La visione estesa della scienza. Possibilità di un nuovo umanesimo nelle pratiche di fisici, biologi e neuroscienziati

This article examines the presence of an “expanded” view of science within contemporary scientific practice, focusing on physicists, biologists, and neuroscientists. Drawing on social theorists such as Charles Taylor and Hartmut Rosa, the paper challenges subtractive interpretations of modernity that identify science exclusively with disenchantment, instrumental rationality, and loss of meaning. Empirically, the analysis is based on three studies: two international qualitative projects involving in-depth interviews with scientists in four countries, and a discourse analysis of popular science monographs addressing ultimate questions such as meaning, suffering, and free will. The findings suggest that, alongside a dominant disenchanted posture, scientific practice may also host forms of enchantment understood as a particular stance toward reality. This stance is characterized by experiences of alterity, openness to mystery, reoriented modes of knowing, and ethical sensitivity grounded in care. The article argues that these elements point toward the possibility of a non-exclusive form of humanism emerging within secularized societies.