Teaching code

4S011619

Credits

6

Coordinator

Davide Bondì

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

M-FIL/06 - HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Courses Single

Authorized

Moodle Seminars 0

The teaching is organized as follows:

Learning objectives

The course aims to promote knowledge of the philosophies that occurred in Italy, choosing, from year to year, individual voices, texts or currents in a very broad time span, ranging from Humanism to contemporary debate. Students are expected to acquire the ability to read and understand the sources, assimilate their terminology and establish relationships between ideas and historical contexts. The expected learning outcomes are: - Knowledge: 1) Knowledge and ability to understand the major exponents of Italian philosophy; 2) Knowledge and ability to understand some of the most important texts of Italian thought; 3) Knowledge and ability to understand the theoretical proposals of the national tradition in their relations with European philosophy - Skills: 1) Application of acquired knowledge and comprehension skills to the critical reading and commentary of philosophical texts belonging to the tradition in question, evidenced by the acquisition of appropriate vocabulary and the ability to identify interpretive problems and propose possible solutions; 2) Development of autonomous judgment and independent reasoning skills; 3) Development of communication skills in the following activities: participating in guided discussions, expounding one's own ideas and defending them with arguments, and possibly presenting short papers in class; 4) Development of independent learning skills through appropriate methodology of study and interpretation of texts.

Prerequisites and basic notions

Fundamental notions of modern and contemporary philosophy acquired with the Bachelor's degree.

Program

Antonio Gramsci's 'Philosophy of praxis'.
The course aims to offer a reconstruction of the main theoretical nuclei of Antonio Gramsci's philosophy of praxis with regard to its genesis and structure.
I PART (LECTURES)
a) In order to grasp the genesis of the philosophy of praxis, the process of reworking Marx's philosophy through the distancing from the traditional conception of historical materialism and the criticism of Benedetto Croce's and Giovanni Gentile's approaches will be retraced. Gramsci's intellectual development will also be placed in the context of the major historical-political turning points of the first half of the 20th century, in particular the Bolshevik Revolution, the founding of the Communist Party of Italy, the rise of Fascism and the resistance against its assertion.
b): the clarification of the theoretical structure of the philosophy of praxis will be flanked by the elucidation of the main notions brought into focus in the Prison Notebooks and the Letters from Prison: "ideology", "hegemony", "civil society", "passive revolution", "historical bloc", "common sense and common sense", "subalternity", "democracy".
II PART (EXERCISES)
Seminar discussions and writing exercises will be organised (see teaching methods) aimed at deepening the aforementioned notions through the reconstruction of textual references (not easy to identify in the workshop of the Notebooks) and following their developments in contemporary philosophical debate (Louis Althusser, Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Max Horkheimer, Fredric Jameson).
It is a matter of rereading the highest expression of Western theoretical Marxism by freeing it from later political appropriations and showing its heuristic and critical efficacy with respect to contemporary processes, as shown by the assimilation of that categorical apparatus in postcolonial studies, in Subaltern studies, in the reflection on democracy from below and in research on ideology.

Bibliography

Didactic methods

The course will be held in accordance with the University provisions on COVID-19. The course will be divided into two parts: 24 hours of lectures (=4 CFU) and 24 hours of exercises (=2 CFU). Only the frontal lessons will be recorded and made available online. In the first part of the course (a, b), the teacher will provide the historical, theoretical and historiographical coordinates relating to the chosen theme according to a traditional method of presentation, always open to discussion and the active participation of the students. In the second part of the course, the teaching method will be declined in a seminar sense with discussions initially guided by the teacher, reports by the students and/or group work. The ways of interaction and collaboration between the teacher and the students, but above all between the students themselves, will in any case be subject to experimentation and possible redefinition during the lessons, in the light of the number of attending students, their possible proposals and specific training needs. The active and effective contribution of the students will be a crucial factor in the co-construction of the common path. Non-attending students must contact the teacher to agree on alternative and substitute teaching/learning methods.

Learning assessment procedures

Oral exam for the first part of the course + exercises (or substitute activity) for the second part of the course. The oral exam will be the same for attending and non-attending students, and will focus on:
1) the presentation and commentary of a text taken from the Letters from Prison or the Prison Notebooks, pertinent to the notions and themes considered in the lessons (a, b). The list of §§ of Q10 (The philosophy of B. Croce) and Q11 (Introduction to philosophy) commented will be published on the moodle platform at the end of the course (reference ed.: Gerratana, Einaudi 1975), exactly like the list of letters.
2) On the complete reading of Antonio A. Santucci, Antonio Gramsci 1891-1937, Sellerio, Palermo 2005 (or reprints)
3) On a book of your choice among the following (only the pages indicated):
- Michele Ciliberto, La fabbrica dei Quaderni. Studies on Gramsci, Edizioni della Normale, Pisa 2020, pp. 21-157;
- Franco Fergnani, Antonio Gramsci. The Philosophy of Praxis in the Prison Notebooks, Unicopli, Milan 2011 (complete reading); - Michele Maggi, The Philosophy of Revolution. Gramsci, Culture and the European War, Editions of History and Literature, Rome 2008, pp. 7-34, 109-201;
- Marcello Montanari, Gramsci's Revisionism. The Philosophy of Praxis between Marx and Croce, Biblion editions, Milan 2016, pp. 13-58, 83-114, 171-202;
- Marcello Mustè, Marxism and the Philosophy of Praxis, Viella, Rome 2018, pp. 175-321; - Leonardo Paggi, The Strategies of Power in Gramsci, Editori Riuniti, Rome 1984, pp. 3-54, 387-494. The exercises carried out in class will be sufficient to establish the corresponding grade for attending students. The assessment methods for non-attending students will be clarified with the teacher during the interview aimed at also agreeing on alternative and substitute teaching/learning methods.

Evaluation criteria

The evaluation criteria will be the following: 1) knowledge of the key concepts and understanding of the related problems; 2) ability to present clearly; 3) ability to analyze texts using appropriate vocabulary; 4) autonomy of thought; 5) active participation and evidence of effective improvement (exercises).

Criteria for the composition of the final grade

The final grade will be expressed out of thirty and will be the result of the weighted average of the assessments obtained in the two parts of the course.

Exam language

Italiano/Italian. Studenti Erasmus incoming possono chiedere di sostenere l’esame in inglese o in tedesco. Erasmus incoming students can ask to do the exam in English or in German.