Aims

To analyze the place of the philosophy among the rational sciences - specific status of the philosophical speech. To determine the fundamental constituent of the philosophical research - the metaphysical perspective. To place the philosophy, especially compared to science and technology. To determine, in a philosophical way, the constituent presuppositions of the process and of the technological practice.

Main themes

Logos as thought and language; language and reality (meaning as sense and reference, intension and extension); what is "real" as an extra-linguistic entity (ideal, empirical, abstract, or merely operational)? How to conceive truth (adequation, correspondance, coherence, logical trhuth, etc.)? Forms of reasoning, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, counterfactuals.

Content and teaching methods

The question is to articulate a philosophical and epistemological interrogation on the possibility of the human sciences: how is it possible to hold a scientific dissertation on the human being and its cultural productions? To answer this question, we first analyze the project of modern sciences as it is put in concrete form in natural sciences and this, in opposition to the philosophy and antique sciences. Then, we examine to which conditions it is possible to transfer this modern scientific model into the cultural facts. In this perspective, which leads to a clinical anthropology, we review the main themes of all anthropology: the language and the logic, the implement and the technique, the person and the social, the norm and the morality.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Evaluation : oral examination, at the end of the course.

Support : student's personal notes, completed by a syllabus.

Other credits in programs