PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS I

Philosophical Hermeneutics belongs to the sector of Theoretical Philosophy and is focussed on the issues related to human interpretation, not intended as a cognitive representation but rather as a thinking experience of human beings as they are in the world. Philosophical Hermeneutics is not a mere discipline and transcends any simply methodological and epistemological problem relating to interpretative activity.
There are at least three crucial points decisive of Philosophical Hermeneutics within the Philosophy course:
(1) Philosophical Hermeneutics vividly rethinks the great questions of the philosophical tradition;
(2) Philosophical Hermeneutics insists on the concrete link of philosophical studies with the real existence of humans;
(3) Philosophical Hermeneutics cultivates the sense of the multiplicity and mobility of meaning of the discourses, especially in important texts.

Students are expected to learn how to deal with the polysemic and stratified character of the great texts of the past, considered classics.
Students are expected to learn to experience the distance of what belongs to philosophical (and literary and religious) discourses without therefore rushing to refer everything back to their own private and personal experience.

The course is not recommended for first-year students and in any case presupposes an acquired knowledge and mastery of the crucial categories and issues of the Western philosophical tradition.

Title: Why the classics? Humanistic studies in a hermeneutic-philosophical key.

This course is divided into two parts. The first one aims to shed light on the characteristic features of hermeneutics in a strictly philosophical sense, emerged with Martin Heidegger in the XX Century: what does it mean being-in-the-world as interpreters? The second part asks what is meant by 'classic' and what the necessity and import of humanistic studies for the education (as formation/Bildung) of human beings consists of.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time [1927], only the following paragraphs: 12, 31-41;
Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of the Interpretations [1969], Northwestern, 1974, only the Introduction and the chapter whose title is "Structure, Word, Event".

John M. Coetzee, What is a Classic?, in Idem, Strange Shores. Essays 1986-1999, Vintage, London 2002, pp. 1-19.

The exam test will be oral.

Lectures will give space to the direct reading of texts, projected on screen, and to a wide interlocution with the students.

Italian

Accessibility, Disability and Inclusion

Ca' Foscari abides by Italian Law (Law 17/1999; Law 170/2010) regarding support services and accommodation available to students with disabilities. This includes students with mobility, visual, hearing and other disabilities (Law 17/1999), and specific learning impairments (Law 170/2010). If you have a disability or impairment that requires accommodations (i.e., alternate testing, readers, note takers or interpreters) please contact the Disability and Accessibility Offices in Student Services: disabilita@unive.it.

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development