Spiritual Materialities

fakultatywne

The only prerequisite is to be able to do the readings in English. The written work will be done either in English or Polish, according to the individual choice of the student (students are welcome to do their written work in French if they wish to do so).

The class is devoted to the 20th - and 21st-century philosophical attempts to bridge the gap between spirituality and material reality. Either under the guise of animism, vitalism, panpsychism, or panconsciousness, several thinkers of the last hundred years attempted to extend tangible reality into a realm that cannot be strictly objectified or, conversely, tried to “spiritualize” the world of material objects. Some of those thinkers declared specific religious affiliations, some did not, and some others branded themselves as atheists. We will not be preoccupied with such confessional classifications, but rather with the way specific authors think through and express realities that escape materialistic conceptualization. These attempts are all the more fascinating, that they do not follow any preset doctrinal paths, but rather venture into the unknown and the ineffable. Hence the use of metaphors, myths and daring logical constructions that indicate how difficult and intellectually risky it is to dwell in the philosophical grey zone beyond strict monist ontologies or between clear-cut dualisms. The plan of the semester is chronological and thematic: from Bergson and Theilard de Chardin at the beginning of the 20th century to our contemporaries Ruse and Tononi; from the philosophical resistance to mechanization of modern culture, through the animation of natural environment, up to the quantification of consciousness. These 20th- and 21st-century considerations will be introduced by the early modern skeptical negotiations between body and spirit. Each of the seven biweekly units of the course will rely on articles and fragments of books of manageable length that we will read, interpret, and discuss in English. Students will have the option of doing their written work in English, Polish or French.

The course has three main goals:

- To train students’ interpretative skills through reading of philosophical texts (in English) devoted to the intersection between materiality and spirituality in 20th-21st century thinking,

- To foster a constructive exchange of ideas in an academic setting,

- To promote the students’ original conceptualization of fundamental questions pertaining to the topic of the course.

The goal of this class is not to promote any particular philosophical or ideological agenda.

Methodology [unless ordered otherwise by pandemic regulations]:

The course is conducted in hybrid mode, partly synchronously and partly asynchronously. Students work on 7 asynchronous lectures available on the course web page. Each of those lectures is a c. 30 minutes-long PowerPoint presentation combined with a video and an audio track.

The lectures are an introduction to readings. The readings are additionally combined with short written exercises that guide the students through the texts and help them preparing for 7 synchronous, real-time class meetings either in class or on zoom (depending on the pandemic conditions),. The 7 class meetings will be devoted to the discussion of the material presented during the lectures and to the discussion of the readings. In parallel to the lectures, students will participate in asynchronous online Discussion Forums.

There will be 4 take home quizzes during the semester. You will need about 60 min. to work on each of these quizzes. Only 3 out of 4 grades for the take home quizzes will be taken into account for the final grade of the course.

Plan of the course: See the “List of topics” in the part B of this form.

PLEASE NOTE:

After registering for this course, you should immediately contact the course instructor, Prof. Jan Miernowski, at jmiernow@wisc.edu in order to confirm your preferred email address.

[selections from]:

- Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, Penguin, 1987.

- Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, Greenwood Press, 1944.

- Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, Zone Books, 1988.

- Pierre Theilhard de Chardin, The Pheonomenon of Man, Collins, 1959.

- Bruno Latour, On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, Duke UP, 2010.

- Bruno Latur, Rejoicing, or the Torments of Religious Speech, Polity, 2013.

- Bruno Latour, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime, Cambridge, Polity, 2017.

- Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay On The Necessity Of Contingency, trans. Ray Brassier, Continuum, 2008.

- Quentin Meillassoux, "Spectral Dilemma," in Collapse, vol. IV, 2008.

- Michael Ruse, The Gaia Hypothesis. Science on a Pagan Planet, U. of Chicago Press, 2013.

- James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia. A Biography of Our Living Earth, Norton, 1988.

- Giulio Tononi, Phi. A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul, Pantheon Books 2012.

- Marcello Massimi and Giulio Tononi, Sizing Up Consciousness. Towards an Objective Measure of the Capacity for Experience, Oxford UP, 2018.

The class is directed at BA and MA students.

K_W08 having organized knowledge on the main trends in philosophical and social thought in a historical and contemporary perspective

 having good organized knowledge on the main trends in philosophical and social thought in a historical and contemporary perspective

K_W13 knowing the main methods of interpreting literary and philosophical texts and textual historical sources

 knowing various methods of interpreting literary and philosophical texts and textual historical sources

K_W14 knowing the main methods of analysis in cultural studies, history, social studies and philosophy in a historical perspective

 comprehensive and in depth knowing of methods of analysis in cultural studies, history, social studies and philosophy in a historical perspective

K_U05 basic skills in using interdisciplinary research methods and tools to analyse phenomena of contemporary culture

K_U08 presenting the results of one’s own analysis of research problems in oral, written and multimedia form

K_K02 understanding the principles, rules and necessity of group work

K_K07 understanding the principles of tolerance and cultural differences

In order to be successful in this class you should:

- read carefully all the required readings and work on all the required lectures

- participate actively in all the in-class and online discussions

- strive to develop your own personal interpretation of readings and your own conceptualization of problems under discussion

- respect the deadlines of all the assignments in this course.

The final grade of the course is composed of:

- 50% for the final comprehensive written exam;

- 20% for quizzes written during the semester. The quizzes will have the form of “take home exams”: the students will have up to 24 hours to complete each quiz and they will be allowed to use any notes or library sources they wish (all sources have to be acknowledged). 3 out of 4 best grades for the quizzes will count toward the final grade.

- 20% for the assiduity and the quality of participation in the face-to-face discussion meetings

- 10% for the quality of the participation in the online Discussion Forum and for the online reading exercises.

The class concludes with a take home exam which will have the form of an individual project.