HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Academic Year 2018/2019 - 1° Year - Curriculum Educatore sociale e di comunità
Teaching Staff: Francesco CONIGLIONE
Credit Value: 10
Scientific field: M-FIL/06 - HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
Taught classes: 60 hours
Term / Semester:

Learning Objectives

Among the learning objectives that the course proposes and which concern not its contents, but the skills and competences that each student must achieve, the teacher must first of all aim at the knowledge and correct understanding of its contents and texts studied. He must also ensure that each student is able to apply the knowledge learned, encouraging him to put in place methods and tools to achieve an autonomous learning ability that allows to form an autonomy of judgment, which is also supported by the ability to communicate effectively what is studied, thus testifying that he has achieved on the issues dealt with during the course an adequate development of his communication skills.


Course Structure

Attendance to classes is optional, but highly recommended, and this in view of the fact that for much of the program will be used handouts (in the form of slides) that must be clarified by the teacher, having the characteristic of being quite synthetic.


Detailed Course Content

The course aims to compare the historical coordinates that have characterized the development of the Western philosophical rationality and the basic aspects of the thought and philosophy of Eastern cultures. It is therefore concerned to provide first of all a brief historical knowledge of the development of Western philosophy from its origins to Kant. As far as the comparativistic aspect, the course operates in the light of so-called “comparative philosophy” in a twofold sense: by focusing on the clash between civilizations and cultures in the same historical and geographical milieu; and by a comparison of cultures and traditions that only sporadically and in recent times have had continued and systematic contacts. This will be carried out, for the first aspect, through the study of the transition from pagan to Christian culture, when the Hellenistic-Roman culture is disappearing in favor of Christian-medieval world; for the second aspect through the study of the most relevant currents and traditions of Western and Far Eastern thought (India and China), also trying to address, from a theoretical point of view, the significance of a cultural comparison and the limits within which it can be exercised.

The course includes an institutional part and a deepening. The institutional part provides a basic understanding of the history of Western philosophy from Thales to Kant and the most significant aspects of Eastern civilizations. The topics to be studied are, for the western philosophy: Definition and beginning of philosophy - The investigation of nature - The Sophists and Socrates - Plato and the Ancient Academy - Aristotle - The Hellenistic Age: skepticism, Epicureanism, Stoicism - The meeting between Greek philosophy and biblical religions - Plotinus and Neoplatonism - The patristic and Augustine of Hippo - The early Scholasticism: John Scotus Erigena, Anselm of Canterbury, Abelard - The Arab philosophy: Averroes - The triumph of Scholasticism: Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon - The XIII century and the end of Scholasticism: John Duns Scotus, William of Ockam - The philosophy of the fifteenth century, and the Renaissance Humanism: the Florentine Platonism, Cusa, Ficino and Pico della Mirandola - 16th century: Telesio, Bruno, Campanella - The scientific thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton - The beginnings of modern philosophy: Francis Bacon and Descartes - Hobbes - Cartesianism and Jansenism: Pascal - Spinoza - Locke - Leibniz - Vico - Berkeley - Hume - the French Enlightenment – The Italian Enlightenment - Kant.

For Eastern philosophy: The traditional Hindu schools of thought; Buddhism; Confucianism; Zen Buddhism; Taoism.

The in-depth analysis will focus on the examination of the contrast between the Hellenistic-Roman culture and the nascent Christianity. This conflict will be read through the figure of Emperor Julian and his story described in the novel by Gore Vidal (for clarification of which will be provided by the teacher handouts) and, to understand better the differences between Christian religion and Hellenistic religion, we’ll use the text by Maurizio Bettini.


Textbook Information

  1. E. Berti – F. Volpi, Storia della filosofia, Editori Laterza, Roma-Bari (compact edition - you have to basically study only the first volume, marked with the letter A: from ancient times to the modern age). The parts that fit the contents indicated in "Course Contents” are as follows: Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Introduction, Capp. 1, 2, 3 (§§ 1-6), 4 (§§ 1-8), 5, 7, 8 (§§ 2, 4, 5), 9 (§ 3), 10 (§§1-3 ), 11 (§ 4), 12 (§§ 1-4), 13 (§§ 2, 4), 14 (§ 3). The modern age: Capp. 1 (§§ 1, 3-5), 2 (§§ 5, 6), 3, 4, 5 (§ 2), 6 (§§ 2-3), 7, 8 (§ 3), 9, 10 (§ 2), 11 (§§ 1-2, 4, 5), 12 (§§ 1, 3, 7), 13 (§§ 7-8), 15.
  2. Lecture notes by the teacher (for Indian and Chinese philosophy)
  3. M. Bettini, Elogio del politeismo, Il Mulino, Bologna 2014 (pp. 7-126).
  4. G. Vidal, Giuliano, Fazi Editore, Roma 2003 (or other publisher) - Novel.