Advanced Studies in Epistemology

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The course will first present a general framework that posits a connection between "revising belief" and learning. Then, each year, the course will concentrate on a particular theme for epistemological analysis. Inter-disciplinary breadth will be a criterion for the selection of this theme.

Upon successful completion of the course, the student should be able to : 
- Identify beliefs that underlie rational construction ;
- Construct contradicting arguments intended to question these beliefs;
- Draw the likely consequences of such a change in beliefs, with regard to the organization of rational procedures.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

All students are required to produce a little thesis on a topic falling within the realm of their study programme.

Lecture.

The Advanced Studies in Epistemology course concerns this year a problem between the philosophic anthropology and the philosophy of the life sciences, this problem which at the same time goes back to the origin of philosophy and emerges in the XXth Century as the central question of the philosophy of mind under a scheme commonly known as theMind-Body Problem.

After a phenomenological introduction intended to remind the peculiarity of the human body, we try to list the various conceptions of the mind-body connection and to relate them to the historic doctrines which are their matrix, so that we can question their type, because the old dualism leads little by little to the monism and the contemporary monism allows more or less a return to the dualism. Therefore, it is the spirit of the mind-body problem we aim to understand and to specify, since the questions of death, of good life and of free will always pressed on it.

. Le corps humain, un être singulier.

. Les doctrines de la relation corps/esprit.

1. Le dualisme.

a. Le dualisme axiologique de Platon.

b. Le dualisme méthodologique de Descartes.

2. Du dualisme au monisme : le parallélisme.

a. Le parallélisme subtil de Spinoza.

b. Le parallélisme providentiel de Leibniz.

Transition : le présupposé substantialiste et le behaviourisme logique de Ryle.

3. Le monisme.

-Le monisme spiritualiste.

a. Le monisme mystique de Plotin.

b. Le monisme immatérialiste de Berkeley.

-Le monisme matérialiste.

a. Le monisme épiphénoméniste de Vogt, Moleschott, Maudsley, Ribot, etc.

b. Le monisme absolutiste de Lucrèce et de La Mettrie.

Transition : le paradigme physicaliste et le fonctionnalisme de Putnam.

4. Un retour au dualisme ?

a. L'interactionnisme de Popper.

b.Le spiritualisme de Bergson.

c. Le monisme phénoménologique de Merleau-Ponty.

d. Le vitalisme de Nietzsche.

Here are the books we work in this course.

Their precise references will be later communicated.

An additional bibliography can be given.

. Bergson, Matière et mémoire; L'énergie spirituelle

. Berkeley, Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge; Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous 

. Changeux J.-P. et Ric'ur P., Ce qui nous fait penser. La nature et la règle

. Descartes R., Correspondance; Discours de la méthode; Les passions de l'âme; Meditationes de prima philosophia; Principia philosophiae

. Hegel G. F., Enzyklopädie der Wissenschaften im Grundrisse philosophischen

. Hume D., A Treatise of Human Nature

. Kant, Vorlesungen über die Metaphysik

. La Mettrie J. O., L'Homme-Machine

. Leibniz G. W., Correspondance; De la nature en elle-même; Discours de métaphysique; Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain; Principes logico-métaphysiques; Réforme de la philosophie première; Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances aussi bien que de l'union qu'il y a entre l'âme et le corps

. Locke J., An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

. Lucrèce, De rerum natura

. Malebranche N., Entretiens sur la métaphysique et la religion; La recherche de la vérité

. Merleau-Ponty M., La structure du comportement; Phénoménologie de la perception; Signes

. Nietzsche F., Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen; Götzen-Dämmerung oder wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert

. Platon, Gorgias; Phédon; Phèdre; République; Timée

. Plotin, Ennéades

. Popper K. R. et Eccles J. C., Das Ich und sein Gehirn

. Putnam H., Mind, Language and Reality. Philosophical Papers; Representation and Reality

. Richir M., Essai sur l'intériorité

. Ryle G., The Concept of Mind

. Sartre, L'être et le néant; Situations I

. Searle J. R., The Mystery of Consciousness

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