Philosophy

Through lectures and discussion, students are introduced to the key concepts in philosophical ethics.  Lectures devote a substantial amount of time to the direct reading of and commentary on the key text in moral philosophy. The interactive nature of this method of teaching requires a flexible approach to the amount of material covered in any single lecture.

This course considers science fiction as a mode of philosophical inquiry. Science fiction stories are used to examine fundamental questions of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Topics include the nature of time, space, religion, nature, mind, and the future. Specific topics may include such issues as genetic enhancement, environmental ethics, and implications of encounters with non‐human life forms.

Full course description

Why would anyone choose to study philosophers who lived and wrote (more than) two millennia ago? One obvious answer is: to learn about one’s roots; to better understand Western culture and heritage. Up to this day, the ancient Greeks and Romans constitute a major influence on our ideas about critical thinking, about the fundamental character of Reality, about Science, Ethics, and Art, and last not least: about what it is to be human and about what it means for humans to flourish, to live truly good lives. Ancient philosophy provides an inexhaustible source of inspiration for contemporary philosophy. “The European philosophical tradition”, the philosopher Whitehead once remarked, “consists in a series of footnotes to Plato”. Slightly overstated, but not untrue.

In this course we will return to the sources and study the texts that helped us become who we are today. We will study a range of canonical philosophical texts from Antiquity, ranging from the Ionian Philosophers of Nature to Aristotle. Although we will attempt to position these treatises in their historical and geographic contexts, our main concern will be: what have these ancient thinkers still to say to us today?

One warning: even if you have some prior knowledge of ancient Greek philosophy, that doesn’t make this an easy course. Only choose this course if you are genuinely interested in reading ancient philosophical texts that do not always yield their secrets easily.

Course objectives

• To provide students with a basic introduction to ancient Greek philosophy;
• To teach students how to explore the meaning of philosophical texts by situating them in their historical contexts;
• To explore how our culture, and we as part of it, has been shaped by these ancient thinkers.

Prerequisites

None

Recommended

HUM1007 Introduction to Philosophy.

This course examines the relationship between art and philosophy. Art is the fruit of practical life and the object of philosophical reflection. We gain insight into ourselves and our world through philosophical thought. The course discovers the historical origin and context of the major concepts regarding art, the background and meaning of philosophical discourses around art, and the process of formation and transfiguration of the definition of art and its critical categories.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program and is intended for advanced levels students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on the tools necessary to evaluate the main themes and issues related to questions of cultural memory from a semiotic perspective. Memory studies is a relatively young academic field that aims at an interdisciplinary study of collective forms of remembering and of processes of construction, transmission, and communication of the past in contemporary societies and in contexts characterized by an inherent "semiotic complexity" At the same time, memory studies is often in constant dialogue with other disciplines dealing with memory (philosophy, sociology, psychology, semiotics, cognitive science, anthropology, history, archaeology, etc.). The course introduces and critically discusses the current debate in the field of memory studies, considering the main issues and questions from a semiotic perspective. Starting from a critical discussion of the concept of collective memory, the various "discursive arenas" (media discourse, historical discourse, legal discourse, political discourse, artistic discourse...) that shape shared - as well as individual - memories (and consequently collective and individual identities) are highlighted. Part of the course focuses specifically on the processes of construction and transmission of Cultural Heritage, particularly in terms of its semiotic, political, and conflictual character. Special attention is given to notions of dissonant and difficult heritage.

This course is an introduction to philosophical issues about mind and knowledge. These include metaphysical questions about what minds are, such as whether the mind is something non-physical or whether it is some kind of computer, and questions about what knowledge is and how we can obtain it. The course examines epistemological questions about the limitations of human knowledge, such as whether we can really know what other people's experiences are like or whether God exists. Assessment: 100% coursework.