Philosophy

This course introduces students to Aristotle’s wonderfully rich but intricate philosophical writings by focusing on some of the most prominent topics in Aristotle’s philosophy. Students learn how to read, how to criticize, and how to make sense of Aristotle and benefit from the wealth of Aristotle’s thought. In the early part of the course students explore some of the basic themes of Aristotle’s epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of nature. Students then focus on key topics from his psychology and ethics, perhaps of all his wide-ranging enquiries the areas that continue to provide the greatest stimulus for contemporary thinkers.

This course considers how personal autonomy, the idea that persons should be in control over their own lives, underlies virtually every aspect of law, from private law institutions like property and contract to the basic rules of constitutional law. To navigate this complex relationship, it discusses questions such as what cognitive capacities are needed for personal autonomy; what does it mean to exercise autonomous control over a given decision, action, or event; what role does causation play in such control; and what is meant by a person's “own life.” In addition, the course discusses how these questions figure in Canadian and American criminal law, tort law, and law on socio-economic rights.

This is the first half of a two-part course which offers an introduction to philosophical debate in the Warring States period of ancient China, the Classical Age of Chinese Philosophy and the seedbed from which grew all of the native currents of thought that survived from traditional China. It begins by considering the intellectual-historical background to the ancient philosophies and focuses primarily on the Confucius (the Analects), Mozi, Yang Zhu, Mencius and Laozi, closing with a brief introduction to some of the later developments that will be covered more fully in Part II. The approach of the course will be both historical and critical.

This course covers the main authors, concepts, and theories that structured questions related to technology. It begins with the historical figures (Plato, Descartes, Marx, Bergson, Heidegger) that laid grounds for more contemporary theorizations. The course focuses on the “founding myths” related to technology in philosophy, as well as how the 19th century contributed to several shifts from these very myths by bringing forth its own questions. It then explores the diversity of contemporary issues related to technology from a philosophical perspective (Ellul, Sloterdijk, Stiegler, Hottois, Simondon). The course covers issues that range from what technology is for humans, for societies, as well as for itself once removed from the human-centric perspectives on technology.

This course provides a critical and comprehensive study of Western philosophical thought, starting with ancient and medieval philosophy, then modern and contemporary philosophy. Representative texts of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy will be closely analyzed and discussed.

Students develop skills in reading and understanding philosophical discourse by closely reading original texts.

The course examines the development of rationalism from Descartes to Leibniz. Special attention is paid to the historical context of the rationalist attempt to give a systematic account of knowledge and reality. Students examine the relation between empirical science and metaphysics in the 18th-century period of Enlightenment, with particular emphasis on the philosophies of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.

This course focuses on ethical and philosophical approaches to democracy. It introduces students to major theories of democracy, as well as major critiques of democracy. 

This course examines the main regulatory implications of technology, as well as the EU ethical and legal framework applicable to information technologies, with a focus on the data-driven technologies. It discusses issues such as ethical and legal governance, ethical and legal principles and requirements, risk assessment approaches to the design, development, deployment, and use of data-driven technologies.  

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale Program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. This course provides a philosophical introduction to the most influential theories of emotion of the past sixty years in philosophy and psychology. Taking a multidisciplinary and empirically informed perspective, the approach integrates philosophical analysis with the discussion of cutting-edge research in psychology and cognitive science, contextualizing current debates in the history of ideas from Darwin to pragmatism.

This philosophy course addresses the historical reality of the German moment of philosophy in two subsequent phases. In the first part, the course follows the emergence and full deployment of German philosophy from its Kantian beginnings to Hegel's grand but fragile synthesis, trying to understand its richness as well as its fragility. In a second part, the course discusses the later renewal of German philosophy in the late nineteenth century and its historical tragedy in the twentieth century. This includes a discussion of the new beginnings of philosophy since the mid-nineteenth century, from Marx, and Nietzsche, via Frege and Mach, to Husserl and Wittgenstein, who have been reacting to the scientific and political revolutions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Martin Heidegger as an established pro-Nazi philosopher and Max Horkheimer as the leading philosopher of the “Frankfurt School” driven into exile are studied as philosophers immersed into the Night of the twentieth century. Finally, post-World War II developments in philosophy (as exemplified by Jürgen Habermas and Ernst Tugendhat) are looked at as pathways out of the self-destructive turn philosophy in Germany had taken in the first decades of the twentieth century, and as passages into an emerging world philosophy. The course is based upon contemporary attempts at rethinking a global philosophical perspective. The focus is on the tension between the Enlightenment heritage of a universalizing human philosophy and a national culture project, as well as on the tension between classicist rationalism and romantic emotionalism in its construction as a series of philosophical projects. From the perspective of a German version of the dialectics of the Enlightenment, the German philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are studied in context, combining the reading of key texts with a reconstruction of their historical contexts and their interaction.