No knowledge of languages ??other than English is required. A working level of English is sufficient. No knowledge of the history of Western philosophy is required. All that is required is a certain willingness to place ideas in their specific historical, intellectual, economic, social and cultural contexts. Attendance is not mandatory (since it cannot be by law). However, a modicum of common sense and a reasonable trust in the use of our free will confirm the fact that, if the student is in a position to be able to attend classes, said attendance generates a conspicuous intellectual advantage and perhaps even an enrichment of experience (social and cultural).

Students will acquire a good understanding of Thomas De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater"; they will develop the ability to argue issues that have been discussed in class; they will become familiar with the exercise of articulating a particular thesis or a particular topic in written form. The aim of the course is to encourage a genuinely interdisciplinary approach in students, so that the major themes addressed by philosophy, science and technology are read and interpreted through a plurality of conceptual, literary and visual tools.

Among the risks associated with Artificial Intelligence, one cannot discount the level of addiction caused by excessive and harmful use of AI-powered applications such as platforms driven by algorithms, chatbots and generative media. The Internet exacerbates the human mind's inability to postpone immediate gratification of desires and is leading to a new form of artificial paradises: I might call these the paradises of electromagnetic addiction. Focusing on Thomas De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (1821), the course intends to examine the phenomenon of addiction as this was being memorialized by one of his nineteenth-century representatives. A literary critic and essayst, De Quincey (1785-1859) remained enthralled by the reading of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Lyrical Ballads". But at the core of De Quincey's opium voyages there isn't only the link between the use of mind-altering substances and poetic inspiration, but, more generally, the nexus of anxiety, melancholy and nostalgia, the human need to escape from pain and sufferance, the puzzling interplay of elation and poison and the paradox of self-denial and debasement, ecstasy and depression. The course will be based principally on a close reading of De Quincey's text, but it also will include a few classe devoted to Baudelaire as a translator and continuator of De Quincey's "Confessions".

The recommended edition is: Thomas De Quincey, "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater", ed. by Robert Morrison, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013. Various sections will be excerpted. At the end of the course, the teacher will prepare a handout in PDF format with the materials that students must know to pass the exam. The handout will be available electronically in the teacher's virtual classroom (where all the materials of all the courses are collected and organized in their respective folders), via the following link to Microsoft Teams: 2025 History of Philosophical Models

The exam programme IS THE SAME whether students attend or not, whether they are employed or jobless. In the classes of "History of Philosophical Methods", all students are considered workers. We all work, in different ways.

There is no further information.

• The course involves a close and contextualized reading of significant sections of Thomas De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater". Each session will have a part dedicated to questions and discussions so that the characteristic physiognomy of the class may emerge together with the specific interests to be cultivated among the students. In the classes of History of Philosophical Models, teachers and students share knowledge and critical thinking, and above all they practice how to do research from week to week. The writing of the essay will be encouraged during the course, through individual meetings between the teacher and the students, and through discussions of any preliminary drafts of the essay. The essay is to be delivered at least 10 days before the final exam.

• Final assessment is based on: 1) a written essay of approximately 4,000 words on one of the various topics that emerge during the discussions in class, to be delivered via email to the teacher at least ten days before the final exam date; any attempt at plagiarism, including the use of ChatGPT 4.0 and other types of sloppy chatbots and virtual assistants, will result in the test being voided; 2) a final oral exam, in which, in addition to the themes of the course, the results of the written essay will be discussed.

  
  

  In writing the essay, students are encouraged to identify a possible research topic that has some connection with the course programme or with ideas that emerged during the discussions in class. The range of issues that can be examined in the written essay is wide. Here are a few suggestions: Thomas De Quincey; addiction; drug use and ubuse; altered states of the mind; psychedelics; the history of artificial paradises; effects of drug use on the poetic imagination; Baudelaire as interpreter of De Quincey; De Quincey on Wordsworth and Coleridge.

A pinch of Italian, as needed.

English