Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
---|---|---|---|
4316227 Applied Philosophy | OB | 0 | 2 |
Theories of rationality should ideally provide us with tools for a number of important tasks: We want to avoid irrationality, or aim at justifying our beliefs and decisions by certain standards. This is important for many tasks in ordinary life, such as judgments and decisions of individual and public health, wealth, and happiness. We want to be clear about whether the reasons for our beliefs and actions are valid or reasonable. Furthermore, we often have to communicate with others about our beliefs and decisions, such as in scientific, ethical, or political contexts. All this requires conceptions or even theories of reason or rationality.
But what do we mean when we say that something, or someone, is rational (or irrational)? What are the normative standards of rationality? How should a theory of rationality be built? What are its presuppositions, its potentials and limits? What role does science play in it? In the answers to such questions, different thinkers have introduced a bewildering variety of distinctions - such as theoretical versus practical, instrumental versus non-instrumental, formal versus content-based, or optimizing versus "bounded" concepts of rationality. The course presents a selection of classical and current debates in which such understandings of rationality or reason emerge.
The subject will have 3 different blocks, although all will be directly linked to the notion of rationality:
1- The idea of rational consensus
a. The old idea of logos as the common thing
b. The scientific community as an ideal of rational consensus
c. The problematization of the concept of science and its repercussion in the conception of the rationality, its nature and its limits
2- Rational consensus, discursive ethics and deliberative democracy
a. Multiculturalism and interculturality
b. Is it possible to aspire to a rational consensus in the practical dimension of reason?
3- Rationality and autonomy: on the old ideal of autarky
a. The philosophical ideal of a life guided by reason
b. The radical crisis of reason as a guide to life
c. Downward causation, self technologies and spiritual exercises. Towards a revival of the rational ideal of life?
d. The relationship between rationality and spirituality
The module is structured into 10 sessions of 3.5 hours each. The sessions alternate between lecturing and seminar discussion of basic course readings. In the tutorials, professors will supervise the preparation of a written paper of 10-15 pages related to some topic treated in the module.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
---|---|---|---|
Type: Directed | |||
Class discussion | 17.5 | 0.7 | 1, 6, 4, 5, 7, 2 |
Type: Supervised | |||
Supervision | 22.5 | 0.9 | 1, 6, 7, 2, 3 |
Type: Autonomous | |||
Autonomous study | 110 | 4.4 | 1, 6, 4, 5, 7, 2, 3 |
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
Plagiarism:
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Development of a written essay | 50% | 0 | 0 | 1, 6, 4, 5, 7, 2, 3 |
Oral presentation | 50% | 0 | 0 | 1, 6, 4, 5, 7, 2, 3 |
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