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Modern Philosophy

Code: 100310 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500246 Philosophy OB 2

Contact

Name:
Alejandro Mumbrú Mora
Email:
alejandro.mumbru@uab.cat

Teachers

(External) Àlex Mumbrú Mora

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

None.


Objectives and Contextualisation

We understand by "Early Modern Philosophy" the set of philosophies produced in the Western world after the processes of the Reformation and the Counter-reform, and that they do not renounce the new mode of law that science has discovered in nature. The wars of religion give way to a period of relative peace, with the constitution of the nation-state and national religions. On the other hand, the Galilean revolution makes it possible to think of a form of eternal law not tied to biblical revelation, but to the mathematization of nature. The great naturalistic rhetoric of the Renaissance disappears. The work of Descartes inaugurates a new era in philosophy. Indeed, where the Renaissance centered all thought on the centrality of the human figure, the last end of the divine creation, Descartes introduces a subject deduced in a purely rational way. The philosophy, in addition, is put to speak the national languages. The great effort to recover a metaphysics that is not slave to the theological revelation culminates and it respects the new form of non-Aristotelian causality introduced by science. Thus, the extraordinary uniqueness of the substance in Spinoza and the infinite multiplicity of the substances of Leibniz prepared the great critical work of reason in the following century.


Competences

  • Act within one's own area of knowledge, evaluating sex/gender-based inequalities.
  • Analysing and summarising the main arguments of fundamental texts of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Placing the most representative philosophical ideas and arguments of a period in their historical background and relating the most important authors of each period of any philosophical discipline.
  • Recognising and interpreting topics and problems of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
  • Thinking in a critical and independent manner on the basis of the specific topics, debates and problems of philosophy, both historically and conceptually.
  • Using the symbology and procedures of the formal sciences in the analysis and building of arguments.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Accurately using the specific lexicon of the history of philosophy.
  2. Analyse the sex-/gender-based inequalities and gender bias in one's own area of knowledge.
  3. Arguing about several issues and philosophical problems for the purpose of different works and the assessment of the results.
  4. Assess how stereotypes and gender roles impact professional practice.
  5. Carrying out a planning for the development of a subject-related work.
  6. Demonstrating a personal stance over a problem or controversy of philosophical nature, or a work of philosophical research.
  7. Discriminating the features that define the writer's place in the context of a problem and reorganising them in a consistent diagram.
  8. Distinguishing and outlining the fundamental content of a philosophical text.
  9. Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  10. Establishing relationships between science, philosophy, art, religion, politics, etc.
  11. Explaining the specific notions of the History of Philosophy.
  12. Expressing both orally and in written form, the issues and basic problems of the philosophical tradition.
  13. Indicating and discussing the main characteristics of the distinctive thought of a period and contextualizing them.
  14. Indicating the main issues of the history of philosophy.
  15. Reading basic philosophical text thoroughly.
  16. Reading thoroughly philosophical texts of the History of Philosophy.
  17. Relating the various orders of the philosophical ideas of different authors and historical moments.
  18. Rigorously building philosophical arguments.
  19. Solving problems autonomously.
  20. Submitting works in accordance with both individual and small group demands and personal styles.
  21. Summarising the topics and arguments exposed in a classical philosophical debate.
  22. Using suitable terminology when drawing up an academic text.

Content

1. General remarks on Modernity 

2. Descartes

3. The XVIIth century and the reception of Cartesian philosophy: rationalism and empiricism

4. Rationalism: Spinoza and Leibniz

5. Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway

6. A General Introduction to Empiricism


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Classroom sessions 50 2 12, 15
Type: Supervised      
Supervised Individual Assignments 30 1.2 3, 10, 5, 12, 9, 22, 14, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 1
Type: Autonomous      
Autonomous individual work 50 2 7, 8, 10, 5, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 1

Lectures are organized around the teacher's explanations, with space for questions and debates with the participation of students.

Students work from the content of the lectures and the recommended bibliography.

With personalized attention, students can pose questions, and ask for clarifications or extensions of the bibliography.

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.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Assignment 30% 8 0.32 2, 3, 18, 6, 7, 8, 10, 5, 11, 12, 9, 22, 14, 13, 15, 16, 20, 17, 19, 21, 1, 4
Final exam 50% 8 0.32 3, 18, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 9, 22, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 1
Partial Exam 20% 4 0.16 11, 22, 1

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT

The evaluation of the subject will consist of the delivery of a paper (30%), a partial exam (20%) and a final exam (50%).

No assignment will be accepted after the fixed deadline. 

 

UNIQUE EVALUATION


										
											The evaluation of the subject will consist of the delivery of two assignments (25+25%) and a final exam (50%). 
										
											
										
											No assignment will be accepted after the fixed deadline. 
										
											
										
											

On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will occur.

Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted more than 1/3 of the assessment items. 

If 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 discussions on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students can access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

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.


Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

BERKELEY, George, Tratado sobre los principios del conocimiento humano, trad. C. Mellizo, Alianza editorial, Madrid, 1992. 

--- : Tres diálogos entre Hilas y Filonús, trad. G. L. Sastre, Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1996.

CONWAY, Anne, Principios de la filosofía más antigua y moderna, trad. de Bernardino Orio de Miguel, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 2004. 

CAVENDISH, Margaret, Philosophical Letters, or Modest Reflections Upon some Opinions in Natural Philosophy, 1664 (disponible en línia)

DESCARTES, René, Regles per a la direcció de l’enginy, trad. Salvi Turró, Barcelona, Edicions 62, 1998.

--- : Discurs del mètode, trad. Pere Lluís Font, Barcelona, Edicions 62, 1996.

---: Meditacions metafísiques, trad. Miquel Costa, Barcelona, Edicions 62, 2008.

--- : Libertad y generosidad. Textos morales, trad. i ed. Salvi Turró, ed. Proteus, 2010. 

HUME, David, Investigación sobre el entendimiento humano, ed. bilingüe, trad. V. Sanfélix y C. Ors, Madrid, ed. Istmo, 2004.

KANT, Immanuel, Crítica de la razón pura, trad. P. Ribas, ed. Alfaguara, Madrid, 1978.

LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm, Meditaciones sobre el conocimiento, la verdad y las ideas, trad. Miguel Candel Sanmartín (versión hipertexto en http://www.ub.es/telemac)

--- : Discurs de metafísica; Monadologia, trad. Josep Olesti, Barcelona, Marbot ed., 2018. 

--- : Nous assaigs sobre l'enteniment humà, trad. Josep Olesti, Barcelona, ed. 62, 1997.  

LOCKE, John, Ensayo sobre elentendimiento humano, trad. Edmundo O’Gorman, FCE, México, 1999.

SPINOZA, Baruch, Tratado de la reforma del entendimiento, trad. Atilano Domínguez, Madrid, Alianza, 1988. 

--- : Ètica demostrada segons l’ordre geomètric, trad. J. Olesti, Marbot ed., Barcelona, 2013.

 

Secondary Sources:

AA.VV., Estudis cartesians, Societat Catalana de Filosofia, Barcelonesa d’Edicions, Barcelona, 1996.

AYER, Alfred J., Hume, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1980.

BELAVAL, Yvon (dir.), Historia de la filosofía, Siglo XXI, Madrid, 1974. Vol. 6: Racionalismo, empirismo e Ilustración.

CASSIRER, Ernst, El problema del conocimiento en la filosofía y en la ciencia modernas, México, FCE, 1979 (vol. I y II).

DELEUZE, Gilles, Empirismo y subjetividad, ed. Gedisa, 1981. 

DUQUE, Félix, Historia de la Filosofía moderna: la era de la crítica, ed. Akal, 1998. 

DUSSEL, Enrique, 1492. El encubrimiento del otro. Hacia el origen del “mito de la modernidad”, Plural editores, La Paz, 1994. 

--- : El primer debate filosófico de la Modernidad, Clacso, 2020. 

 FOUCAULT, Michel, Las palabras y las cosas. Una arqueología de las ciencias humanas, ed. Siglo XXI, 1968.  

HAZARD, Paul, La crisis de la conciencia europea, Madrid, Alianza, 1983.

--- : El pensamiento europeo en el siglo XVIII, Madrid, Alianza, 1985.

HEIDEGGER, Martin, “La era de la técnica” i “La época de la imagen del mundo” (Die Zeit des Weltbildes) en Caminos del bosque (Holzwege), trad. Helena Cortés y Arturo Leyte, Madrid, Alianza, 1995.

MARTÍNEZ MARZOA, Felipe, Historia de la filosofía,Madrid, ed. Istmo,1973 y 1994, (vol. II).

--- : Cálculo y ser (Aproximación a Leibniz), Madrid, Visor, 1991.

MILLS, Charles W., The Racial Contract, Cornell University Press, 1997.

MORRIS, Charles, Locke, Berkeley y Hume, Oxford University Press, 1987.

TURRÓ, Salvi, Descartes. Del hermetismo a la nueva ciencia, Barcelona, ed. Anthropos, 1987.

--- : Filosofia i Modernitat. La reconstrucció de l’ordre del món, Barcelona, Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2016.

 

On-line materials:

http://www.philosophica.info/

-http://plato.stanford.edu 

-http://frank.mtsu.edu/~rbombard/RB/spinoza.new.html (Studia Spinoziana)

-www.leibniz.es

-http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/

-http://www.davidhume.org

 

 

 

 


Software

None


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 1 Catalan first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan first semester morning-mixed