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True or False Cures?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Clara Gallini
Clara Gallini*
Affiliation:
La Sapienza University, Rome
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Extract

During the last century procedures for distinguishing between ‘human sciences’ and ‘natural sciences’ have seen a number of changes. Currently, the pre-eminence of the scientific-naturalist paradigm, which led the field throughout the nineteenth century, seems again under discussion on some fundamental issues. In particular, the boundaries between the two sciences - boundaries which were in no case rigid or absolute - are being tested, in a confrontation concerning the very statutes of both disciplines as well as their respective methods.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 47 , Issue 188 , December 1999 , pp. 85 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 1999

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References

Notes

* ‘Do not join in with the singing’ (translator's note).

1. Clara Gallini (1998). Il miracolo e la sua prova. Un etnologo a Lourdes. Naples: Liguori. Reference to this book avoids my having to include in this article all the quotations that are not strictly relevant to its theme.

2. Zola happened by chance to go through Lourdes in the summer of 1891 and decided to go back to carry out a study, which began on 18 August of the following year and lasted a week. His travel notebooks were published in a remarkable critical edition in Mes voyages, Lourdes-Rome. Journaux inédits présentés et annotés par J. Ternois (Paris, 1958). The first volume of the cycle Trois villes, Lourdes appeared in 1894.

3. E. Zola (1880). Le roman expérimental. Paris.

4. I am referring of course to the development of Gianni Vattimo's thinking. See P.A. Rovatti ed. 1983. Il pensiero debole. Milan: Feltrinelli; G. Vattimo (1998). Espérer croire. Paris: Seuil. Translated from the Italian of 1996.

5. I have dealt with this topic in Clara Gallini (1983). La sonnambula meravigliosa. Magnetismo e Ipnotismo nell'Ottocento italiano. Milan: Feltrinelli.

6. The text is republished in G. Didi-Huberman (1982). Invention de l'hystérie. Charcot et l'iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière. Paris.

7. P.G. Boisserie (1891). Lourdes. Histoire médicale, 1858-1891. Paris.

8. Padre Pio da Pietralcina (1897-1968), a Franciscan priest said to have had healing gifts. He was canonized in 1999 by Pope John Paul II (editor's note).

9. See the recent collection of historico-critical essays published by C. Gallini & M. Massenzio (1997). Ernesto de Martino nella cultura europea. Naples: Liguori.

10. E. de Martino (1959). Sud e Magia. Milan, 27; see also (1963) Italie du Sud et Magie. Gallimard. Those of de Martino's works that had already been translated into French were reprinted in 1999 in 3 volumes by Editions Sanofi-Synthélab, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond. See also the article by Daniel Fabre (1999). Un rendez-vous manqué Ernesto de Martino et sa réception en France. In L'Homme, July-September, 151, 207-236.

11. V. Lanternari (1994). Magia, medicina, religione, valori, vol. 1. Naples, Liguori; V. Lanternari and M.L. Ciminelli (eds.) (1999). Magia, medicina, religione, valori, vol. 2. Naples, Liguori.

12. F. Dei's survey is unpublished and will appear in 2000 in the journal Antropologia medica.