The course analyses the existential turn occurred in XX century philosophy meant to overcome the problem defined as the body/mind separation. This main current proposes a concrete description of our mental processes in opposition to the traditional cognitive structure introduced by rationalism. Beginning with selected writings by Nietzsche as a path-finder of this epistemological attitude, the course delves into a new way to describe our relationships with the 'life world'. The fundamental themes in the philosophies of life, related to the notions of phenomenon, intentionality, perception, being-in-the-world, lived experience, the question of technique, the issue of groundlessness, are analysed and elaborated through references to the current discussions about an emergent definition of ‘life’, related to notions of augmented reality, the new technologies, embodiment, the hybrid character of life.
Authors to be analyzed:
Arendt, The Life of the Mind/The Human Condition
Heidegger, The issue of the Technological
Husserl, Crisis of European Sciences
Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence
Lyotard, The Inhuman
McLelland et a. Connectionism and AL
Lister, New Media
Nietzsche, Gay Science
A. Noe, Action in Perception
Georg Simmel, Metropolis and Mental Life
F. Varela, Intimate Distances. Fragments of a Phenomenology of Organ Transplantation, 2001.