HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY - II

NB: this is a course consisting of two inseparable parts. For those who, due to curricular requirements, only attend the first or second part of the course, the examination will focus solely on the corresponding part.
The course is one of the core courses of the degree programme in Philosophy and aims to provide students with the methodological tools necessary for a critical understanding of the main historical and philosophical issues of the contemporary era, also in connection with other fields of knowledge and research. In particular, the objectives of the course are aimed at acquiring an understanding, knowledge and critical interpretation of the main philosophical texts of the contemporary era.

The course aims to provide in-depth knowledge of the philosophers and the most important historical and cultural contexts, of the problems of contemporary times and of the increasingly close interrelationship between the various 'specialised' fields of knowledge.
For these reasons, the didactic task is to provide knowledge and to train comprehension skills so that the student can build a critical autonomy of judgement and correct linguistic and communicative skills.

In order to deal effectively with the contents of the course, the student must have acquired the following during the three-year course: mastery of the philosophical vocabulary; knowledge of the fundamental themes and junctures of the history of philosophy.

Life: the organism, the human, the social. Contemporary French-language philosophy.

An introduction to the history of French philosophy from the 1789 revolution to the 1980s. We will focus on:
1. Philosophical movements in relation to historical moments: sensualism and associationism, eclecticism and positivism, spiritualism, phenomenology and existentialism, (post)structuralism
2. A series of problems: the possibility of knowledge and its foundation, intersubjectivity, society and action, the relationship between philosophy and other disciplines in the humanities and life sciences.
3. The influence of French philosophy on texts and intellectual transformations in Europe.

During the second period, we will focus in particular on the thought of Gilles Deleuze.


The use of neologisms and unusual combinations of words, often preceded by turns of phrase such as the famous "what we call..." have become common practice among a section of those who are now considered or call themselves philosophers. These practices seem to be signs of the spread of a conception of philosophy as a practice aimed at the 'creation of concepts'. The consequence of this conception is to treat the philosophical past as a huge repository of old concepts that can be analysed by the historian of philosophy and, eventually, made their own. But has this idea always existed? Why has it asserted itself? If philosophical concepts do not refer to any of the objects we handle every day, among so many multi-coloured creations, how can we distinguish between a concept and a mere neologism? Does a concept in itself have the quality of 'philosophical'? Does the creation of concepts have a purpose? And if not, why should we struggle so hard to create new ones?
In the bestseller What is Philosophy! (1993), co-written with Félix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze explicitly presents himself as the defender of this idea of philosophy as the creation of concepts and, like it or not, popularises it. It is in fact with Deleuze that one associates the idea of philosophy as the activity of "creating concepts". Starting from Deleuze's provocation, this course will attempt to do several things together.
First, by carefully examining complex passages from Deleuze's most explicitly 'philosophical' works, we will try to understand what, according to Deleuze, a concept is and what distinguishes it from an idea, a question and a problem. Given that philosophy is far from encompassing the totality of thought, what idea of thought did Deleuze have? How did he place philosophy in the encyclopaedia of disciplined knowledge?
Secondly, we will isolate some texts that helped Deleuze define philosophy as a creation of concepts.
Thirdly, we will try to distance ourselves somewhat from our question, our author and his statements. We will try to consider Deleuze's creations in relation to this great archive called the history of philosophy.Starting from the case represented by Deleuze's texts, we will try to see if it is possible to combine text and context, and we will ask whether these two notions really have an operational use.

Per il primo periodo: parti dei seguenti testi, tutti disponibili su Moodle.

Maine de Biran, Introduzione all'influenza dell'abitudine sulla facoltà di pensare
Maine de Biran, Sull'appercezione immediata
Ravaisson, Dell’abitudine
Comte, Discourso sullo spirito positivo
Lachelier, Il fondamento dell’induzione
Boutroux, La contingenza delle leggi della natura
Durkheim, Le regole del metodo sociologico
Bergson, L’energia spirituale

Il programma per il secondo periodo sarà disponibile a breve.

The final examination will be oral, involving a dozen open questions that will be announced at the end of the course. Students who wish to submit a short written work on certain topics and authors or, during the meetings, a presentation (in the form of a short lecture) will be exempt from one or two questions. Assessment will also be based on attendance and interaction during the meetings.

oral

Grading will follow departmental guidelines.

Teaching will be divided into
- into a frontal teaching part, in which the lecturer will introduce students to the course topics
- and a dialogue-seminar part, in which students will be asked to prepare short lectures.