HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY - I

NB: this is a course on two inseparable periods.
The course falls within the common core subjects of the degree course in philosophy and aims at providing students with the necessary methodological tools for a critical learning of the main historical-philosophical issues of contemporary times, also in connection with other knowledge and research fields. In particular, the teaching objectives are aimed at the acquisition of the understanding, knowledge and critical interpretation of the main contemporary philosophical texts.

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.

First period: 'Contemporary French-language philosophy: mind, body, society'
A large part of the first period will be devoted to an introduction to the history of French philosophy from the revolution of 1789 to the 1980s. We will focus on:
1. on philosophical movements in relation to historical moments: sensualism and associationism, eclecticism and positivism, spiritualism, phenomenology and existentialism, (post)structuralism
2. On a series of problems: possibility of knowledge and its foundation, intersubjectivity, society and political action, the relationship of philosophy to the other disciplines of the human sciences.
3. On the borrowings of French philosophy in relation to texts and intellectual transformations in Europe.

Second period: monographic course "Creating Concepts? A cheeky introduction to 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.

Pierre Bourdieu, "Ma chi ha creato i creatori?", in Questioni di sociologia.
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Che cos'è la filosofia?
Gilles Deleuze, Differenza e ripetizione.
Gilles Deleuze, Logica del senso.
Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonismo.
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche e la filosofia.
Gilles Deleuze, L'isola deserta e altri testi.
Michel Foucault, "Cos'è un autore?
Martial Gueroult, "Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France".
Martin Heidegger, "Sull'essenza del fondamento".
Immanuel Kant, Critica della ragion pura.
Jean-Paul Sartre, La trascendenza dell'Ego.
François Zourabichvili, Gilles Deleuze, una filosofia dell'evento.

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.

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