2015 Programme
Event #18
Carlo Toffalori
Mathematics, algorithms and freedom
Mathematics? «It dries up the heart»- so said Flaubert in his Dictionary of received ideas. Should we be worried, then, by the constantly growing use of prefabricated, mechanised procedures – algorithms – tasked with monitoring and directing every action in our life? The very principles of responsibility and morality seem accurately programmed by now, thanks to the proliferation of increasingly fastidious ethical codes. The fear arises that this mathematical approach to reality, including its intrusion into the intimate sphere of conscience, may end up extinguishing every human impulse and emotion. But is this the case? Or perhaps, on the contrary, can mathematics – when properly intended – ignite and inspire freedom, creativity and imagination, besides its rightful rigour?
is a full professor of Mathematical Logic at the Universitá di Camerino. He is president of the Assicazione italiana di logica e sue applicazioni. His books include: Matematica, miracoli e paradossi (Bruno Mondadori, 2007) and L’arte di uccidere i draghi. Le vie matematiche della morale, both written in collaboration with S. Leonesi (Pristem, 2013); Il matematico in giallo (Guanda, 2008), L’aritmetica di Cupido (Guanda, 2011), Numeri in giallo (Mimesis, 2012), Algoritmi (Il Mulino, 2015).
Event #6
Alessandro Barbero
The historian's responsibility. Gaetano Salvemini: from Socialist interventionism to anti-Fascism

Event #8Approfonditamente
Marco Rossi-Doria, Giulia Tosoni
Kids and school: what, how and where are they learning

Event #13Approfonditamente
Adolfo Ceretti, Simonetta Agnello Hornby, Alfredo Verde
Gender-based violence: Perpetrators, victims and models of intervention.

Event #22
Alessandro Barbero
The historian’s responsibility. Marc Bloch: from the Sorbonne to the Gestapo prisons

Event #25Approfonditamente
Marco Belpoliti, Gianfranco Marrone, Anna Stefi
Laziness, fatigue, and our constant running

Event #26
Eugenio Borgna, Simonetta Fiori
Knowing ourselves and knowing others: a different way of being responsible

Event #35
James R. Flynn, Armando Massarenti
Without an alibi: a voyage across life’s greatest questions

Event #38
Alessandro Barbero
The historian’s responsibility. Ernst Kantorowicz: from the Freikorps to McCarthyism

Event #57Children / Kids
Sante Bandirali e Lorenza Pozzi di uovonero
Read like you’ve never read before
