39423 - History of Modern Philosophy (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The lectures allow the student to interpret the significant nodes of European thought in the fifteenth and eighteenth Centuries and to identify intersections with other areas of Western culture. Skills about the main interpretation and historiographical lines in order to modern philosophy and the concept of modernity, allow to recognize topics and themes' projections of modern thought in the contemporary philosophical debate, and to proceed retrospectively to the origin of subjects and long-running problems.

Course contents

From the "speculum vivum" to the "vis viva".
I. The shadow of infinity  from Dante to Nicholas of Cusa

Qual è ’l geomètra che tutto s’affige/per misurar lo cerchio, e non ritrova/pensando, quel principio ond’ elli indige/ tal era io a quella vista nova:/veder voleva come si convenne/ l’imago al cerchio e come vi s’indova (Paradiso 33). Π, irrational numbers, shadows dissolved in Dante's infinite abyss, announce the philosophical-scientific-theological conception of Nicholas of Cusa’s infinite. The same “devices” would return, two centuries later, in the Leibnizian conception of the monad as a finite and mobile mirror reflecting an immutable infinite, namely a world's framework, which only a logic, or a mathematics, of infinity can investigate.

The first module of the course (30h) deals with shadows, symbols, irrationality and mirrors in Nicholas of Cusa's works as devices able to express intellectually an infinite and dynamic hyper-reality. The contrast between sensitive vision and intellectual vision (i.e. knowledge as the mimesis of the sensible vs knowledge as the composition of relations between structures in relation to each other) signals a decisive turning point on the Dante-Cusanus-Leibniz axis. We are faced with one of the first, conscious, attempts to overcome the logic of the finite, of dualities and oppositions, peculiar to Western philosophical, theological and scientific conceptions.

NB: for students who choose the 12 cfu course (6 cfu + 6 cfu) the lessons continue with the second module

Readings/Bibliography

All students are expected to know 

Nicola Cusano, La filiazione di Dio (De filiazione dei), in Niccolò Cusano, Opere filosofiche, teologiche e matematiche, Torino, Bompiani, 2017, pp. 576-615

- Nicola Cusano, Trattato sulla visione di Dio (Tractatus de visione dei), in Niccolò Cusano, Opere filosofiche, teologiche e matematiche, Torino, Bompiani, 2017, pp.1024-1153

- K. Flasch, Niccolò Cusano. Lezioni introduttive a un’analisi genetica del suo pensiero, Torino, Aragno, 2010- 

furthermore:
two of the following essays (students who have not attended classes should choose and read three essays):

- G. Cuozzo, Raffigurare l’invisibile. Cusano e l’are del tempo, Milano, Mimesis, 2012

- A. Angelini, Matematica e immaginazione nel Rinascimento, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2001

- A caccia dell'Infinito. L'umano e la ricerca del divino nell'opera di Nicola Cusano, Roma, Aracne editore, 2010

- Monadi e monadologie. Il mondo degli individui tra Bruno, Leibniz e Husserl, Rubettino, Rubettino Editore, 2017

 

 

Teaching methods

15 lectures.
During the course central paragraphs of Nicholas of Cusa texts listed in the bibliography will be read and  and compared with some sources and some critical interpretations of later philosophers.  Students are required to provide the text before the course begins.
Summaries and schemes of the classes will be periodically uploaded on AlmaDigital Library.
Students who attend classes are required to enroll, before the course begins, to the distribution list, ID: annarita.angelini.specchio, password: specchio
We recommend the students to see regulary the teacher's web page on which will be uploaded any information and change useful to those who attending the classes.
Students who have attended classes can replace the above texts with specific topics. These topics have to be agreed with the teacher at the end of the course.

Assessment methods

Oral examination: Students are recommended to bring the texts when examining.The interview focuses mainly on analysis and critical interpretation of the sources.
Students who have attended lectures may agree on exams (whether written or oral) devoted to specific topics.

Assessment criteria and thresholds of evaluation:

30 cum laude - Excellent as to knowledge, philosophical lexicon and critical expression.

30 – Excellent: knowledge is complete, well argued and correctly expressed, with some slight faults.

27-29 – Good: thorough and satisfactory knowledge; essentially correct expression.

24-26 - Fairly good: knowledge broadly acquired, and not always correctely expressed.

21-23 – Sufficient: superficial and partial knowledge; exposure and articulation are incomplete and often not sufficiently appropriate

18-21 - Almost sufficient: superficial and decontextualized knowledge. The exposure of the contents shows important gaps.

Exam failed - Students are requested to show up at a subsequent exam session if basic skills and knowledge are not sufficiently acquired and not placed in the historical-philosophical context.

Teaching tools

The texts  is an essential tool in order to actively participate in the classes. It is recommended to get hold of the text before classes.
The summaries of the lectures will be periodically (every three to six lectures) uploaded and allowed to the online consultation. Students have to enroll to the distribution list ID: annarita.angelini.specchio, password: specchio

Office hours

See the website of Annarita Angelini