28081 - Philosophy of History (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course aims at promoting the skills of recognizing and analyzing the main aspects of the Philosophy of History, as well as developing a critical attitude towards the main themes of the discipline. The module also aims at analyzing a series of authors, especially contemporary ones, as an orientation in the main research issues that are still open in the discipline.

Course contents

The way and the method: orienting oneself in thought. The philosopher in the maze.

How to orient oneself in thoughts, how to order ideas? The starting point of Modern philosophy has been the question of the method, ordered to the problem of truth, according to the model of the tree of sciences. Through various textual paths, with reference to contemporary problems, the course intends to critically resume this question by comparing it in particular with another image and model, that of the labyrinth. This in some ways follows another logic, and confronts us with another ethics.

Readings/Bibliography

Philosophical works:

Cartesio, Il discorso sul metodo, testo francese a fronte, trad. M. Garin, Laterza, Bari, 2007.

Cartesio, Meditazioni metafisiche, trad. S. Landucci, Laterza, Bari, 2010.

Spinoza, Trattato della riforma dell’intelletto, Enrico De Angelis, SE, Milano, 2009.

Spinoza, Ethica/Etica, testo e trad. a cura di P. Cristofolini, ETS, Pisa, 2014.

Kant, Che cosa significa orientarsi nel pensiero? a cura di F. Volpi, trad. da P. De Santo, Adelphi, Milano, 1996.

 

Critical studies (at least two of them on different authors):

Di Bella S., Le Meditazioni metafisiche di Cartesio : introduzione alla lettura, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1997.

Scribano E., Guida alla lettura delle Meditazioni metafisiche di Descartes, Laterza, Bari, 1997.

Guéroult M., Descartes selon l’ordre des raisons. I L’âme et Dieu, Aubier, Paris, 1953.

Vinciguerra L., Spinoza, Carocci, Roma, 2015.

Vinciguerra L., La semiotica di Spinoza, ETS, Pisa, 2012.

Gentile A., Ai confini della ragione. La nozione di "limite" nella filosofia trascendentale di Kant, Edizioni Studium, Roma, 2003

Höffe O., Immanuel Kant, Il Mulino, Bologna 1997.

 

Literature on mazes and labyrinths (at least two of them):

Doob P. R., The Idea of the Labyrinth: from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1992.

Eco U., Dall’albero al labirinto. Studi storici sul segno e l’interpretazione, Bompiani, Milano, 2007.

Kerenyi K., Nel labirinto, Bollati Bolinghieri, Milano, 2016.

Matthews W. H., Mazes & Labyrinths. Their History & Development, Dover, New York, 1970.

Santarcargeli P., Il libro dei labirinti. Storia di un mito e di un simbolo, Frassinelli, Milano, 2005.

Office hours

See the website of Lorenzo Vinciguerra