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 Platonic chora to the Kantian Rezeptivität: scenes for the world representation. First Part (6 cfu)
The first scene - the First Critique

Space without form as a condition of possibility of all forms; matrix of every phenomenon and their continuous Becoming; the void within which cognitive activity becomes possible: such statements finitions fit with the Platonic “receptacle” (kώρα) as well as the Kantian “aisthesis” and they return to those philosophical conceptions that, over the centuries, have proposed a theoretical alternative to the dualistic structure of Western thought.

The first part of the course will focus on Kant's space-time doctrine (as it emerges from the Analytic of principles) and  on the conditions of possibility of Nature (as it emerges from the Prolegomena)

Topics of the Kantian philosophy  (mainly drown from the Critique of Pure Reason)which are compatible with some of the twentieth-century developments of philosophical and scientific thought, will be examined; the very topics which are equally legible as a reinterpretation of that conceptual complex to which Plato attributed the power of being "the receptacle of all generated things, like a matrix” (Timeo, 49 A).

It is another aspect of the “Copernican revolution”, which identifies in the sensibility the attitude of that Platonic "third genre" which is neither the intelligible exemplar nor the Becoming.

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 

- I. Kant, Prolegomeni a ogni futura metafisica che possa presentarsi come scienza, a cura di R. Pettoello, Brescia, La Scuola, 2016 (First and Second part - § 6-39)
- I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press. 1999 (only Analytic of Principles)

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

- M. Capozzi, Kant e la Logica, Napoli, Bibliopolis, 2002 (chapters da IX a XV)
- M. Ferraris, Il mondo esterno, Milano, Bompiani, 2001
- M. Palumbo, Matematica e immaginazione in Kant, Bari-Roma, Laterza, 1985
-L. Scaravelli, Scritti kantiani, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1968 (pp. 1-135)

and:
B
one of the following works
- E. Cassirer - L. Couturat, Kant e la matematica, Napoli, Guerini e associati, 1991
- P. Natorp, Forma e materia dello spazio. Dialogo con Edmund Husserl, Napoli, Bibliopolis, 2008
- G. Deleuze, Fuori dai cardini del tempo, Milano, Mimesis, 2004

- Students who have not already attended a university course dedicated to the Critique of Pure Reason, are also required to know the Transcendental aesthetics (Critique of Pure Reason, B33-B73)
- Students taking the Philosophy of Physics lessons can replace one of the group A monographs with one of the essays included in that program.

Teaching methods

15 lectures.
During the course central paragraphs of the Kant's 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.chora, password: chora
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.chora, password: chora

Office hours

See the website of Annarita Angelini