Aims

The objective is to offer the students some familiarity with continental philosophers and conceptual schemas that will help them situate the occidental history of medical science and analyse the social impact of medical and scientific discoveries.

This basic knowledge of philosophers (Platon, Descartes, Kant, Canguilhem) will aim at helping the students articulate philosophical interrogations and the history of scientific inquiry throughout modern history.

Main themes

An incursion into philosophy of science aims at enabling the student to tackle, with a philosophical mind, the signification of occidental science. It will imply a familiarization with the issues raised by epistemological turns in philosophy of science and biotechnologies.
We will for instance question the contributions of Darwinism or Lamarckism to philosophical representations of the world.
In preparation to bioethical issues we will confront the challenges of evolutionary sciences in an ethical perspective.

Content and teaching methods

The course will be articulated around three parts

1) Introduction to philosophy
2) Anthropology of sciences
3) Ethics and the sciences

The course will more practically analyse the concepts of man versus nature, the norm norm and the pathological, the new ethical questions raised by human experimentation.

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

Other: new information and texts will regularly be offered on I campus to complement the syllabus.

Other credits in programs