Phenomenology, Naturalism and Metaphysics

Venue: Sala Stefanini and Aula Film, Palazzo del Capitanio, Capitaniato Square, 3-35139 Padova

Topic description: This seminar is devoted to topics in theoretical philosophy which lie at the crossroad between phenomenology and metaphysics, and which raise questions concerning a naturalistic understanding of reality. Phenomenology, in this seminar, is mainly considered as a specific approach to philosophical issues, which analyses experience and its structures, rather than as a philosophical tradition, not to say doctrine. Metaphysics, on the other hand, is considered as a philosophical domain in which one taken on questions concerning the structure of reality also beyond what experience can show. Naturalism, instead, does not represent a specific domain of investigation, but rather a general way of understanding reality as basically natural, and as subject to natural laws. One of the aims of the seminar is to investigate whether, and, in case, how, a naturalistic understanding of the issue at stake from time to time is possible, and, furthermore, if the phenomenological and metaphysical analyses we will carry out purport a specific form of naturalism instead of another one, or if they possibly show an untenability of any kind of naturalism.