Dal pensiero ordinato l’ordine del pensiero. Ricadute didattiche ed epistemologiche dell’insegnamento del latino (ovvero, nascita di una forma mentis)

This work aims to examine the argumentative strategies used in two passages, one in prose (Cic., De Re Publica VI, 26-27), the other in poetry (Lucr., De Rerum Natura III, 417-831) which discuss and support two opposite theories: the immortality of the soul (the former), and the soul's mortality (the latter). I intend to demonstrate that the same linguistic and syntactic structures, using similar skills and expertise, can effectively give shape to antithetical theories, whose meaning is not based on content, but on the forms that express them. The didactic impact of this approach is instrumental not only in getting students to learn about/understand two masters in the history of ancient literature, but also, by deconstructing the structures of the text and showing its mechanisms, in helping them build their own argumentative method, and teaching them how to use it.