Contro il materialismo. Le 'due culture' in Italia: bilancio di un secolo (Against Materialism: The 'two cultures' debate in 20th century Italy)

《物质主义的控制》旨在提供20世纪意大利所谓的“两种文化”辩论的历史概述，特别涉及文学和哲学领域。这本书调查了意大利文化精英对科学和技术不断表现出公开敌意的程度，并解释了原因，以及这如何影响文学和艺术中这一主题的表现，以及意大利一般的文化和意识形态气候，并在政治、教学和媒介层面产生反响。它显示了意大利在20世纪的快速现代化和工业化如何仅在该国的科学素养方面产生了微小的增长，并且由于知识精英的特定文化，哲学和意识形态形成（主要与各种形式的理想主义联系在一起），对科学和技术的接受并没有以讨论其潜在的解放，实用主义或教育价值为标志。相反，它们大多被认为是启示录式的，或者被简单地等同于资本主义扩张的工具。特别是，从Sebastiana Timpanaro在他的基础著作《一个唯物主义》（One Materialism, 1971）中阐述的论点开始，这本书强调了左派知识分子和所谓的历史唯物主义之间模棱两可和矛盾的哲学关系，这种关系在意大利主要是通过理想主义的视角来理解和接受的，并且对科学和技术在当代社会中可能发挥的作用产生了根本性的误解。从消极和末世的角度来看，他们分享的观点与更保守的力量所支持的观点并没有太大不同。在这一点上，本书还试图定义意大利唯物主义作家和思想家的一个可能的替代谱系，质疑常见的批判马克思主义者（福尔蒂尼-帕索里尼-沃尔波尼），并在利奥帕蒂-加达-利瓦伊中提出一个非传统的范式，这是第一个从所谓的“1947一代”批评家和知识分子（如切萨雷·卢波里尼和塞巴斯蒂安·廷帕纳罗）的批判训经镜头中看到的。这本书将按时间顺序排列，从1904年著名的克罗齐-皮兰德罗的辩论开始，从本世纪头几十年普遍的反实证主义气氛开始，然后考虑科学在法西斯时期所扮演的矛盾角色，以及对现代化普遍文化影响的意识形态抵制，在二战后的第一个十年里，特别是在《II politecnico》和《Civilta delle machine》等期刊上，以及新一代哲学家如Ludovico Geymonat、Eugenio Garin、Giulio Preti和Enzo Paci等人的接受和讨论中，得到了更多的幸运。特别关注的将是60年代，1962年c·p·斯诺的《两种文化》的意大利语翻译引发了关键的讨论（作者包括埃利奥·维托里尼、普雷蒂和意大利卡尔维纳），以及文学批评领域对结构主义的接受。章节还将专门讨论意大利科幻小说作为一种文学类型的“种族隔离”，以及那些“敢于”冒险表现科学主题的作家。它最后探讨了本世纪最后几十年的标志，除了在70年代末短暂的兴趣外，文人进一步退出了与科学的接触，以及后结构主义和解释学哲学的主导地位（Vattimo, Severino, Galimberti），这加剧了在批判领域讨论科学的争论性拒绝。

Contro il materialismo aims to provide a historical overview of the so-called "two cultures" debate in 20th century Italy, with special reference to the literary and philosophical fields. The book investigates the extent to which and explains the reasons why the Italian cultural elites have constantly shown an overt hostility towards science and technology and how this has affected both the representation of this subjects in literature and art, and the general Italian cultural and ideological climate, with repercussions at political, pedagogical, and mediatic level. It shows how the rapid modernization and industrialization of Italy in the 20th century produced only a marginal increase in the scientific literacy in the country, and because of the specific cultural, philosophical and ideological formation of the intellectual elites (mostly tied to various forms of idealism), the reception of science and technology was not marked by a discussion about their potentially emancipating, pragmatic or pedagogical values. Instead they were mostly perceived either in apocalyptic terms or were simply equated to the instruments of capitalistic expansion. In particular, starting with the thesis expounded by Sebastiana Timpanaro in his fundamental "One Materialism" (1971), the book highlights the equivocal and contradictory philosophical relationship between the leftist intellighenzia and the so-called historical materialism, which was understood and received in Italy mostly through an idealistic lens, and which produced a radical misunderstanding about the role of science and technology could play in contemporary societies, seen in a negative and ultimately apocalyptic light, sharing therefore a perspective which was not very dissimilar from the one espounded by more conservative forces. On this score, the book also attempts to define a possible alternative genealogy of materialist writers and thinkers in Italy, questioning the common critical Marxist (Fortini-Pasolini-Volponi) and proposing an unconventional paradigm in Leopardi-Gadda-Levi, the first seen from the critical exegetical lens of the so-called "1947 generation" of critics and intellectuals such as Cesare Luporini and Sebastiana Timpanaro.The book will be structured chronologically starting with the famous Croce-Pirandello polemical exchange in 1904 and the general anti-positivist climate of the first decades of the century, then considering the contradictory role played by science during the fascist period and the ideological resistance to the general cultural effects of modernization, and a more fortunate reception and discussion during the first decade of the post-WWII period particularly in journals such as "II politecnico" and "Civilta delle macchine", and by a new generation of philosophers such as Ludovico Geymonat, Eugenio Garin, Giulio Preti, and Enzo Paci. Particular attention will be devoted to the '60s, with the crucial discussions triggered by the Italian translation of C.P. Snow's "The Two Cultures" in 1962 (which engaged authors such as Elio Vittorini, Preti and ltalo Calvina), and the reception of structuralism within the literary critical field. Chapters will be also devoted to the ghettoization of science-fiction in Italy as literary genre, and to writers who 'dared' to venture into the representation of scientific subjects. It finally explores the last decades of the century which were marked, with the exception of a brief spell of interest in the late 70s, by a further retreat from engagement with the sciences on the part of the literati, and with the dominance of the post-structuralist and hermeneutic philosophical koine (Vattimo, Severino, Galimberti) which exacerbated the polemical refusal to discuss about science in the critical field.