Kevin Mulligan at the World Philosophy day

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Institutional Communication Service

9 December 2019

The World Philosophy day, promoted by UNESCO, took place on 21 Novembre. This year USI celebrated with a public conference organised by the student association Ratio, USI Master in Philosophy and by Philosophie.ch, in collaboration with Aristotle College and the Institute of Philosophical studies (Lugano Faculty of Theology). An exercise of philosophy to converse about the role of modern society with Achille Varzi, Professor at Columbia University, New York, and Kevin Mulligan, Professor at USI. The newspaper La Regione Ticino published on 28 November an article by journalist Giorgia Servalli about the conference.

The best way to understand the role of philosophy today is to practice philosophy. La Regione tackles the issues addressed by the two guests during the evening. The first question had to do with the reasons why the guests carry out their studies in philosophy, a reason that according to Mulligan has to do with the pleasure of "winning" in a debate through reason and to the contribution of philosophy - underlined by both speakers - in providing the tools to discuss through sensible and logical arguments in any field and, "overthrow" the theory of others.

The discussion then went on to question the validity of a programme of studies in philosophy, which the two professors have defended, underlining the bases that philosophical studies provide to act in very different fields. "Everything starts from philosophy": the philosopher is in fact moved by curiosity, always asking new questions and questioning what seems certain. A question addressed to Varzi by Professor Mulligan inspired the title of the article in La Regione: at the request of identifying the sexiest problem of metaphysics, Varzi cited the problems of " identity in change" found for example in Heraclitus.

 

Read the full article by Giorgia Servalli at following link:
https://www.laregione.ch/culture/pensiero/1408430/quando-la-filosofia-e-sexy-vanzi-e-mulligan-a-colloquio

 

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