Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy (Advanced Studies)

Teacher(s)

Counet Jean-Michel; Schmutz Jacob;

Language

French

Prerequisites

The course assumes a basic knowledge of the history of philosophy, especially ancient philosophy. Fluency in Latin is a plus, but is not required for enrolment in the course.
The ability to read translations of medieval authors and specialized studies in English will be expected.

Main themes

The History of Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy course will seek to deepen the knowledge of the period concerned by starting from a given theme or corpus. It will pay particular attention to the genesis of the chosen subject and, based on up-to-date research, will attempt to shed light on this subject and to advance the questions related to it.
The historical field of this course goes from the end of Antiquity to the 16th century, and will be able to explore corpora and problems from the three great monotheistic cultures (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), in a comparative or non-comparative way.
The systematic field will not be restrictive, since the course may simultaneously or alternatively emphasize problems of theoretical philosophy or practical philosophy.
The course will also give a place to the historiography of medieval and renascent philosophy, in order to understand the reasons for the "rediscovery" of these traditions since the 19th century and to reflect on what the Middle Ages can still teach us today.
Particular attention will be paid to research tools and problems of source criticism (critical editions, lexicons, bibliographic directories, etc.).

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	read, understand and comment on texts from the relevant period;
2	identify the historical textual sources of a specific philosophical problem and understand the questions of filiation between authors;
3	evaluate the relevance of a historical argument for our thinking today;
4	identify the main interpretative options in contemporary medievalism;
5	use specific research tools for medieval philosophy: dictionaries, lexicons, directories, main journals;
6	understand the functioning of a critical edition;
7	be attentive to the problems posed by the translation of ancient and medieval texts;
8	write well-structured papers with well-defined themes, in preparation for the dissertation.

Faculty or entity

EFIL