PHILOSOPHY OF THE PRESENT
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
There are no prerequisites
The examination of learning will consist of an oral test only, with evaluation in thirtieths.
The outcome of the examination will be considered positive when a mark of 18/30 is reached.
During the interview, three to five questions will be asked in order to ascertain the achievement of the training objectives and the expected learning outcomes, with strict reference to the texts provided, also by reading and commenting on passages chosen by the lecturer. It is therefore necessary to bring the scheduled texts with you to the examination.
The final grade will also take into account the materials developed and presented by the students during the workshop/seminar activities. The assessment will be based on the following criteria: accuracy of answers (60%), linguistic and argumentative mastery (30%), ability to independently formulate a suitably reasoned critical judgement (10%).
On the basis of the fundamental skills and knowledge acquired in the Philosophy of History course (1st year), the Philosophy of the Present course proposes first of all a path of concrete approach to the practice of philosophy, to its way of problematising and constructing knowledge. The ‘present’ to which the course refers in philosophical terms is in fact not to be understood as mere ‘actuality’, but as the place of reality experienced in the first person: a ‘present’ always ‘in progress’, never totally translatable into the object of a universal knowledge and in the order of linear time. Within this framework, the course intends to shed light on some of the main research trajectories of contemporary philosophy, showing the profound cogency that the questions posed in a purely theoretical perspective also reveal on the ethical, gnoseological and epistemological, social and political levels.
Among the expected learning outcomes are
- refinement of skills in the use of philosophical vocabulary and argumentation;
- ability to interpret and problematise the notions of ‘lived reality’ and ‘known reality’, ‘existence’ and ‘knowledge
- ability to grasp the ethical, social and political implications of philosophical reflection around the criteria of truth and historicity of knowledge.
The teaching activities will take place on three interconnected levels.
1) GENERAL PART (approx. 20 hours). The first part of the course will present the main orientations of twentieth-century phenomenological and hermeneutic reflection, starting from two fundamental questions: How does reality become present in our experience? What is the relationship between interpretation and the truth of experience?
2) MONOGRAPHIC PART (approx. 36 hours). The central part of the course will be devoted to the theme "PROSPECTS OF TRUTH". It will start from two philosophers who are very distant from each other, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), in order to highlight the practical conditions from which the very notion of "truth", in its various perspectives and interpretations, emerges in human cultures.
3) WORKSHOPS/SEMINARS (12 hours). The concluding part of the course includes activities for a more in-depth study of certain topics dealt with in the lessons. During the workshop/seminar hours, students will present papers in the classroom based on written materials prepared individually or in groups.
The educational objectives of the course will be achieved by means of face-to-face lectures (for a total of 56 hours), to which 12 hours of interdisciplinary workshop/seminar activities will be added, encouraging the active participation of the students. During the workshop/seminar activities, students will be required to present and discuss written work on the topics covered in the classroom. The papers will be considered an integral part of the results to be submitted for the learning assessment.
The professor receives students by appointment, to be arranged by emailing florinda.cambria@uninsubria.it.