Once the student has traced these three perspectives, he can also attempt to apply their criteria to a specific painting, perhaps by revising an already classic interpretation (for example drawing from Roberto Longhi’s analysis of Piero della Francesca’s paintings) and integrating it with the more “contemporary” data that he has gathered from these authors. The final product will be nothing original, and it will fall between the survey and the monograph, but the student will be able to develop it on the basis of Italian translations. The student will avoid reproach for not having read all Panofsky, including work available only in German or English, because the thesis is not on Panofsky. Panofsky is relevant only to a specific aspect of the topic, and is useful as a reference only for some questions presented by the thesis. As I said in section 2.1, this type of thesis is not the best choice, because it risks becoming incomplete and generic. To be clear, this is an example of a six-month thesis for a student who wishes to gather preliminary data on a problem about which he truly cares. It is a makeshift solution, yet it can produce a decent thesis.
In any case, if our Italian student does not know any foreign languages, and if he cannot seize this precious opportunity that the thesis provides to acquire them, the most reasonable solution is for the student to choose a specifically Italian topic, so that he can eliminate the need for foreign sources completely, or at least rely on the few sources that have been translated into Italian. Therefore, if the student wishes to write a thesis on “The Models of the Historical Novel in Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Prose,” he should have some basic knowledge of Walter Scott and his role as the originator of the modern historical novel, in addition to the nineteenthcentury Italian polemic on the same subject. He could also find some reference works in Italian, and he could find at least the major works of Walter Scott in translation, especially if he searched the library for the nineteenth-century Italian translations. A topic such as “Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi’s Influence on the Italian Culture of the Risorgimento” would pose even fewer problems. Obviously, the student should never begin his work based on such optimistic assumptions, and he should always consult available bibliographies to determine which foreign authors have written on his topic.
2.6 “Scientific” or Political?
After the student protests in 1968,2 a widespread opinion emerged that students should write a thesis that is linked to political and social interests, rather than on “cultural” or bookish topics. If we believe this, then the title of this section becomes provocative and deceitful, because it suggests that a “political” thesis is not “scientific.” Nowadays we often hear about “science,” “being scientific,” “scientific research,” and “the scientific value” of a thesis, and these terms can cause unintentional misunderstandings, mystifications, as well as unfounded suspicions of cultural conservatism.
2.6.1 What Does It Mean to Be Scientific?
Some identify science with natural sciences or quantitative research. In other words, they believe research is only scientific if it contains formulas and diagrams. From this perspective, research on Aristotle’s ethics would not be scientific, nor would a thesis on class consciousness and the peasant revolts during the Protestant Reformation. Clearly this is not the meaning that academia assigns to the term “scientific.”
Let us try to understand by what reasoning we can call a work scientific. We can still take as a model the natural sciences as they have been defined since the beginning of the modern period. In this sense, research is scientific when it fulfills the following conditions:
1. The research deals with a specific object, defined so that others can identify it. The term “object” need not necessarily have a physical meaning. Even the square root of a number is an object, though it cannot actually be seen or touched. Social class is also an object of research, despite the objection that we can only know individuals or statistical means and not actual classes. In this sense, the class of all integers above 3,725 also lacks physical reality, though a mathematician could study it. Defining the object therefore means defining the conditions by which we can talk about it, based on rules that we establish, or that others have established before us. If we establish the conditions that allow anyone to discern an integer above 3,725 when he encounters it, we have established our object’s rules of identification.
Obviously, problems arise if we must speak, for example, of a fictional being such as the centaur, commonly understood to be nonexistent. At this point we have three alternatives. First, we can decide to talk about centaurs as they are presented in classical mythology. Here our object becomes publicly recognizable and identifiable, because we are dealing with the texts (verbal or visual) in which these mythical creatures appear. We will then have to determine the characteristics that an object being described in classical mythology must possess for it to be recognized as a centaur. Second, we can conduct a hypothetical investigation to determine which characteristics a creature living in a possible world (that is, not the real world) should possess in order to be a centaur.
Then we would have to define the conditions of existence of this possible world, taking care to inform our readers that all of our discussion is developed within this hypothesis. If we remain rigorously faithful to the initial assumption, we have defined an object appropriate for scientific investigation. Third, we can produce sufficient evidence to prove that centaurs are in fact real. In this case, to build a realistic object of discussion, we should present evidence (skeletons, bone remains, tracks petrified in lava, infrared photographs from Greek woodlands, and whatever else might support our case) so that others might agree that, regardless of the correctness of our hypothesis, there is something we can talk about. Obviously this example is paradoxical, and I can’t believe that anyone would want to write a thesis on centaurs, especially by way of the third alternative. Instead, my purpose is to show how it is always possible, given certain conditions, to constitute a publicly recognizable object of research. And if it is possible with centaurs, it will surely be possible with notions such as moral behavior, desires, values, or the concept of historical progress.
2. The research says things that have not yet been said about this object, or it revises the things that have already been said from a different perspective. A mathematically correct thesis that proved the Pythagorean theorem with traditional methods would not be a scientific work, because it would not add anything to our knowledge. At best, it would provide clear instruction on how to solve the theorem, much as a manual provides instruction on how to build a doghouse using wood, nails, a plane, a saw, and a hammer. As we have already said in section 1.1, a literature review can also be scientifically useful because the author has collected and organically linked together the opinions expressed by others on a particular topic. Similarly, an instruction manual on how to build a doghouse is not a scientific work, but a work that discusses and compares all known doghouse-building methods can make a modest claim of scientific value. However, bear in mind that a literature review has scientific value only if something similar does not already exist in a given field. If someone has already written a work comparing the systems used to build a doghouse, writing a similar manual is at best a waste of time, at worst plagiarism (see section 5.3.2).
3. The research is useful to others. An article that presents a new finding on the behavior of the elementary particles of physics is useful. An article that presents a transcription of an unpublished letter by the Italian romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi, and that recounts the circumstances of its discovery, is useful. A work is scientific if, in addition to fulfilling the two conditions above, it advances the knowledge of the community, and if all future works on the topic will have to take it into consideration, at least in theory.
Naturally the scientific relevance is commensurate with the contribution’s significance. Scholars must take certain contributions into account in order to say anything relevant on a particular topic, while they can leave others behind without serious consequences. Recently, a number of letters from James Joyce to his wife have been published, specifically letters that deal with explicit sexual matters. People studying the origin of Molly Bloom’s character in Joyce’s Ulysses may find it useful to know that, in his private life, Joyce attributed to his wife a sexuality as vivacious and developed as Molly’s. Therefore, the publication of these letters is a useful scientific contribution. On the other hand, some superb interpretations of Ulysses present a keen analysis of Molly’s character without this data. Therefore this contribution is not indispensable. We can find
