04402 - History of Contemporary Philosophy

Learning outcomes

The student is able to acquire knowledge of history of contemporary philosophy. In particular, it is able to read philosophical works of the last two centuries contextualizing them within a more general cultural universe. He also acquired critical skills and awareness of the philosophical issues of our time.

Course contents

Philosophies of the concept. Trajectories in the history of 20th century French philosophy, between epistemology and human sciences

In one of his famous contributions, Michel Foucault synthesises the developments in 20th century French philosophy in two major areas: on the one hand, the ‘philosophies of experience or of the subject’, which refer to authors such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and on the other hand, the ‘philosophies of the concept’, which insist on the relationship between philosophy and the sciences in authors such as Gaston Bachelard, Jean Cavaillès and Georges Canguilhem. The course aims to reconstruct this philosophical debate by questioning it in the light of a renewed encyclopaedic conception of knowledge. Indeed, one of the distinctive features of so-called ‘French epistemology’ consists in reformulating traditional philosophical problems such as the relationship between truth and error or the status of scientific objectivity starting from a historical investigation of the fruitful but also problematic relationship between philosophy and the methods of the natural and social sciences that contribute to the construction of a new, open and plural system of knowledge. The first part of the course will examine the project of reforming scientific rationality promoted by Gaston Bachelard under the sign of a ‘psychoanalysis of objective knowledge’, culminating in the construction of a new ‘scientific city’, hinged on a policy of intellectual growth for the whole of society. In the second part, the problem of the historicity of the sciences will come to the fore through Georges Canguilhem’s ‘historical epistemology’, which reformulates the categories of the ‘normal’ and the ‘pathological’ in an enquiry into the inventive and creative character of living beings. The third part of the course will assess the topicality of Gilbert Simondon’s proposal for a ‘genetic encyclopaedia’ of knowledge, called upon to integrate the two poles of technique and culture within the framework of a new ‘humanism’ that assumes historical and natural dynamics within a philosophy of individuation. This will be followed by Michel Foucault’s historical-epistemological reflection that relaunches Kant’s commitment to a critical philosophy, turned to the questioning of the relations between truth, power and subject. Lastly, the positions of the French philosopher and psychiatrist Felix Guattari will be taken into consideration. Through an original reflection on the concept of ‘autopoiesis’, originating from systems theory, he rethinks the connection between machines and organisms under the sign of a systemic and ecological conception of technical-natural development. The course thus intends to explore the ethical and political values of a wide-ranging philosophical research that, in different forms, distances itself from the false alternative between an impracticable return to philosophical humanism and the condemnation of the destructive effects of modern rationality on which the so-called ‘crisis philosophies’ insist. What is at stake is the overcoming of the opposition between nature and culture in view of a critical interrogation of the social and eco-systemic temporality from which our present takes shape.

 

The course is divided into two parts:

1. Monographic Course

2. Seminars

Monographic course

Distribution of topics in the lectures:

• 3 lectures will be devoted to the general reconstruction of the French debate between the 19th and 20th centuries on the forms of organisation and transmission of philosophical and scientific knowledge, from the age of positivism to the birth of historical epistemology
• 5 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Gaston Bachelard’s Il nuovo spirito scientifico e Metafisica della matematica di Gaston Bachelard (selected pages)
• 5 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Georges Canguilhem’s Il normale e il patologico e La conoscenza della vita (selected pages)
• 5 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Gilbert Simondon’s L’individuazione alla luce delle nozioni di forma e informazione (selected pages)
• 5 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Michel Foucault’s Le parole e le cose e Che cos’è l’Illuminismo? (selected pages)
• 5 lectures will be devoted to the reading, commentary and discussion of Felix Guattari’s Caosmosi (selected pages)

(A file containing the parts of the monographic course texts read in class will be uploaded at the link on the course materials webpage)

Seminars

2 lectures will be devoted to Seminars. Times and materials will be communicated during the lectures.

Readings/Bibliography

OBLIGATORY READINGS FOR ALL STUDENTS

 

Monographic Course

• Gaston Bachelard, Metafisica della matematica, Roma Castelvecchi, 2016 (selected pages)

• Georges Canguilhem, Il normale e il patologico, Torino, Einaudi, 1998; La conoscenza della vita, Bologna, il Mulino, 1976 (selected pages)

• Gilbert Simondon, L’individuazione alla luce delle nozioni di forma e informazione, Milano, Mimesis, 2020 (selected pages)

• Michel Foucault, Le parole e le cose, Milano, Rizzoli, 1988; Che cos'è la critica, Bologna, DeriveApprodi, 2024; Che cos’è l’Illuminismo?, in Archivio Foucault, 3. 1978-1985, Estetica dell’esistenza, etica, politica, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1998 (selected pages)

• Felix Guattari, Caosmosi, Milano, Costa & Nolan, 2007 (selected pages).

 

Studies

Two texts of choice:

D. Lecourt, Per una critica dell’epistemologia: Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault, Bari, De Donato, 1973

P. Cesaroni, La vita dei concetti. Hegel, Bachelard, Canguilhem, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2020

F. Bonicalzi, Leggere Bachelard. Le ragioni del sapere, Milano, Jaca Book, Milano, 2007

F. Lupi, S. Pilotto, Infrangere le norme. Vita, scienza e tecnica nel pensiero di Georges Canguilhem, Milano, Mimesis, 2019

A. Angelini, Biopolitica ed ecologia. L’epistemologia politica del discorso biologico, tra Michel Foucault e Georges Canguilhem, Firenze, Firenze University Press, 2021

P. Macherey, Da Canguilhem a Foucault. La forza delle norme, Pisa, ETS, 2011

D. Donna, I diagrammi della filosofia. Una storia eretica della filosofia contemporanea in Francia, 2024

D. Donna, Dispersione ordine distanza. L’illuminismo di Foucault, Luhmann, Blumenberg, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2021

M. Iofrida, D. Melagri, Foucault, Roma, Carocci, 2017

V. Cavedagna, G. Piatti (ed.), Effetto Simondon, “Aut-Aut”, 377, 2018

A. Bardin, Epistemologia e politica in Gilbert Simondon. Individuazione, tecnica e sistemi sociali, FuoriRegistro, 2010.

G. Genosko, The Guattari Reader, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996

R. Ronchi (ed.), L’esperienza della tecnica, L’Aquila, Textus Editore, 2019

G. Bocchi, M. Ceruti (a cura di), La sfida della complessità, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1985

G. Di Fazio, Ecologia del possibile: razionalità, esistenza, amicizia, Verona, Ombre Corte, 2021

C. Lafontaine, L’empire cybernétique. Des machines à penser à la pensée machine, Paris, Seuil, 2004

G. Malaspina, An Epistemology of Noise, London, New York, Oxford, Bloomsbury, 2018.

Teaching methods

The course combines frontal teaching by the lecturer and direct participation by the students. It is divided into meetings conducted according to the didactic mode of common reading and open dialogue. A file containing the parts of the monographic course texts read in class will be uploaded at the link on the course materials webpage.

Assessment methods

Attendance of the entire course corresponds to 12 credits.

The oral examination, which takes place in the lecturer’s office, tends to test

1. the historical-philosophical knowledge acquired through attending lectures, studying the texts and bibliography included in the syllabus, contextualising the analysis within the framework of long-term traditions;

2. the level of assimilation and critical-conceptual elaboration of the proposed contents

3. the property and congruity of the linguistic expression of the various topics examined

4. the ability to orientate between the main interpretative and historiographical lines.

The examination offers a further opportunity for discussion and dialogue with the lecturer, a dialogue that the student is invited to open also during the lectures and seminars, intervening in the first person by requesting clarifications or proposing in-depth studies. In this sense, students are also invited to propose for examination particular subjects close to the topics of the course itself.

Verification criteria

30 cum laude: excellent, for solidity of knowledge and critical processing skills
30: excellent, adequate knowledge and expressive richness

27-29: good, satisfactory knowledge, correct expression

24-26: discrete, non-exhaustive and partially correct knowledge

21-23: sufficient, general knowledge, confused expression

18-21: barely sufficient. Poor articulation and relevant theoretical gaps

<18: insufficient, missing or incomplete knowledge, lack of guidance in the argument.

The registration for the exam is online on the ALMAESAMI website

 

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders are entitled to special adjustments according to their condition, subject to assessment by the University Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact teachers or Department staff, but make an appointment with the Service. The Service will then determine what adjustments are specifically appropriate, and get in touch with the teacher. For more information, please visit the page:
https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Teaching tools

The course makes use of the traditional bibliographical tools of philosophical research (indexes, dictionaries, bibliographical directories), as well as tools developed in the course of the lectures. A file containing the parts of the monographic course texts read in class will be uploaded at the link on the course materials webpage.

Office hours

See the website of Diego Donna