Teacher
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PETAGINE ANTONIO
(syllabus)
Who am I? Modern and contemporary images of the self
Who am I? Answering this question is perhaps the greatest challenge in our lives. We want to understand who we are in order to realize our life and try to live well with ourselves and others. To know ourselves is not first of all to know how to "enter" within ourselves, to probe our inner self, to come to know our desires. And what do we encounter when we search for ourselves? Philosophy has, throughout its history, given various answers to these questions. Certainly, as emerges especially from St. Augustine, the investigation of one's interiority has been considered a fundamental moment in the journey that leads to the discovery of ourselves. The way of making such an inquiry has undergone considerable changes throughout the history of our culture and today easily lands on individualistic, even narcissistic outcomes, as Christopher Lasch had denounced. What are we to do? What directions can we take? Today, various psychological sciences and practices are attempting to offer paths and solutions, but it remains proper for philosophy to investigate what are the deep stirrings of the human heart and the dangers that in contemporary culture move us away from a full understanding of ourselves as subjects and as persons. The program will be divided into two parts: In the first part, we will address the reading of texts by two fundamental authors: St. Augustine and John Locke. In the second part, we will offer a glimpse into the contemporary world and how a healthy conception of the individual and his dignity should be recovered. To do this, we will measure ourselves against the reflections of a contemporary French philosopher: Chantal Delsol.
(reference books)
About the first part: Agostino, Le Confessioni, tr. it. M. Bettetini, Einaudi, Torino 2015, books I-X. J. Locke, Saggio sull'intelligenza umana, libro II, cc. 23-27, tr. it. C. Pellizzi, G. Farina, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2011, pp. 325-403. About the second part: C. Delsol, Elogio della singolarità. Saggio sulla modernità tardiva, Liberilibri, Macerata 2010
Other complementary materials will be made available during the course.
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