THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION OF THE 17TH CENTURY. THE ASPECTS CONNECTED TO PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY: AN EDUCATIONAL ITINERARY IN SEVEN LESSONS

In the period 2012-2013 I got the qualification (abilitazione) to teach history and philosophy in the Italian high schools. The course I followed was called TFA (Tirocinio Formativo Attivo, Active Formative Training). The final examination was constituted by various proofs. Two of them were the written presentations of one educational itinerary in history and one in philosophy. Both of them had to be structured in a series of interconnected lessons. In this editorial I will expose, with some minor modifications, the translation of the educational itinerary I prepared for philosophy. It concerns the scientific revolution of the 17th century. The interest of this itinerary is not limited to the schools in which philosophy is taught, but it can also provide ideas useful in a course of physics at the high school or of history and philosophy of science at the university. What follows is divided into two parts: 1) a general presentation of the aims and methods followed in the lessons; 2) the lessons of the educational itinerary. In my training in philosophy – developed in September and October 2013 in an Italian scientific high school – I presented the following lessons concerning the scientific revolution