04385 - History of Modern Philosophy

Learning outcomes

Students will be able to pinpoint and clarify the main problematic cruxes from the late Renaissance down to the Age of Enlightenment. The focus will be on the following areas: philosophy in the Renaissance after the rebirth of Platonism: interest in Hellenistic philosophy and modern scepticism; new models of rationality: the cosmological debate, mathematical learning, knowledge of the outside world, history torn between rhetoric and science; political philosophy: variations in the doctrine of natural law, the absolute State, a tempered monarchy, republican claims; the rise of economic science: protectionism, free exchange, theories of value; the encyclopaedic approach to learning. Via the reading of texts (some 300 pages in translation or the original) and via examination of the basic critical bibliography, students will learn to understand a philosophical text and grasp its significance from a historical angle.

Course contents

Causa sui and Autopoiesis. The Challenge of Complexity from Descartes to Systems Theory

 

The course aims to reconstruct the modern and contemporary debate surrounding the theory of causality in the philosophical, theological and scientific spheres. The first part of the course examines the Latin locution causa sui, which Descartes removes from the theological lexicon of divine omnipotence, making it the pivot of a no longer negative but positive demonstration of God’s existence. Spinoza places this definition at the foundation of a theory of substance built on the identity between the order of things and the order of ideas, Leibniz complicates it in the principle of sufficient reason that rationalises existence by removing it from the necessity of efficiency. The second part of the course rereads the philosophical notion of causa sui through the concept of ‘autopoiesis’ (autos - itself, poiesis - creation), a term used by twentieth-century systems theories to investigate the relationship between a system (living or artificial) and the environmental assumptions that guarantee its self-organisation.

 

The course is divided into three parts:

1. Monographic Course

2. Seminars

3. Institutional Course

 

MONOGRAPHIC COURSE

 

Distribution of topics in the lectures (all will be RECORDED):

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- 6 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Descartes’ Discourse on method (II, VI) and Metaphysical Meditations (II-III Meditations, I Objections and Replies).

- 6 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Part I of Spinoza’s Ethics.

- 6 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Leibniz’s Monadology.

- 7 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of texts by H. R. Maturana, F. J. Varela, Autopoiesi e cognizione. La realizzazione del vivente, trad. it. Venezia, Marsilio (pagine scelte); G. Simondon, L'individuazione alla luce delle nozioni di forma e informazione (pagine scelte); N. Luhmann, Conoscenza come costruzione (pagine scelte).

Extracts from 20th century authors read and commented on in class will be made available in the 'virtual resources' section.

 

SEMINARS

5 lectures will be devoted to Seminars.Times and locations can be found on the "teaching materials" link.

 

INSTITUTIONAL COURSE

Starting from the academic year 2021-2022, Professors Alberto Burgio, Francesco Cerrato and Diego Donna will work together on the institutional part of the History of Philosophy examinations in their respective three-year (History of Philosophy B, History of Modern Philosophy) and two-year (History of Philosophy LM) courses. The institutional part of the examination is identical for all courses. It can only be taken once: the mark obtained in one of the above-mentioned subjects will be recognised - without the need for a further examination - for the others as well.

 

Readings/Bibliography

OBLIGATORY READINGS FOR ALL STUDENTS

 

 MONOGRAPHIC COURSE

 

• R. Descartes, Discorso del metodo (II, VI); Meditazioni metafisiche (II-III meditazione; I Obiezioni e Risposte)

Edizione italiana:

Descartes, Opere complete, a cura di G. Belgioioso, con la collaborazione di I. Agostini, F. Marrone e M. Savini, Milano, Bompiani, 2009.

• B. Spinoza, Etica, I Parte

Edizione italiana:

Spinoza, Etica, introduzione, traduzione e note di D. Donna, Santarcangelo di Romagna, Rusconi, 2021.

• G. W. Leibniz, Monadologia

Edizioni italiane:

G. W. Leibniz, Monadologia, trad. it. Milano, Bompiani 2001.

• H. R. Maturana, F. J. Varela, Autopoiesi e cognizione. La realizzazione del vivente, trad. it. Venezia, Marsilio (pagine scelte) 

• G. Simondon, L'individuazione alla luce delle nozioni di forma e informazione, trad. it. Milano, Mimesis, 2020 (pagine scelte)

• N. Luhmann, Conoscenza come costruzione, trad. it. Roma, Armando Editore, 2007 (pagine scelte).

 

Studies

 

 A. One text of choice:

P. Dessì, Causa/effetto, Bologna, il Mulino, 2012

M. Mori, Libertà, necessità, determinismo, Bologna, il Mulino, 2001

F. Laudisa, Causalità. Storia di un modello di conoscenza, Roma, Carocci, 1999

V. Morfino, Intersoggettività o transindividualità. Materiali per un'alternativa, Roma, Manifestolibri, 2022

A. Funkenstein, Teologia e immaginazione scientifica dal Medioevo al Seicento, trad. it. Torino, Einaudi 1996

J. Cottingham, Cartesio, Bologna, il Mulino, 1991

F. Alquié, Lezioni su Descartes. Scienza e metafisica in Descartes, trad. it. Pisa, ETS, 2006

D. Donna, Le catene di ragioni e l'ordine della natura. Teorie della conoscenza in Descartes e Spinoza, Milano, Mimesis, 2015

E. Balibar, Spinoza e il transindividuale, trad. it. Milano, Ghibli, 2002

E. Cassirer, Cartesio e Leibniz, trad.it. Bari, Laterza, 1986

G. Deleuze, Leibniz. La piega, trad. it. Torino, Einaudi, 2004

  

B. One text of choice:

M. Ceruti, Il vincolo e la possibilità, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1986 (Raffaello Cortina, 2009)

V. De Angelis, La logica della complessità. Introduzione alle teorie dei sistemi, Milano, Mondadori, 1996

P. Mella, Dai sistemi al pensiero sistemico. Per capire i sistemi e pensare con i sistemi, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1997

R. Benkirane, La teoria della complessità, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2007

E. Morin, La sfida della complessità, trad. it. Firenze, Le Lettere 2021

C. Baraldi, G. Corsi, E. Esposito, Luhmann in glossario. I concetti fondamentali della teoria dei sistemi sociali, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1996

D. Donna, Dispersione ordine distanza. L’illuminismo di Foucault, Luhmann, Blumenberg, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2021

G. Carrozzini, Variazioni su Simondon, Roma, Castelvecchi, 2021

  

INSTITUTIONAL COURSE 

Knowledge of the fundamental authors and themes of the history of philosophy between the 16th and 20th centuries will be required for the examination. Students can use the textbook they prefer or that they already own, checking that all the authors included in the list below are covered and, if necessary, integrating it with other textbooks. For those who do not already have such texts we suggest:

Massimo Mori, Storia della filosofia moderna, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2005

Antonello La Vergata, Franco Trabattoni, Filosofia cultura cittadinanza, Rizzoli, Milano, 2011

Giuseppe Cambiano, Massimo Mori, Storia e antologia della filosofia, Laterza, Roma, 1993 e seguenti

Fabio Cioffi et al., Il testo filosofico, Mondadori, Milano 1992 e seguenti

Luca Guidetti, Giovanni Matteucci, Le grammatiche del pensiero, Zanichelli, Bologna, 2012

List of topics and authors to prepare for the exam interview:

Bruno, Machiavelli, Bacone, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Montesquieu, Vico, Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Croce, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Lukács, la Scuola di Francoforte, Foucault, Arendt.

 

ADDITIONAL READINGS: warning

The supplementary texts indicated here are only obligatory for non-attending students who do not attend lectures in presence.

E. Scribano, Guida alla lettura delle Meditazioni metafisiche di Descartes, Bari, Laterza, 2006

E. Scribano, Guida alla lettura dell’Etica di Spinoza, Bari, Laterza, 2008

M. Mugnai, Introduzione alla filosofia di Leibniz, Einaudi, Torino 2001.

 

Teaching methods

Lectures and reading of the texts in the classroom, combined with discussion of the most important issues and direct participation of the students.

Methods of verification of learning

Attendance of the entire course corresponds to 12 credits. The programme is the same for attending and non-attending students.

The student will present the following programme:

1. Monographic course
2. Institutional course
3. Seminar 

The oral examination takes place in the teacher's office and aims at verifying

the historical-philosophical knowledge acquired by attending lectures, studying basic texts and the relevant bibliography
the degree of comprehension and critical revision of the proposed contents
the expressive skills and the ability to orientate between the main lines of interpretation.

Registration for the exam is on-line on the ALMAESAMI website.

Assessment methods

30 with distinction: excellent exposition, sound knowledge and critical thinking.

30: excellent exposition, adequate knowledge and richness of expression

27-29: good exposition, satisfactory knowledge, correct expression

24-26: fair test, knowledge not exhaustive and partially correct

21-23: sufficient proof, general knowledge, confused expression

18-21: barely sufficient proof. Poor articulation and significant theoretical gaps

<18: inadequate proof, no or incomplete knowledge, lack of orientation in the argument.

Teaching tools

The course makes use of the traditional bibliographical tools of philosophical research (indexes, dictionaries, bibliographical directories), as well as tools developed in the course of the lectures.

Extracts from 20th century authors read and commented on in class will be made available in the 'virtual resources' section.

A compendium or ‘Lexicon of Causes’ aimed at reconstructing the history of the concept from ancient to contemporary philosophy will be made available.

 

Office hours

See the website of Diego Donna