Teaching Workshop: Philosophy Workshop 9
A.Y. 2025/2026
Learning objectives
Undefined
Expected learning outcomes
The workshop aims to develop the following skills:
Critical thinking skills:
By the end of the workshop, students will display a sufficiently independent critical approach in selecting and interpreting the notions that are most relevant their area of study and to the broader socio-cultural context in which they operate
Communication skills:
By the end of the workshop:
- students will be able to effectively communicate the acquired knowledge and disseminate it to the general public;
- student will have developed basic IT skills concerning knowledge preservation and transfer.
Learning skills:
By the end of the workshop, students will have developed the learning skills required to continue their studies in keeping with their own research interests. In order to meet this objective, students will also develop relevant skills in the independent interpretation of sources and in the use of basic IT tool for bibliographic research.
Critical thinking skills:
By the end of the workshop, students will display a sufficiently independent critical approach in selecting and interpreting the notions that are most relevant their area of study and to the broader socio-cultural context in which they operate
Communication skills:
By the end of the workshop:
- students will be able to effectively communicate the acquired knowledge and disseminate it to the general public;
- student will have developed basic IT skills concerning knowledge preservation and transfer.
Learning skills:
By the end of the workshop, students will have developed the learning skills required to continue their studies in keeping with their own research interests. In order to meet this objective, students will also develop relevant skills in the independent interpretation of sources and in the use of basic IT tool for bibliographic research.
Lesson period: First semester
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
First semester
Course syllabus
"Professionalizing laboratory" module
From viral ideas to big data: processes, tools, applications of digital communication
The workshop focuses on intelligence as information: the mechanisms of meaning production, and the mechanical production of meanings, through devices that:
- govern the generation of significant signs (verbal, iconographic, musical, mathematical, etc.),
- organize the social context of their distribution and interpretation.
To explore this modern and contemporary conception of intelligence, two classes of algorithms and their social uses will be examined:
- social network analysis algorithms;
- AI models for text generation and image interpretation.
Models for defining and measuring information, and the resulting policies of technological development, social organization, and economic and financial planning, will also be examined.
The class schedule will be:
fri 10/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 17/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 24/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 31/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 07/11 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
From viral ideas to big data: processes, tools, applications of digital communication
The workshop focuses on intelligence as information: the mechanisms of meaning production, and the mechanical production of meanings, through devices that:
- govern the generation of significant signs (verbal, iconographic, musical, mathematical, etc.),
- organize the social context of their distribution and interpretation.
To explore this modern and contemporary conception of intelligence, two classes of algorithms and their social uses will be examined:
- social network analysis algorithms;
- AI models for text generation and image interpretation.
Models for defining and measuring information, and the resulting policies of technological development, social organization, and economic and financial planning, will also be examined.
The class schedule will be:
fri 10/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 17/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 24/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 31/10 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
fri 07/11 - h.14:30-18:30 Sant'Antonio I - Sant'Antonio
Prerequisites for admission
No prior knowledge is required
Teaching methods
The teacher will use: a) frontal lessons; b) assignment of exercises to students divided into debate pairs, for and against a thesis. Each couple will be invited to present in the classroom the arguments for and against the central thesis of one of the texts in the bibliography. Finally, each student will have to write a text with the summary of their arguments.
Teaching Resources
Arielli, Emanuele; Bottazzini, Paolo, Idee virali. Perché i pensieri si diffondono, il Mulino, Bologna, 2018
Barabási, Albert-László, 2003, Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, New York, Penguin Books; trad. it. a cura di B. Antonielli d'Oulx, Link. La scienza delle reti, Torino, Einaudi, 2004.
Benkler, Yochai; Faris, Robert; Roberts, Hal; Zuckerman, Ethan, 2017, Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda, «Columbia Journalism Re-view», 3 marzo 2017
Blakemore, S. (1999), The Meme machine, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Bonacich, Phillip, 1987, Power and Centrality: A Family of Measures, in « The American Journal of Sociology», vol. 92, n. 5, Marzo 1987, pp. 1170-1182
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1980, Le capital social, in «Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales», Vol. 31, gennaio 1980, pp. 2-3
Brodie, R. (1996), Virus of the mind: The new science of the meme, Seattle: Integral Press
Burt, Ronald, 2005, Brokerage and Closure. An Introduction to Social Capital, New York, Oxford University Press
Coleman, James S., 1988, Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital, «The American Journal of Sociology», Vol. 94, Supplement: Organizations and Institutions: Sociological and Economic Approaches to the Analysis of Social Structure, pp. S95-S120
Coleman, James; Katz, Elihu; Menzel, Herbert, 1966, Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study, New York, Bobbs-Merrill
Dawkins, Richard, 1976, The Selfish Gene, Oxford, Oxford University Press; trad. it. a cura di G. Conte e A. Serra, Il gene egoista. La parte immortale di ogni essere vivente, Milano, Mondadori, 1992
Del Vicario, M., Vivaldo, G., Bessi, A., Zollo, F., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., Quattrociocchi, W (2016), Echo Chambers: Emotional Contagion and Group Polarization on Facebook. Scientific Reports, 6, 37825
Floridi, Luciano, 2010, Information. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Freeman, Linton, 1977, A Set of Measures of Centrality Based on Betweenness, in «Sociome-try», Vol. 40, n.1, pp. 35-41
Garland, David, 2001, The Culture of Control. Crime and Social Order in Contemporary So-ciety, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press
Gladwell, Malcom, 2000, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, London, Little Brown; trad. it. a cura di P. Spinato, Il punto critico. I grandi effetti dei pic-coli cambiamenti, Milano, Rizzoli, 2000
Granovetter, Mark, 1973, The Strenght of Weak Ties, Chicago, University of Chicago Press; trad. it. a cura di M. Eve e M. Follis, La forza dei legami deboli, Milano, RCS libri.
Han, Byung-Chul, Infocrazia. Le nostre vite manipolate dalla rete, trad. it. di Federica Buongiorno, Einaudi, Torino 2023.
Kahneman, D. (2012), Pensieri lenti e veloci, Milano: Mondadori.
Katz, Elihu; Lazarsfeld, Paul, 1955, Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communications, New York, The Free Press; trad. it. parziale a cura di M. Morcellini, L'influenza personale in comunicazione, Roma, Armando Editore, 2012
Leroi-Gourhan, André, Évolution et techniques, Albin Michel, Parigi, 1945
Lippmann, Walter, 1922, Public Opinion, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company; trad. it. a cura di C. Mannucci, L'opinione pubblica, Roma, Donzelli, 1999.
Milgram, Stanley, 1967, The Small-World Problem, in « Psychology Today», vol. 1, no. 1, Maggio 1967, pp. 61-67
Nagel, Thomas, Che cosa si prova a essere un pipistrello?, in Daniel C. Dennett e Douglas R. Hofstadter, op. cit., Parte VI, cap. 24
Page, L, Brin, S., Motwani, R., Winograd, T. (1999), The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web, in Technical Report, Stanford InfoLab
Pariser, Eli, 2011, The Filter Bubble. What the Internet Is Hiding from You, New York, The Penguin Press
Pasquinelli, Matteo, The Eye of the Master: Capital as Computation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Verso Books, 2023
Putnam, Hilary, Ragione, verità, storia, trad. it. di Alessandro Nicolò Radicati di Brozolo, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1985
Quattrociocchi, W, Vicini, A. (2016), Misinformation. Guida alla società dell'informazione e della credulità, Milano: Franco Angeli
-- Liberi di crederci. Informazione, internet e post-verità, Codice Edizioni, Torino 2018
Rogers, Everett, 1962, Diffusion of Innovation, New York, Glencoe, Free Press of Glencoe; 2003, Fifth Edition, New York, The Free Press
Salganik, M. J., Watts, D. J. (2008), Leading the Herd Astray: An Experimental Study of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in an Artificial Cultural Market, Social Psychology Quarterly, 74(4), 338.
Searle, John R., Menti, cervelli e programmi, in Daniel C. Dennett e Douglas R. Hofstadter, op. cit., Parte V, cap. 22
Shannon, Claude; Weaver, Warren, 1949, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Urba-na-Champaign, Illinois University Press
Stiegler, Bernard, L'errore di Epimeteo, Luiss, Roma, 2009
Sunstein, Cass, Voci, gossip e false dicerie. Come si diffondono, perché ci crediamo, come possiamo difenderci, trad. it. di Lucia Cornalba, Feltrinelli, Milano 2010 (in particolare i capitoli Il problema, Il chilling effect, L'importantissima sezione 230).
Tarde, Gabriel, 1890, Les lois de l'imitation. Étude sociologique, Paris, Librairie Felix Alcan; trad. it a cura di F. Domenicali, Le leggi dell'imitazione. Studio sociologico, Torino, Rosenberg&Sellier, 2012
Thiel, P. (2007), The Straussian moment, in Hamerton-Kelly, R. (2007). Politics and Apoca-lypse. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, pp. 189-218
Watts, Duncan, 2011, Everything is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer, New York, Ran-dom House
Watts, Duncan; Strogatz, Steven H., 1998, Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks, «Nature», vol. 393, 4 giugno 1998
Wu, T. (2016), The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, New York: Knopf
Zuboff, Shoshana, Il capitalismo della sorveglianza. Il futuro dell'umanità nell'era dei nuovi poteri, trad. it. a cura di P. Bassotti, Luiss University Press, Roma, 2019
Barabási, Albert-László, 2003, Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, New York, Penguin Books; trad. it. a cura di B. Antonielli d'Oulx, Link. La scienza delle reti, Torino, Einaudi, 2004.
Benkler, Yochai; Faris, Robert; Roberts, Hal; Zuckerman, Ethan, 2017, Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda, «Columbia Journalism Re-view», 3 marzo 2017
Blakemore, S. (1999), The Meme machine, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Bonacich, Phillip, 1987, Power and Centrality: A Family of Measures, in « The American Journal of Sociology», vol. 92, n. 5, Marzo 1987, pp. 1170-1182
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1980, Le capital social, in «Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales», Vol. 31, gennaio 1980, pp. 2-3
Brodie, R. (1996), Virus of the mind: The new science of the meme, Seattle: Integral Press
Burt, Ronald, 2005, Brokerage and Closure. An Introduction to Social Capital, New York, Oxford University Press
Coleman, James S., 1988, Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital, «The American Journal of Sociology», Vol. 94, Supplement: Organizations and Institutions: Sociological and Economic Approaches to the Analysis of Social Structure, pp. S95-S120
Coleman, James; Katz, Elihu; Menzel, Herbert, 1966, Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study, New York, Bobbs-Merrill
Dawkins, Richard, 1976, The Selfish Gene, Oxford, Oxford University Press; trad. it. a cura di G. Conte e A. Serra, Il gene egoista. La parte immortale di ogni essere vivente, Milano, Mondadori, 1992
Del Vicario, M., Vivaldo, G., Bessi, A., Zollo, F., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., Quattrociocchi, W (2016), Echo Chambers: Emotional Contagion and Group Polarization on Facebook. Scientific Reports, 6, 37825
Floridi, Luciano, 2010, Information. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Freeman, Linton, 1977, A Set of Measures of Centrality Based on Betweenness, in «Sociome-try», Vol. 40, n.1, pp. 35-41
Garland, David, 2001, The Culture of Control. Crime and Social Order in Contemporary So-ciety, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press
Gladwell, Malcom, 2000, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, London, Little Brown; trad. it. a cura di P. Spinato, Il punto critico. I grandi effetti dei pic-coli cambiamenti, Milano, Rizzoli, 2000
Granovetter, Mark, 1973, The Strenght of Weak Ties, Chicago, University of Chicago Press; trad. it. a cura di M. Eve e M. Follis, La forza dei legami deboli, Milano, RCS libri.
Han, Byung-Chul, Infocrazia. Le nostre vite manipolate dalla rete, trad. it. di Federica Buongiorno, Einaudi, Torino 2023.
Kahneman, D. (2012), Pensieri lenti e veloci, Milano: Mondadori.
Katz, Elihu; Lazarsfeld, Paul, 1955, Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communications, New York, The Free Press; trad. it. parziale a cura di M. Morcellini, L'influenza personale in comunicazione, Roma, Armando Editore, 2012
Leroi-Gourhan, André, Évolution et techniques, Albin Michel, Parigi, 1945
Lippmann, Walter, 1922, Public Opinion, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company; trad. it. a cura di C. Mannucci, L'opinione pubblica, Roma, Donzelli, 1999.
Milgram, Stanley, 1967, The Small-World Problem, in « Psychology Today», vol. 1, no. 1, Maggio 1967, pp. 61-67
Nagel, Thomas, Che cosa si prova a essere un pipistrello?, in Daniel C. Dennett e Douglas R. Hofstadter, op. cit., Parte VI, cap. 24
Page, L, Brin, S., Motwani, R., Winograd, T. (1999), The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web, in Technical Report, Stanford InfoLab
Pariser, Eli, 2011, The Filter Bubble. What the Internet Is Hiding from You, New York, The Penguin Press
Pasquinelli, Matteo, The Eye of the Master: Capital as Computation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Verso Books, 2023
Putnam, Hilary, Ragione, verità, storia, trad. it. di Alessandro Nicolò Radicati di Brozolo, Il Saggiatore, Milano 1985
Quattrociocchi, W, Vicini, A. (2016), Misinformation. Guida alla società dell'informazione e della credulità, Milano: Franco Angeli
-- Liberi di crederci. Informazione, internet e post-verità, Codice Edizioni, Torino 2018
Rogers, Everett, 1962, Diffusion of Innovation, New York, Glencoe, Free Press of Glencoe; 2003, Fifth Edition, New York, The Free Press
Salganik, M. J., Watts, D. J. (2008), Leading the Herd Astray: An Experimental Study of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in an Artificial Cultural Market, Social Psychology Quarterly, 74(4), 338.
Searle, John R., Menti, cervelli e programmi, in Daniel C. Dennett e Douglas R. Hofstadter, op. cit., Parte V, cap. 22
Shannon, Claude; Weaver, Warren, 1949, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Urba-na-Champaign, Illinois University Press
Stiegler, Bernard, L'errore di Epimeteo, Luiss, Roma, 2009
Sunstein, Cass, Voci, gossip e false dicerie. Come si diffondono, perché ci crediamo, come possiamo difenderci, trad. it. di Lucia Cornalba, Feltrinelli, Milano 2010 (in particolare i capitoli Il problema, Il chilling effect, L'importantissima sezione 230).
Tarde, Gabriel, 1890, Les lois de l'imitation. Étude sociologique, Paris, Librairie Felix Alcan; trad. it a cura di F. Domenicali, Le leggi dell'imitazione. Studio sociologico, Torino, Rosenberg&Sellier, 2012
Thiel, P. (2007), The Straussian moment, in Hamerton-Kelly, R. (2007). Politics and Apoca-lypse. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, pp. 189-218
Watts, Duncan, 2011, Everything is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer, New York, Ran-dom House
Watts, Duncan; Strogatz, Steven H., 1998, Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks, «Nature», vol. 393, 4 giugno 1998
Wu, T. (2016), The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, New York: Knopf
Zuboff, Shoshana, Il capitalismo della sorveglianza. Il futuro dell'umanità nell'era dei nuovi poteri, trad. it. a cura di P. Bassotti, Luiss University Press, Roma, 2019
Assessment methods and Criteria
Learning assessment methods:
participation in the debate activities and drafting of a final presentation
Evaluation criteria:
- autonomy of judgement;
- ability to cooperate in a work group;
- communication and expression skills, including with information technologies;
- ability to summarize and write correctly;
- autonomy in the use and verification of sources, basic bibliographic and IT tools for research and scientific updating
participation in the debate activities and drafting of a final presentation
Evaluation criteria:
- autonomy of judgement;
- ability to cooperate in a work group;
- communication and expression skills, including with information technologies;
- ability to summarize and write correctly;
- autonomy in the use and verification of sources, basic bibliographic and IT tools for research and scientific updating
Modules or teaching units
Laboratorio Professionalizzante
- University credits: 2
Humanities workshops: 20 hours
Professor:
Bottazzini Paolo
Ricerca Bibliografica e redazione di un testo scientifico filosofico
- University credits: 1
Humanities workshops: 16 hours
Educational website(s)
Professor(s)