Renato Foschi
Biographic Data
| ID | 182178 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Renato Foschi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Renato |
| FAMILY NAME | Foschi |
| SIGNATURE | FOSCHI R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Sapienza University of Rome |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8222-9105 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Emilio Bodrero at the crossroads of fascism and the crisis of psychology
This article aims to analyze how fascism influenced the crisis of Italian psychology, a phenomenon already highlighted in historiographical literature (Hatfield, 2012; Lombardo, 2014, 2015; Mandler, 2011; Mülberger, 2014a, 2014b; Sturm & Mülberger, 2012). Fascism shaped Italian culture by establishing a regime that ultimately denied fundamental constitutional rights, such as freedom of association and political pluralism, and by shifting cultural…
“He Who Leaves the Old Way for the New, Knows What He Leaves, but Does Not Know What He Will Find”: Traditionalism, Zero-Sum Thinking, and Imagined Future
The radical rejection of the liberal political movements of the 1960s and 1970s by conservative politicians has been a core aspect of conservative politics. In fact, the youth movements of the 1960s broadened the goals of the labor and civil rights movement, also dealing with pacifism, ecologism, promotion of a new sexuality, new rights for women, and different sexual identities foreshadowing a revolutionary future for Western societies. It has b…
Rewriting Wundtian psychology: Luigi Credaro and the psychology in Rome
After Rome became the capital of Italy in 1871, prestigious scientists arrived at the University of Rome. One of these scholars was the pedagogical philosopher Luigi Credaro (1860-1939). He was one of the rare Italian students of Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) when he went to Leipzig and attended the Institute for Experimental Psychology in the academic year 1887-1888. There he also followed the pedagogical seminars and considered the usefulness of es…
Psychological reality and psychoanalysis at the Padua Laboratory of Psychology
As it spread across Italy, psychoanalysis captured the interest of Italian psychologists, namely Vittorio Benussi (1878-1927) and Cesare Musatti (1897-1989). Benussi, who was trained as an experimental psychologist according to the Gegenstandstheorie School of Graz in 1919, came to Italy and became a full professor of experimental psychology in Padua. He undertook a program of study called "psychological reality" that comprised hypnosuggestion an…
Universal Basic Income as a Promoter of Real Freedom in a Digital Future
The article presents Universal and Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) as a guarantee of Ius Existentiae (right to life) and real freedom for all in the present and future society characterized by digitization, automation, and change in the dynamics of production forms and the labor market. Describing the history of basic income, we analyze the major experiments carried out and the effects of UBI on the labor market, social capital, and the psycholo…
Magic and loss: Hidden sources in the history of human sciences
This article summarizes the book "The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences" by Jason A. Josephson-Storm (University of Chicago Press, 2017) is a volume that attempts to stimulate discussion on domains considered different: esotericism, spiritism, occultism, idealism, and positivism. (PsycINFO Database Record
Between sacred and profane: Possession, psychopathology, and the Catholic church
In Catholic culture, and especially within the Italian Catholic environment, there has recently been a significant revival of the practice of exorcism. This is a fact noted by historians such as Levack (2013) and Young (2016). The article intends to show how this phenomenon is related to a series of important historical turning points, the most important of which is the recent collaboration between exorcists and Catholic psychologists and psychia…
A disease of our time: The Catholic Church's condemnation and absolution of psychoanalysis (1924-1975)
The present paper is focused on the evolution of the position of the Catholic Church toward psychoanalysis. Even before Freud's The Future of an Illusion (1927), psychoanalysis was criticized by Catholic theologians. Psychoanalysis was viewed with either contempt or with indifference, but nonpsychoanalytic psychotherapy was accepted, especially for pastoral use. Freudian theory remained for most Catholics a delicate and dangerous subject for a lo…
Do Amoral Familism and Political Distrust Really Affect North-South Differences in Italy
Especially in southern Italy, Banfield's amoral familism is considered an obstacle to the formation of associations and growth of political participation. This article discusses Banfield's concept, showing that it has been vulgarized merely as familism and, in particular, demonstrates that Banfield intended amoral familism to be understood in terms of political distrust. We investigated whether amoral familism or political distrust, operationaliz…
Northerners versus southerners: Italian anthropology and psychology faced with the “southern question”
Following the Unification of Italy (1861), when confronted with the underdevelopment problems of the south that had given rise to the so-called "southern question," some Italian anthropologists and psychologists began to study the populations of the south from the psycho-anthropological point of view. These scientists, at times subject to preconceived ideas toward the southerners, conveyed observations and descriptions of the southern character t…
Does sociability predict civic involvement and political participation
In contemporary history as well as in political science, a strong associational life known as sociability is thought to explain the roots of modern democracy by establishing a link between the increasing availability of free time to the middle classes, increasing willingness to gather with others in circles or associations, and increasing social capital. In personality psychology, sociability is related to prosocial behavior (i.e., the need for a…
Making up intelligence scales: De Sanctis’s and Binet’s tests, 1905 and after
Sante De Sanctis (1862-1935) and Alfred Binet (1857-1911), the latter in collaboration with Théodore Simon (1873-1960), introduced their intelligence tests to the scientific community at the Fifth International Congress of Psychology, held in Rome in 1905 on April 26-30. The cultural and political contexts within which De Sanctis and Binet developed their respective intelligence tests showed certain similarities. Nevertheless, De Sanctis's intell…
Italian psychology under protection: Agostino Gemelli between Catholicism and fascism
Between the 1930s and 1940s, Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959) was the main Italian psychologist; he accepted and promoted an empirical conception of psychology influenced by neo-Thomism. The views of Gemelli were a landmark for many psychologists and psychological models in Catholic universities. Gemelli, moreover, throughout his scientific activity, continued ongoing work of expertise in matters concerning science, morality, and psychology. He was a…
Ten years of Italian historiography of psychology: A field in progress
This article briefly outlines a picture of the activities and research conducted in Italy on the history of psychology during the last 10 years, focusing its attention on institutions, scholars, conferences, archives, journals, and so forth. At the dawn of the 21st century, the tradition of historical-psychological studies that developed in the last quarter of the 20th century has led to a renewed situation in teaching organization and research, …
Escape from the dark forest: The experimentalist standpoint of Sante De Sanctis' psychology of dreams
Sante De Sanctis (1862—1935), a pioneer of psychology in Rome at the end of the 19th century, applied methods from the expanding field of experimental psychology to the study of dreams, which was considered one of the leading ways to gain an understanding of normal and pathological psychic life. Taking inspiration from several traditions, De Sanctis proposed a study that anticipated a scientific program that also differentiated between contempora…
Science and culture around the Montessori's first "Children's Houses" in Rome (1907-1915)
Between 1907 and 1908, Maria Montessori's (1870-1952) educational method was elaborated at the Children's Houses of the San Lorenzo district in Rome. This pioneering experience was the basis for the international fame that came to Montessori after the publication of her 1909 volume dedicated to her "Method." The "Montessori Method" was considered by some to be scientific, liberal, and revolutionary. The present article focuses upon the complex co…
Contexts and experimentalism in the psychology of Gabriele Buccola (1875-1885)
Gabriele Buccola, since his untimely death, often has been mentioned as the first Italian psychologist who developed a strict program of laboratory research. Buccola, a Sicilian of Albanian ancestry, is a "case" in the history of Italian psychology. A self-taught positivist, he established a relation with the major representatives of the European positivism. Kraepelin mentions him as one of the precursors of his project of applying experimental p…
Politics and naturalism in the 20th century psychology of Alfred Binet
Alfred Binet is internationally recognized as the "father" of the first intelligence test as well as the most faithful French representative of laboratory experimentalism. A historical analysis of his work is therefore necessary to get to a thorough comprehension of 20th century psychology. The present article, starting from Binet's intellectual path and from the suggestions of the previous historical literature, aims at providing fresh insights …
The concept of personality in 19th-century French and 20th-century American psychology
Allport. Historians of psychology have made serious attempts to reconstruct the cultural, political, institutional, and chronological beginnings of this field in America in the 20th century. In this literature, however, an important European tradition of psychological studies of personality that developed in France in the 2nd half of the 19th century has been overlooked. The aim of this article is to cast some light on this unexplored tradition o…
Does sociability predict civic involvement and political participation
In contemporary history as well as in political science, a strong associational life known as sociability is thought to explain the roots of modern democracy by establishing a link between the increasing availability of free time to the middle classes, increasing willingness to gather with others in circles or associations, and increasing social capital. In personality psychology, sociability is related to prosocial behavior (i.e., the need for a…
Italian psychology under protection: Agostino Gemelli between Catholicism and fascism
Between the 1930s and 1940s, Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959) was the main Italian psychologist; he accepted and promoted an empirical conception of psychology influenced by neo-Thomism. The views of Gemelli were a landmark for many psychologists and psychological models in Catholic universities. Gemelli, moreover, throughout his scientific activity, continued ongoing work of expertise in matters concerning science, morality, and psychology. He was a…
Contexts and experimentalism in the psychology of Gabriele Buccola (1875-1885)
Gabriele Buccola, since his untimely death, often has been mentioned as the first Italian psychologist who developed a strict program of laboratory research. Buccola, a Sicilian of Albanian ancestry, is a "case" in the history of Italian psychology. A self-taught positivist, he established a relation with the major representatives of the European positivism. Kraepelin mentions him as one of the precursors of his project of applying experimental p…
Politics and naturalism in the 20th century psychology of Alfred Binet
Alfred Binet is internationally recognized as the "father" of the first intelligence test as well as the most faithful French representative of laboratory experimentalism. A historical analysis of his work is therefore necessary to get to a thorough comprehension of 20th century psychology. The present article, starting from Binet's intellectual path and from the suggestions of the previous historical literature, aims at providing fresh insights …
The concept of personality in 19th-century French and 20th-century American psychology
Allport. Historians of psychology have made serious attempts to reconstruct the cultural, political, institutional, and chronological beginnings of this field in America in the 20th century. In this literature, however, an important European tradition of psychological studies of personality that developed in France in the 2nd half of the 19th century has been overlooked. The aim of this article is to cast some light on this unexplored tradition o…
A disease of our time: The Catholic Church's condemnation and absolution of psychoanalysis (1924-1975)
The present paper is focused on the evolution of the position of the Catholic Church toward psychoanalysis. Even before Freud's The Future of an Illusion (1927), psychoanalysis was criticized by Catholic theologians. Psychoanalysis was viewed with either contempt or with indifference, but nonpsychoanalytic psychotherapy was accepted, especially for pastoral use. Freudian theory remained for most Catholics a delicate and dangerous subject for a lo…
Northerners versus southerners: Italian anthropology and psychology faced with the “southern question”
Following the Unification of Italy (1861), when confronted with the underdevelopment problems of the south that had given rise to the so-called "southern question," some Italian anthropologists and psychologists began to study the populations of the south from the psycho-anthropological point of view. These scientists, at times subject to preconceived ideas toward the southerners, conveyed observations and descriptions of the southern character t…
Do Amoral Familism and Political Distrust Really Affect North-South Differences in Italy
Especially in southern Italy, Banfield's amoral familism is considered an obstacle to the formation of associations and growth of political participation. This article discusses Banfield's concept, showing that it has been vulgarized merely as familism and, in particular, demonstrates that Banfield intended amoral familism to be understood in terms of political distrust. We investigated whether amoral familism or political distrust, operationaliz…
Escape from the dark forest: The experimentalist standpoint of Sante De Sanctis' psychology of dreams
Sante De Sanctis (1862—1935), a pioneer of psychology in Rome at the end of the 19th century, applied methods from the expanding field of experimental psychology to the study of dreams, which was considered one of the leading ways to gain an understanding of normal and pathological psychic life. Taking inspiration from several traditions, De Sanctis proposed a study that anticipated a scientific program that also differentiated between contempora…
Making up intelligence scales: De Sanctis’s and Binet’s tests, 1905 and after
Sante De Sanctis (1862-1935) and Alfred Binet (1857-1911), the latter in collaboration with Théodore Simon (1873-1960), introduced their intelligence tests to the scientific community at the Fifth International Congress of Psychology, held in Rome in 1905 on April 26-30. The cultural and political contexts within which De Sanctis and Binet developed their respective intelligence tests showed certain similarities. Nevertheless, De Sanctis's intell…
The concept of personality in 19th-century French and 20th-century American psychology
Allport. Historians of psychology have made serious attempts to reconstruct the cultural, political, institutional, and chronological beginnings of this field in America in the 20th century. In this literature, however, an important European tradition of psychological studies of personality that developed in France in the 2nd half of the 19th century has been overlooked. The aim of this article is to cast some light on this unexplored tradition o…
Politics and naturalism in the 20th century psychology of Alfred Binet
Alfred Binet is internationally recognized as the "father" of the first intelligence test as well as the most faithful French representative of laboratory experimentalism. A historical analysis of his work is therefore necessary to get to a thorough comprehension of 20th century psychology. The present article, starting from Binet's intellectual path and from the suggestions of the previous historical literature, aims at providing fresh insights …
Contexts and experimentalism in the psychology of Gabriele Buccola (1875-1885)
Gabriele Buccola, since his untimely death, often has been mentioned as the first Italian psychologist who developed a strict program of laboratory research. Buccola, a Sicilian of Albanian ancestry, is a "case" in the history of Italian psychology. A self-taught positivist, he established a relation with the major representatives of the European positivism. Kraepelin mentions him as one of the precursors of his project of applying experimental p…
Escape from the dark forest: The experimentalist standpoint of Sante De Sanctis' psychology of dreams
Sante De Sanctis (1862—1935), a pioneer of psychology in Rome at the end of the 19th century, applied methods from the expanding field of experimental psychology to the study of dreams, which was considered one of the leading ways to gain an understanding of normal and pathological psychic life. Taking inspiration from several traditions, De Sanctis proposed a study that anticipated a scientific program that also differentiated between contempora…
Science and culture around the Montessori's first "Children's Houses" in Rome (1907-1915)
Between 1907 and 1908, Maria Montessori's (1870-1952) educational method was elaborated at the Children's Houses of the San Lorenzo district in Rome. This pioneering experience was the basis for the international fame that came to Montessori after the publication of her 1909 volume dedicated to her "Method." The "Montessori Method" was considered by some to be scientific, liberal, and revolutionary. The present article focuses upon the complex co…
Ten years of Italian historiography of psychology: A field in progress
This article briefly outlines a picture of the activities and research conducted in Italy on the history of psychology during the last 10 years, focusing its attention on institutions, scholars, conferences, archives, journals, and so forth. At the dawn of the 21st century, the tradition of historical-psychological studies that developed in the last quarter of the 20th century has led to a renewed situation in teaching organization and research, …
Italian psychology under protection: Agostino Gemelli between Catholicism and fascism
Between the 1930s and 1940s, Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959) was the main Italian psychologist; he accepted and promoted an empirical conception of psychology influenced by neo-Thomism. The views of Gemelli were a landmark for many psychologists and psychological models in Catholic universities. Gemelli, moreover, throughout his scientific activity, continued ongoing work of expertise in matters concerning science, morality, and psychology. He was a…
Making up intelligence scales: De Sanctis’s and Binet’s tests, 1905 and after
Sante De Sanctis (1862-1935) and Alfred Binet (1857-1911), the latter in collaboration with Théodore Simon (1873-1960), introduced their intelligence tests to the scientific community at the Fifth International Congress of Psychology, held in Rome in 1905 on April 26-30. The cultural and political contexts within which De Sanctis and Binet developed their respective intelligence tests showed certain similarities. Nevertheless, De Sanctis's intell…
Northerners versus southerners: Italian anthropology and psychology faced with the “southern question”
Following the Unification of Italy (1861), when confronted with the underdevelopment problems of the south that had given rise to the so-called "southern question," some Italian anthropologists and psychologists began to study the populations of the south from the psycho-anthropological point of view. These scientists, at times subject to preconceived ideas toward the southerners, conveyed observations and descriptions of the southern character t…
Does sociability predict civic involvement and political participation
In contemporary history as well as in political science, a strong associational life known as sociability is thought to explain the roots of modern democracy by establishing a link between the increasing availability of free time to the middle classes, increasing willingness to gather with others in circles or associations, and increasing social capital. In personality psychology, sociability is related to prosocial behavior (i.e., the need for a…
Do Amoral Familism and Political Distrust Really Affect North-South Differences in Italy
Especially in southern Italy, Banfield's amoral familism is considered an obstacle to the formation of associations and growth of political participation. This article discusses Banfield's concept, showing that it has been vulgarized merely as familism and, in particular, demonstrates that Banfield intended amoral familism to be understood in terms of political distrust. We investigated whether amoral familism or political distrust, operationaliz…
Magic and loss: Hidden sources in the history of human sciences
This article summarizes the book "The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences" by Jason A. Josephson-Storm (University of Chicago Press, 2017) is a volume that attempts to stimulate discussion on domains considered different: esotericism, spiritism, occultism, idealism, and positivism. (PsycINFO Database Record
Between sacred and profane: Possession, psychopathology, and the Catholic church
In Catholic culture, and especially within the Italian Catholic environment, there has recently been a significant revival of the practice of exorcism. This is a fact noted by historians such as Levack (2013) and Young (2016). The article intends to show how this phenomenon is related to a series of important historical turning points, the most important of which is the recent collaboration between exorcists and Catholic psychologists and psychia…
A disease of our time: The Catholic Church's condemnation and absolution of psychoanalysis (1924-1975)
The present paper is focused on the evolution of the position of the Catholic Church toward psychoanalysis. Even before Freud's The Future of an Illusion (1927), psychoanalysis was criticized by Catholic theologians. Psychoanalysis was viewed with either contempt or with indifference, but nonpsychoanalytic psychotherapy was accepted, especially for pastoral use. Freudian theory remained for most Catholics a delicate and dangerous subject for a lo…
Universal Basic Income as a Promoter of Real Freedom in a Digital Future
The article presents Universal and Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) as a guarantee of Ius Existentiae (right to life) and real freedom for all in the present and future society characterized by digitization, automation, and change in the dynamics of production forms and the labor market. Describing the history of basic income, we analyze the major experiments carried out and the effects of UBI on the labor market, social capital, and the psycholo…
Rewriting Wundtian psychology: Luigi Credaro and the psychology in Rome
After Rome became the capital of Italy in 1871, prestigious scientists arrived at the University of Rome. One of these scholars was the pedagogical philosopher Luigi Credaro (1860-1939). He was one of the rare Italian students of Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) when he went to Leipzig and attended the Institute for Experimental Psychology in the academic year 1887-1888. There he also followed the pedagogical seminars and considered the usefulness of es…
Psychological reality and psychoanalysis at the Padua Laboratory of Psychology
As it spread across Italy, psychoanalysis captured the interest of Italian psychologists, namely Vittorio Benussi (1878-1927) and Cesare Musatti (1897-1989). Benussi, who was trained as an experimental psychologist according to the Gegenstandstheorie School of Graz in 1919, came to Italy and became a full professor of experimental psychology in Padua. He undertook a program of study called "psychological reality" that comprised hypnosuggestion an…
“He Who Leaves the Old Way for the New, Knows What He Leaves, but Does Not Know What He Will Find”: Traditionalism, Zero-Sum Thinking, and Imagined Future
The radical rejection of the liberal political movements of the 1960s and 1970s by conservative politicians has been a core aspect of conservative politics. In fact, the youth movements of the 1960s broadened the goals of the labor and civil rights movement, also dealing with pacifism, ecologism, promotion of a new sexuality, new rights for women, and different sexual identities foreshadowing a revolutionary future for Western societies. It has b…
Emilio Bodrero at the crossroads of fascism and the crisis of psychology
This article aims to analyze how fascism influenced the crisis of Italian psychology, a phenomenon already highlighted in historiographical literature (Hatfield, 2012; Lombardo, 2014, 2015; Mandler, 2011; Mülberger, 2014a, 2014b; Sturm & Mülberger, 2012). Fascism shaped Italian culture by establishing a regime that ultimately denied fundamental constitutional rights, such as freedom of association and political pluralism, and by shifting cultural…
Sociology (14 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works)