Across the Universe: The Notion of World from Copernicus to Kant
The winter school, organized by Scuola Normale Superiore, is funded by the PNRR through the MERITA, the network for talent project*.
Date: January 14 – January 16, 2026
Location: Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
Total hours: 24
Max participants: 20
Language: English
Application deadline: October 10, 2025
Target audience: Master’s/PhD Students; Early-career Researchers
Description
Bruno’s On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds, Galilei’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World-Systems, Descartes’ The World or Treatise on Light, Newton’s System of the World (III Part of the Principia) and Kant’s 1770 dissertation The Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World are the most obvious examples of the importance of the concept of world in modern philosophy and science. After Copernicus’ subversion of Ptolemaic astronomy, modern philosophy and science have to face the tricky problem of recreating a notion of order after the collapse of the Ancient taxis and the Medieval ordo: ‘world’ is the name of this challenging task. Its plurality or uniqueness, its infinity or finitude, its eternity or origin, its structure and composition, its relation to God and to humanity are the basic themes of the modern revolution in European thought.
All the new several metaphysical and epistemological needs are reflected in the tension toward the construction of a complete system of the world. This is the case till its ironic transformation in an idea of reason, which leads the way to the contemporary proliferation of a variety of subjective worlds.
By gathering scholars from different traditions, the Winter School aims to reconstruct the history and conceptual development of the notion of world from Copernicus to Kant, while also critically addressing the relevant features of each step in this developmental history and accounting for its fundamental role in various philosophical systems and comprehensive theories of science.
Structure
The Winter School will be structured according to morning and afternoon sessions. Each morning session will feature keynote talks by invited speakers, while all afternoon sessions will be devoted to collective readings and discussions of selected works by the authors representing the main focus on the winter school: Copernicus, Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, Leibniz, Kant.
The morning sessions will feature keynote talks by invited speakers:
- Rémi Brague | Université Paris-1-Panthéon-Sorbonne
- Silvia De Bianchi | Università degli Studi di Milano
- Daniel Garber | Princeton University
- Donald Rutherford | University of California, San Diego
- Emanuela Scribano | Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
- Rachel Zuckert | Northwestern University
The afternoon sessions will feature the collective readings and discussions – coordinated and supervised by the invited speakers – of primary texts of the main authors of the winter school (Copernicus, Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, Leibniz, Kant). These afternoon collective readings and discussions will lead all participants to engage in a critical examination of the development of the notion of ‘world'. The discussion will have a seminar format aimed at training in methods of analysis of philosophical texts.
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* MERITA, the network for talent project is the result of a collaboration between five Italian academic institutions: the Scuola Normale Superiore, the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, the Collegio Superiore dell’Università di Bologna, the Scuola Galileiana di Studi Superiori dell’Università di Padova and the Scuola Superiore di Studi Avanzati della Sapienza Università di Roma.
The MERITA project is funded within the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), Missione 4 – Istruzione e Ricerca, Componente 1, Investimento 3.4 "Didattica e competenze universitarie avanzate"- "Rafforzamento delle Scuole universitarie superiori". (National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Mission 4 – Education and Research, Component 1, Investment 3.4 "Advanced university teaching and competences" - "Enhancement of the institutions for higher education").