Philosophy

The course will engage in sketching some aspects of what might be called “an anthropology of the contemporary world”. Specifically, it will analyse some of the ways in which production and economy are intertwined with the linguistic faculties of sapiens today. In the present time, in fact, “working” means first and foremost “talking”. The guiding thread of the investigation will be the ethical-political figure of the zombie: born as a slave, today he too begins to articulate names and sentences.

A knowledge corresponding to the level of the bachelor’s degree in philosophy is required.

1) P. Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life, (Semiotext(e) 2) J. Austin, How to do Things with words, Echo point Books 3) A. Appadurai, Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance, University of Chicago Press 4) A. Casilli, Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation (The France Chicago Collection) Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation, University of Chicago Press

Attending the course is highly recommended

The examination will consist of a written (30% of the final grade) and an oral part (70% of the final grade). Students must write a short paper (15.000 characters) on an essay which must be agreed with the professor and related to one of the issues dealt with during the course. The paper must be delivered at least one week before the exam.

The choice texts of the course constitute the bibliographical horizon common to the topics covered in class from time to time.

Frontal lessons and seminar discussions of the texts and the issues treated in the course.