Phenomenology, Naturalism and Metaphysics

A.A. 2024-25 (21h)

Doctoral course title: Phenomenology, Naturalism, and Metaphysics

Topic for the year 2024-2025: Self-reference, Self-consciousness, Self-knowledge: Between Personhood and Selfhood

Coordinator: Prof. Andrea Altobrando

Other Participants: Prof. Antonio M. Nunziante, Dr. Giulia Lanzirotti, Prof. Luca Corti, Dr. Claudia Cavaliere

Language of the seminar: English

Start: 20 January 2025

Scheduled time: h. 16-19

Calendar: 20, 21, 22, 27, 28 January 2025 + 5 March 2025 (6 h.)

Venue: Sala Giacon, Sala Stefanini, and Sala Seminari Palazzo del Capitanio, Capitaniato

Square, 3-35139 Padova

Seminar 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.

Topic of 2024/25: This year's seminar will be devoted to the question of self- awareness and self-reference and how these complex phenomena tie in with the question of the idea and sense of person and self.

The seminar will be organized in a compact form in two blocks. The first block, which will be held in 5 meetings of 3 hours each, will take place between January 20 and January 28. During this first phase, lecturers and researchers will present some conceptions of the dynamics of self-awareness, self-reference and the concepts of person and self. The second part will take place in March 2025 and will last one day (6 hours in total), during which doctoral students will present their own research relevant to the theme of the seminar.