Senior Philosophy Seminar: Embodied Decentring

After completing the course students are able to:

• Read philosophical texts from different world traditions that highlight a key concept, related to decentring, that the students might be unfamiliar with; look independently for primary texts that support (or not) the claims made in such texts, and for other texts towards integration of frameworks and arguments that advance our understanding of the topic under discussion;
• Explicitly articulate assumptions (disciplinary and not), frameworks and other starting points from which different kinds of knowledge, including one’s own, arise —and attempt to integrate such starting points with other starting points, towards building a philosophical argument —orally and in writing;
• Write well-structured and well-argued texts, centred around a clear research question or thesis, paying attention to fundamental assumptions, definitions of words, different types of arguments and methodologies at work in the texts under discussion;
• Recognize and articulate, both individually and in dialogue with others, —by means of concrete examples in the papers and discussions and explicit reflections through the course— the relevance of one's readings and writings to one’s life in the 21st century, both as individual and as a member of multiple communities;
• Value diversity: appreciate how differences in assumptions, embodiments, cultures, values and other aspects of intersectionals identities —both of the people in class and of the authors of the readings— lead to different kinds of knowledge that contribute to our joint understanding of reality, self-cultivation and transformation of society.

Relationship between assessment and learning goals:
Mid-term paper
Required | Weight 30% | ECTS 2.25 | Aims: 1,2,3,5
Final assignment
Required | Weight 30% | ECTS 2.25 | Aims: 1,2,3,4,5
Discussion boards, peer-feedback, presentations, reflections
Required | Weight 40% | ECTS 3 | Aims: 1,2,3,4,5
 

Intended for students with a specific interest in advanced research and an eye towards post-graduate studies in philosophy, this course is designed to meet the needs of students who wish to develop greater depth in their philosophical studies.

The course consists of rotating content based on the expertise of philosophy teachers at University College. It is organized thematically, and requires students to follow three seminars of five weeks each treating main categories of philosophical investigation, such as metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, philosophy of mind, language, religion and science.

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Topic spring 2025: Embodied Decentring. Key concepts in world philosophies, towards thinking together.

The leitmotif of the course is that developing open, caring academic and non-academic communities requires decentring. Decentring involves not only awareness of where our knowledge comes from and epistemic humility, but also the embodied capacity to listen to others while being present in the same room and the desire to transform it in a shared space. It also requires the wish to learn how to take on the roles of host and guest, and learn to advance our understanding of any given topic in dialogue with others and different kinds of texts.
 
This is not an introductory course to world philosophies: it does not introduce how the main philosophical questions have been answered in various world philosophical traditions. It always starts from a concept —belonging to Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, African, Ancient Greek, Indigenous or modern European frameworks— that helps us understand decentring, by zooming in on one of these three aspects: Embodied cultivation; Epistemic humility; and Relationality. In this class we become acquainted, value and practise these three aspects of embodied decentring, always starting from a concept that help us understand the role of the body, of the virtue of epistemic humility, and of dialogue with different others, towards self-cultivation, advancing knowledge and co-creating an open society. All students who have taken a level 2 philosophy course are welcome to this course, whether or not they have been exposed to different philosophical traditions than the Western: the authors of the chapters of Key Concepts in World Philosophies (the starting point of the course), write for an audience that might not be acquainted with the tradition from which their concept comes from. However, familiarity with philosophical methodology is required.