Learning outcomes

The goal of this course, inside the M.A. in Pedagogical Science, consists in promoting a reflection on the sense and motivations of the educational practice, through an inquiry on the importance of emotions and the practices of emotional sharing for the human formation and the development of a person.

At the end of the course, students will have to prove: their adequate knowledge of the texts; critical assessment; to know how to communicate their knowledge in a clear, coherent and well-supported way; sufficient mastering of the examined philosophical terminology.

Program

Subject of the course: the importance of emotions for the relations of care and the human formation (Bildung)
In this course, crucial importance will be given to the role that desire plays in the relations of care and for the process of the human formation.

During the course, the following topics will be proposed:
1) The concept of synaptic plasticity (Eric Kandel) and the cultivation of desire
2) From the cura sui (Hadot and the final Foucault) to the relations of care
3) The problem of the orientation in the actual liquid society
4) Desire as the core problem of the human formation
5) The leap to the symbolic thought in Michael Tomasello and in cultural anthropology
6) The case of Victor, the “wild” boy (from whom the movie by François Truffaut is inspired)
7) The concept of emotional sharing
8) The phenomenology of emotions and the problem of expressivity
9) Philosophy as a transformational exercise
10) The concept of person
11) Philosophy and birth
12) Philosophy of the relations of care

TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODS
Frontal lessons and seminar discussions on the papers written by the participants. The students attending the course, according to their experiences and interests, will be asked to assess critically some of the scheduled texts, in order to write a short, well-reasoned summary on some sections of them.

Examination Methods

For attending students:
A personalized program will be set together at the beginning of the course.

For non-attending students:
The exam is in oral form and aims at verifying the adequate knowledge of the scheduled texts. In order to access the oral examination, students must submit a paper of 20000 characters. The paper must be previously agreed on with the professor during his office hours – after students have read the texts – and is to be submitted at least 7 days before the exam. The paper must be submitted via email, with a .doc document containing the student’s name, surname and identification number.

The paper should be thought as a well-reasoned summary of the sections of the scheduled texts that have raised the student’s interest, but it does not exonerate her to study the remaining parts as well. Specific attention should be payed to the pertinence and the precision in quoting. The paper is to be concluded with a short critical consideration of a couple of pages.