PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS OF SCIENCE AND POLITICS
The purpose of this course is to give students an opportunity to understand and use the basic philosophical instruments of argumentation. In fact having and settling arguments is a basic function in any kind of intellectual or scientific discipline and research and to make the right choice of philosophical terms in discussions allows students not only to understand where the history of philosophy finds its origins, but also enables them to expand their conceptual analysis from classical to modern thinking.
Students are encouraged to focus on:
1. how philosophers use their arguments to support scientific and political theories or hypotheses;
2. what is a philosophical solution of a scientific or a political problem;
3. how philosophers always go back to perennial questions.
The following areas will be examples of the function of philosophical thinking, examined through excerpts from classical and modern philosophers' texts:
COMPREHENSION
- of our origins (Machiavelli; Vico; Marx)
- of science (Galileo; Descartes; Kant)
- of technology (Haraway)
- of economy (Smith; Marx)
- of logic and language (Aristotle; Locke; Vico; Kant)
CLARIFICATION
- as self-revelation (Plato; Nietzsche)
- of political action (Smith; Marx; Arendt)
- of behaviour (Aristotle; Smith; Arendt; Haraway)
Classes work will involve a general historical reconstruction selected Western philosophical traditions, to be read and commented together in the philosophers' original words, with a special focus on the most influential currents such as idealism, materialism, rationalism, criticism, nihilism, AI.
Each class consists of introductory lectures, textual analyses and in-class discussions.
Each session requires the reading of some of the most representative thinkers in each historical frame. The course will focus on practical applications of philosophical thinking, in the main fields of metaphysics, politics and science. One or more films are envisaged, depending on time schedule.