During a recent conference to celebrate Chapman’s new Doctor of Science in Mathematics, Philosophy and Physics (MPP), Chapman University Dr. Marco Panza, the program’s founding director, was awarded the new Kennedy Chair in Philosophy.
When asked about how growing up and being educated in Italy influenced his thinking and work, Dr. Panza expressed his debt toward two types of school: “my Italian high school, Il Liceo Scientifico Galileo Ferraris of Varese,” and “the PCI of the 1970s, which was a real school of life for me, independently of the specific political ideas.” Dr. Panza also likes to recall how influential it was for him the fact that “historicism and analytical philosophy were discussed jointly in Italian academia,” namely “the idea that there is no philosophy without a history of philosophy and no mathematics without a history of mathematics (though they remain different things).” Finally, he fondly acknowledges “the sense of friendship, where an intellectual collaboration is firstly an experience of life.” These influences are examples of Italian intellectual legacies that have flowed into the inception and conceptualization of the idea for MPP, for which Dr. Panza also acknowledged Benedetto Croce and Federigo Enriques, two key figures for him.
With the newly established endowed chair, Dr. Panza intends to reinforce a community of scholars and friends.
Below, Dr. Panza, the first one to the left, during the ceremony.
