs, to be accepted because he himself said.
This would not happen if we abandoned the idealist paradigm that transforms people into evanescent ghosts to which we attribute sapiential virtues and divinatory powers. In other words, there are “politicians” not “politics”, “rulers” not “government”, “scientists” not, in fact, “Science”, indeed, science, written with a lowercase.
Stripped of the sacred veil that gives them a transcendent appearance, these celebrants remain “only” people, and as such the message they convey must be evaluated. This means, in other words, that, as Francesco Carrara wrote in his Criminal law course program published in 1867 about the “experts” in the criminal trial: “… their credibility depends not so much on the person or the saying, as on the greater or lesser criteria of truth offered by the science or art they profess”.
Carrara’s words echo those of Plato, when in Gorgias makes Socrates say: “… when there is disagreement on some point, and when one does not recognize that the other speaks well and clearly, one gets furious, and each thinks that the other is speaking out of envy against them, competing for the best and giving up research on the topic proposed in the discussion. And some, even, end up separating in the most? dishonorable, after insulting each other and having said and heard such things about themselves that even those present regret having believed that it would have been worthwhile to come and hear such people. “
Therefore, a possible solution to the dilemma between “believing” and “knowing” lies not only in increasing one’s knowledge in terms of information quantity. What is also needed is to master a method of reading reality that allows it to be understood, managing to cross the smoke screens raised by ignorance, political necessity and partisan individual interest.
The scientific method – understood as a critical approach to problems – is not the only one to offer this possibility and does not necessarily have to be applied always and in any case. However, it is an indispensable tool in the toolbox of thought to build reasoning capable of resisting the blows of superstition and bad faith, helping to keep us free, not only in the mind.