La scienza positiva

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the contemporary cinema and audiovisual debate, a stimulating and even "fashionable" frontier is that of neuroscientific research, whose key words bounce from non-fiction to everyday press, often replacing earlier theoretical-interpretative models: think of the non-critical case of the replacement of the classical aesthetics of empathy with a neuroscientific copy modeled on the theory of mirror-neurons. My proposal aims to contribute to the understanding and definition of the relationship that has always existed between the culture of film and positive sciences, offering a historical-theoretical path that will allow us to isolate and evaluate the reasons for some fundamental junctions that are still decisive today. In detail, I will focus on two decisive stages: historical positivism, which will be embodied in the exemplary figure of Ernst Mach, in his thought and in particular in his apparently naive approach to photography and the nascent cinema; and classical filmology, to date the most mature project of defining a positive method in the study of cinema and audiovisual. It will be in the light of this inheritance, that I will be able to try to construct useful reading keys to understand - at least partially - the epistemological status of contemporary debates, and modeled on the notions of function and method.