LEARNING OUTCOMES

Being able to analyze the origins of Ethics in Greek philosophy, and to question the idea of Ethics as the 'prime philosophy' in modern and contemporary philosophical currents. Getting acquainted with the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition and being able to inquire into the philosophical connections (from Kant onwards) between ethics and metaphysics, ethics and religion, ethics and ontology, ethics and politics, ethics and history. Developing one's independent, critical thinking, one's creative thinking, and the philosophical orienteering abilities needed to face challenges in every domain of life.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course the student should be able to: use the basic vocabulary of the discipline; assimilate the fundamental concepts in a critical and personal form;  discuss in an original way the contents, the evolutionary lines, the permanent problems.

PREREQUISITES

Beyond the previous studies, it is important: 1) the student's will to involve himself actively in the understanding of texts of ancient, medieval, modern, contemporary philosophers; 2) assimilating the subject as far as possible in their mother tongue; 3) to engage personally in the interpretation of the classics of philosophical thought in the light of current ethical issues and permanent questions of philosophy.

TEACHING METHODS

The course consists in lectures. The lessons take place on suggested texts and topics chosen, from time to time, by the teacher, referred to qualifying points of the course, according to different perspectives in order to prompt, as far as possible, the active dialogue and the active involvement of the students. The comparative exercise and the critical spirit should favor the occurrence, in the attending students, of the interest and the taste for autonomous and personal research.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Contents

Contents for students who are taking the 6-CFU course

Tragic conscience, ethical conscience and historical conscience.

Why is the human condition what it is? marked - always and everywhere - by struggle, suffering and guilt? from the need and failure of communication? from the inevitability of ruining, even of the good and great? is it possible, where catharsis begins and ends, the liberation of the human being from the multiple forms of evil? his redemption from the evil of the world?

Act of worship and poetic and theatrical mimesis of human destinies, the tragic conscience, in its changing configurations, always refers, indirectly, to the horizon of the historical Event as its matrix and hidden origin, and from time to time it solicits and moves - between compassion and fear, illusion and disillusionment, anguish and hope - the authentic demands and the authentic contents of the ethical and religious conscience of humanity. The original, true tragedy is not indeed the one brought by the actor on the stage of the theater, but it is the one that happens day after day in the actual history of individuals and peoples, through their action and suffering.

The lectures, in a time when the memory of the past is dramatically weakening and the future of humanity appears obscure and uncertain, do not presume to provide exhaustive answers to questions that are perhaps insoluble, but take soundings in the depths - for some reason always unfathomable - of tragic knowledge, of ethical and metaphysical interrogation, of religious invocation and curse, to discover together historical and meta-historical expectations, the underlying dream of this infinite acting and suffering, questioning and asking ...

Contents for students who are taking the 9-CFU course

The second module of the course will further integrate the themes of the first module and further develops its contents, orientating them to current events.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The reading list for this course, together with the lecturer's suggestions and instructions are available on the Italian version of the web page.