2023
Modern and Contemporary Thought I
Name: Modern and Contemporary Thought I
Code: FIL12726L
6 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours
Scientific Area:
Philosophy
Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese
Regime de Frequência: Presencial
Sustainable Development Goals
Learning Goals
At the end of the curricular unit, the students should be able to:
- To identify the main characteristics of modernity compared to antiquity and middle age
- To identify the originality of the thought, the living experience and the representation that modern man has from
himself
- To master the main concepts of modern and contemporary thought
- To use some of these notions in the hermeneutics of contemporary culture;
- To have read and discussed at least to fundamental texts of modern and contemporary thought
- Students should also become able to participate as active players in the public debate concerning the relevance
of the philosophical tradition for the ongoing cultural processes of our time
- To identify the main characteristics of modernity compared to antiquity and middle age
- To identify the originality of the thought, the living experience and the representation that modern man has from
himself
- To master the main concepts of modern and contemporary thought
- To use some of these notions in the hermeneutics of contemporary culture;
- To have read and discussed at least to fundamental texts of modern and contemporary thought
- Students should also become able to participate as active players in the public debate concerning the relevance
of the philosophical tradition for the ongoing cultural processes of our time
Contents
I. The beginning of a new era
- The loss of the world and the conquest of new territories
- Science as an existential program of conquest of the infinite nature
- The new political order: between Machiavelli and Hobbes
- The outbreak of the conscience: Locke
II. Order, rationality, progress: The Enlightenment reaching for the world history
- Harmony and reasonability of nature Vs rational skepticism: Leibniz or Hume
- Natural religion, tolerance and natural rights
- From universal rights to social contract
- The birth of aesthetics or the prehistory of the creating man
- The light of the critique: the self-determination of modern times by Kant
III. The conquest of the absolute to the death of God (and of Man)
- The radicalization of the critical philosophy or the return of the repressed (from Fichte to Hegel)
- After philosophy, the thought facing the reality: from Schopenhauer to Marx
- In the desert of the real: nihilism and existentialism (Kierkegaard and/or Nietzsche)
- The loss of the world and the conquest of new territories
- Science as an existential program of conquest of the infinite nature
- The new political order: between Machiavelli and Hobbes
- The outbreak of the conscience: Locke
II. Order, rationality, progress: The Enlightenment reaching for the world history
- Harmony and reasonability of nature Vs rational skepticism: Leibniz or Hume
- Natural religion, tolerance and natural rights
- From universal rights to social contract
- The birth of aesthetics or the prehistory of the creating man
- The light of the critique: the self-determination of modern times by Kant
III. The conquest of the absolute to the death of God (and of Man)
- The radicalization of the critical philosophy or the return of the repressed (from Fichte to Hegel)
- After philosophy, the thought facing the reality: from Schopenhauer to Marx
- In the desert of the real: nihilism and existentialism (Kierkegaard and/or Nietzsche)
Teaching Methods
TP Classes (assessed through a test 70% of final grade): theoretical exposition and debate on texts.
TC Classes (individual report 30% of final grade): organization of lecture - debate by the teacher with the
participation of the students on relevant topics of the matter
The examination regime includes a final proof
TC Classes (individual report 30% of final grade): organization of lecture - debate by the teacher with the
participation of the students on relevant topics of the matter
The examination regime includes a final proof
Teaching Staff
