The course aims at providing the necessary skills in order to grasp a modern philosophical text. To this purpose, the course provides students with the necessary tools in order to:

- elaborate an appropriate historical-social contextualization of a modern philosophical text;

- identify the prior philosophical streams setting up the framework of a given philosophical work and be confident with the text’s features that make them identifiable (by focusing in particular on the traits of lexical permanence, on the recursion of argumentative methods, on shared philosophical objectives).

- pick out the original features that characterize a single work of modern philosophy within its philosophical tradition;

- be able to grasp the stratified character of a philosophical text and to subsequently, possibly identify its weaknesses;

- identify the weak points of a philosophical text also concerning logical fallacies (e.g. incoherence between assumptions and consequences; begging the question; semantic vagueness);

- identify the possible weaknesses of a philosophical work that are due to the simultaneous presence of divergent and incoherent philosophical traditions within the text (that may also stand beyond the explicit author’s purposes).

Leon Battista Alberti: misery and greatness of mankind

An unsurpassed model of humanism, Renaissance artist, scientist, technician, and philosopher, Leon Battista Alberti was also a complex, elusive, and ambivalent personality. A theorist of beauty in the De pictura, in other works such as the Intercenales or the moral dialogues, he cultivates images of disharmony, madness, excess, unleashed in nature, in man, in the cosmos, with monstrous and formless natural and moral forms, images of great existential pessimism.

The course will examine some Intercenales, supplemented by passages from De pictura and the moral dialogues.

1. The life and personality of L. B. Alberti

2. Two interpretations (E. Garin and A. Tenenti) and the autobiography

3. The Lucianesque tradition: paradox and inversion as epistemological devices

4. The Intercenales: Nature, Fate, Death, Invention

5. Pictorial Representation as Artifice, Illusion and Beauty

6. Nature and Man: Misery and Greatness.

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Knowledge and understanding

- Acknowledgment of the importance of the political-social context for the elaboration of philosophical theories of the contemporary age;

- Ability to detect the peculiar features among alternative forms of philosophical argumentation within a shared philosophical, political and cultural tradition.    

 Applying knowledge and understanding

- The student will be able to master the essential theoretical and lexical tools in order to gain the ability to autonomously read and interpret a philosophical work of the contemporary age;

- The student will be able to appreciate the important role of a correct socio-historical contextualisation for an adequate understanding of the texts of the contemporary age.      

 Making judgements

- The student will develop an appropriate critical ability in order to identify the eventual discrepancies between single philosophical texts and their philosophical tradition;

- The student will develop an autonomous capacity in order to properly evaluate the contradictions and the weak reasoning of a philosophical argumentation.   

 Communication skills

- The student will be provided with the necessary skills in order to present to an audience, even not a specialized one, the core issues of a contemporary philosophical text, by focusing in particular on the historical context, on the lexical and argumentative peculiarities within a given philosophical tradition, on the contradictions, weakness and shortcomings from a logical-argumentative point of view.

 Learning skills

- At the end of the course the student will be provided with the necessary tools for an autonomous study of a philosophical text of the contemporary age;

- The student will understand the meaning and importance of the philosophical lexicon, and of extra-philosophical materials, that are essential in order to gain a deep insight of the political-cultural context of a text. This knowledge will allow the student to autonomously approach to the appropriate bibliographical researches.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

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Teaching

Lectures

Attendance

Study of M. Mori, Storia della filosofia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007, ch. 1-4.

Course books

General section:

M. Mori, Storia della filosofia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007, chap. 1-4.

Monographic course:

L. B. Alberti, Autobiografia e altre opere latine, a cura di L. Chines e A. Severi, Milano, Rizzoli

Critical literature:

E. Garin, Leon Battista Alberti, Pisa, Edizioni della Normale.

Further study materials will be made available on the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Assessment

The assessment of learning will consist of a written examination. The examination consists of a guided commentary on individual passages from the examination texts. The student must demonstrate that he/she can grasp the fundamental theoretical issues of each passage and contextualise them within the work, including reference to secondary literature.

Particular attention is given to exposure’s capacity through the proper terminology.

Students are expected to be able to develop a critical approach to the theories they studied. In the evaluation, particular attention will be given to the student’s ability to reformulate the materials they dealt with autonomously and to their ability to make comparisons between the authors they studied.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

 In order to enable non-attending students to compensate for the lectures through self-study, the following materials are provided, based on the same syllabus content, to promote full understanding: E. Cutinelli Rendina, Introduzione a Machiavelli, Roma-Bari, Laterza.

Not attending students must study the texts listed under "Course books". To replace the lesson hours (36), not-attending students must write a short text (between 10,000 and 20,000 characters) based on the study of Mori's book, Storia della filosofia moderna, on one of the following topics:

    1) The new Platonism of the fifteenth century: Cusano, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola.

    2) The new metaphysics of Telesio, Bruno and Campanella

    3) Political thought: Machiavelli, Campanella, Bodin

    4) Astronomy, Metaphysics, Theology: Kepler, Copernicus, Cusano, Bruno

    5) Nature and mathematics: Galileo Galilei

    6) Francis Bacon and the project of a scientific encyclopedia.

The text should be sent to the teacher at least one week before the exam date.

Attendance

Study of M. Mori, Storia della filosofia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007, ch. 1-4.

Course books

General section:

M. Mori, Storia della filosofia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007, chap. 1-4.

Monographic course:

N. Machiavelli, Il principe, a cura di G. Inglese, Einaudi

N. Machiavelli, Mandragola, a cura di G. Davico Bonino, Einaudi.

Critical literature:

Two books, chosen among the following:

G. M. Barbuto, Machiavelli, Roma, Salerno editrice, 2013

M. Ciliberto, Niccolò Machiavelli. Ragione e pazzia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019

U. Dotti, Machiavelli rivoluzionario, Roma, Carocci, 2003

J.-L. Fournel - J.-C. Zancarini, Machiavel: une vie en guerres, Paris, Passé Composé, 2020

G. Inglese, Per Machiavelli, Roma, Carocci, 2006

Machiavelli, a cura di E. Cutinelli-Rendina e R. Ruggiero, Roma, Carocci, 2018

Machiavelli: tempo e conflitto, a cura di R. Caporali, V. Morfino e S. Visentin, Milano, Mimesis, 2013.

Assessment

The examination grade for non-attending students will be made up as follows: 70% written exam and 30% written paper.

Students are required to read and comment on single passages of the texts. Students are expected to be able to grasp the main theoretical features of the examined passages and to be able to contextualize them within the text, eventually with reference to the secondary literature.

Particular attention is given to exposure’s capacity through the proper terminology.

Students are expected to be able to develop a critical approach to the theories they studied. In the evaluation, particular attention will be given to the student’s ability to reformulate the materials they dealt with autonomously and to their ability to make comparisons between the authors they studied.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

At the student's request, the course bibliography can also be provided - and the exam taken - in English, Spanish, French and German.