LEARNING OUTCOMES

Getting acquainted with the major currents in contemporary philosophy: hermeneutics, analytical philosophy, philosophy of science, practical philosophy, post-structuralism, postmodern philosophy. Students will analyze in detail the thought and work of one or more authors.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

This teaching offers students the essential historical and philosophical instruments to appreciate contemporary thought with a good degree of autonomy.

A student’s profile expected at the end of this teaching can be expressed through the following 5 learning outcomes:

1) Knowledge and understanding. Knowledge of the most important periods, currents and figures which have characterized the Western philosophical thought from the Nineteenth century to nowadays. Understanding the basic argumentative strategies and the development of the specific lexicon in this period

2) Applying knowledge and understanding. Knowing how to contextualize the main articulation of contemporary philosophy in an adequate manner, reading the classics of the Eighteenth-Nineteenth centuries thought and providing a founded interpretation, making the historiographical criteria used clear

3) Making judgements. Acquiring critical consciousness through the reading of the texts of contemporary thinkers and of present philosophical currents

4) Communication skills. Improving the mastery of the specific lexicon of contemporary philosophy, re-elaborating it in relation to different contexts of discussion, both scientific and popular

5) Learning skills. Increasing an autonomy for investigation in the historical-philosophical field, learning to master the conceptual instruments and the classics of contemporary thought, useful to the professional activity in order to become teacher, researcher or staff emplyee.

PREREQUISITES

A basic knowledge of the history of contemporary philosophy, a familiarity with the main authors of the Eighteenth and of the Nineteenth centuries and, at least partly, of the themes they deal with are welcome

TEACHING METHODS

Issues in Contemporary Thought is a course made up of 40 hours, shared out as follows:

6 hours will be dedicated to introducing students to the themes and to the general methodologies of the course through traditional lectures

10 hours will be dedicated to studying in depth single fields from an historical point of view, having recourse to traditional lectures, spaced out discussions and dialogues prompted by the reading of relevant texts or by the illustration of iconographical material

10 hours will be used to analyse philosophical currents and the thinkers who belong to them. The possibility to offer the class presentations (e.g. power point) arranged with the lecturer will be gave to the students.

14 hours for the monographic investigation through a seminar work on the notion of Antropocene. An innovative methodology will be adopted in order to increase interactive learnings. 

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

After a presentation of the historiographical criteria of the Anglo-American analytic authors, the schedule of the teaching provides the discussion of the following currents, paying attention to the context of their beginning and making reference to the resemblances, to the differences and to the relationship between them:

• Bentham’s and Mill’s utilitarianism
• European philosophy after Hegel
• the influence of the economic and evolutionist theories
• America pragmatism
• logical positivism
• the origin and the development of analytic philosophy
• the philosophical schools in continental Europe until Habermas

Concerning the historical treatment of cross-themes, five of the following fields will be taken into consideration, paying attention to the interests of the students:

• logic
• philosophy of language
• epistemology
• ontology and metaphysics
• philosophy of mind
• ethics
• aesthetics
• political philosophy
• philosophy of religion

In this academic year a further study will regard the notion of Anthropocene, proposed in the geological field, but which soon became a category used to describe the contemporary world and to take a stand on relevant anthropological and ethical issues.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Kenny, Nuova storia della filosofia occidentale. Filosofie dell’età contemporanea, Einaudi, Torino 2013

M. Damonte, S. Langella, M. Massaro (eds.), Antropocene e bene comune: tra nuove tecnologie,  nuove epistemologie e nuovi virus, Genoa University Press, Genova 2021

M. Damonte, Un contributo alla storiografia della filosofia analitica, in R. Davies (a cura di), Analisi. Annuario della Società Italiana di Filosofia Analitica 2011, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2011, pp. 331-342