PROGRAM
The Graduate Program in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), established as a program of excellence since its creation in 1977, has the mission of providing critical and specialized training in different fields of philosophy, capable of combining rigorous analysis of the history of philosophical thought with reflection on issues of the present time. Throughout its almost fifty years of existence, the program offered qualified formation for a significant number of researchers and professors in philosophy at Brazilian public and private universities and has worked intensively to consolidate the area of philosophy in the country. The program aims to train researchers and professors of excellence who work primarily in higher education institutions. Internationalization is one of its vocations: the legacy of major translations of philosophical works, the requirement for students to be proficient in different languages, and the strong international presence of its professors in national and international research groups and networks are the hallmarks of the program. The program aims to foster intellectual and cultural production of reference, with social impact and national and international insertion.
Currently the program has four lines of research: I) History of Philosophy, differentiated into its four canonical eras (Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary), II) Logic, III) Ethical-Political Thought and IV) Theory of Knowledge and Philosophy of Science and Language. With this profile, in addition to the backbone of the History of Philosophy, the program covers different fields of modern Logic in many of its implications with new scientific disciplines; in the field of ethical-political thought, the emphasis is on investigating, through different philosophical perspectives, theories of democracy, law and the state, feminist theories and critical race theory; and finally, it includes an approach to classic themes in the theory of knowledge, philosophical, methodological and historical reflection on the different sciences (especially physics, mathematics, psychoanalysis and the social sciences) and philosophy of language.
CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
An important characteristic of the Master's and PhD programs in Philosophy at Unicamp is the flexibility of their curricular structure, which aims at making the faculty's freedom of research – institutionalized in its various Lines of Research – compatible with the minimum requirements of a basic academic formation of the students through the study of classical themes and authors, in order to allow the student's work to be concentrated on the writing of the Master’s dissertation or the PhD thesis. Considering the nature of philosophical activity, which does not lend itself to rigid definitions of theme, nor is it expressed in a predetermined set of disciplines or fundamental statements, the Graduate Program in Philosophy has an extremely simple and open academic-curricular structure, defined mainly on the basis of the Research Projects of the supervising professors. There is no provision for mandatory courses, linked to certain Lines of Research, except for the prerogative, attributed to the supervisor, of indicating courses or sequences of courses to be taken by the candidate for his/her adequate academic formation.
The curricular structure of the program is suited to its four lines of research. Approximately 40 courses are offered annually, including two Teaching Internship courses, one Master's Dissertation course, one PhD Thesis course, and the Orientation/Supervision Seminars, which are courses in which the students of the graduate program in Philosophy present partial results of their research for critique and discussion, before not only their supervisor, but also other students and even other professors of the program.
The objectives of the Orientation/Supervision Seminars are to (i) contribute to the improvement of the student's research work, (ii) foster their capacity for specialized and public discussion of arguments and interpretations. The configuration of these courses is flexible and is adapted, in each offering, to the circumstances of the research and to the preferences of the professor-supervisor. Thus, the student's work may be completely concentrated on the discussion of parts (preliminary or not) of the dissertation and/or thesis, or may, at the discretion of the supervisor, involve a further development of more specific issues that are of fundamental importance for the academic formation of the researcher in philosophy.
Despite the flexibility of our curricular structure, some common axes characterize it. Firstly, we aim to consolidate in the students’ work the ability to argue articulately, both in written texts and in oral presentations and discussions, according to criteria of logical-formal correction that are relevant to academic discourse in Philosophy. Secondly, we seek to instill in the student's work objectivity in the discernment and formulation of problems and resolutions, with the aim of avoiding, in the dissertations and/or theses, a lack of cohesion or even digressions in relation to the thematic nucleus proposed in them. In more specific cases, we try to perfect the student's work of interpretation of primary sources, that is, the reading and interpretation of classical texts in their original language, with the discussion of philological problems that have a great impact on the formulation of philosophical arguments.
Regarding this last objective, it is worth highlighting the seminars in History of Ancient, Medieval and Modern Philosophy. Frequently, the backbone of these seminars is constituted by collective reading and interpretation (supervisor and supervisees) of texts in the original language (Greek or Latin), with in-depth discussion of philological problems and meticulous analysis of the argumentative and conceptual entanglement present in each text.
The infrastructural conditions for the development of research activities at IFCH are rarely matched by other programs in the humanities. On this issue, it is worth mentioning the IFCH Library's collection of books and periodicals, CLE (Center for Logic, Epistemology and History of Science) -UNICAMP’s Michel Debrun Library, the invaluable collection of social, cultural, political and economic history in the Edgard Leuenroth Archive (with documentation covering the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day), and the Unicamp IT park.
The faculty and students of the Graduate Program in Philosophy participate in and are supported by Centers and groups of research. These are the true laboratories of philosophy, some with a clearly interdisciplinary character. They are shared by professors, graduate and undergraduate students (scientific initiation) from different departments of IFCH, as well as from other units of Unicamp, besides receiving visitors and external researchers. All of them have their own room, with networked computers, specific libraries, documentation files and other requirements for the development of research.
MASTER
Requirements for obtaining the title.
To obtain the title of Master's in Philosophy, the student must
a) have been approved in the selection process;
b) be a student regularly enrolled in the Master's in Philosophy program at UNICAMP;
c) prove, on the occasion of the selection process, proficiency in at least one foreign language. Modern German, French, English and Italian languages are eligible. In the case of PhD projects in History of Ancient Philosophy, History of Medieval Philosophy and, History of Modern Philosophy, Classical Greek (for History of Ancient Philosophy) and Latin (for History of Medieval and Modern Philosophy) are added as eligible languages for proficiency demonstration;
d) have fulfilled all the credits in courses, according to the catalog of the year of admission;
e) be approved in the qualifying exam, which should only occur after the conclusion of all the credits in the courses;
f) be approved in a public defense of the Master's Dissertation, observing the dispositions of the General Rules for Postgraduate Courses (Deliberation CONSU-A-010/2015 and Deliberação CONSU-A/2008).
https://www.pg.unicamp.br/norma/3862/0
Selection Exam (for more information see Selection Process)
The selection exam is annual and will be conducted in three stages: 1) analysis of projects, transcripts, and curricula; 2) interviews and specific tests; 3) modern languages exam (eliminatory).
- Analysis of Projects, Transcripts, and Curricula – the following criteria will be considered:
(a) level of conceptual elaboration of the project and feasibility of its execution within the planned deadlines;
b) adequacy of the project to the Program's Lines of Research;
c) adequacy of the curriculum to the project presented, as well as to the Program's Lines of Research;
d) experience in research (scientific initiation or equivalent);
e) availability of supervision by professors of the Program.
- Interviews and Specific Tests – the candidates approved in the previous phase may be
submitted to an interview and/or specific test, at the discretion of the Sub-Committee for Graduate Studies in Philosophy.
- Modern Languages Exam – the candidates approved in the previous phases must take a
proficiency test in a modern language, being eligible the German, French, English and Italian languages.
Credits
To obtain the Master's title in Philosophy, the student must fulfill the total number of credits specified in the catalog for the year of admission, available on the Pro-Rectory of Graduate Studies at Unicamp’s website (www.prpg.unicamp.br).
Foreign Language Aptitude
Prove, at the time of the selection process, proficiency in at least one foreign language, for the Master's, being eligible the modern German, French, English and Italian languages.
Qualifying Exam
The qualifying exam must take place by the end of the third semester for the Master's, and by the end of the sixth or seventh semester for the PhD. The examination can only take place after the completion of all course credits.
The qualification text should consist of an activity report (including transcripts), an activity plan, a detailed exposition of the project, and a text corresponding to a sufficiently mature part of the dissertation.
Defense of the Dissertation
The defense of the dissertation must be scheduled on the SIGA system (DAC/UNICAMP) 40 (forty) days in advance, according to the procedures described in the Dissertation/Thesis Defense Manual, available at http://www.ifch.unicamp.br/ifch/pos/formularios
Completion
The Master's Course in Philosophy must be completed in a minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 31 months.
Leave of Absence
For exceptional reasons, with the agreement of the Advisor and at the discretion of the Sub-Committee for Graduate Studies in Philosophy, the student may leave the Course for up to two semesters, consecutive or not, not counting towards the maximum time required for completion. The remaining time at the moment of each request must be greater than or equal to the duration of the requested leave.
PhD
Requirements for obtaining the title. To obtain the title of PhD in Philosophy, the student must
a) have been approved in the selection process;
b) be a student regularly enrolled in the PhD in Philosophy program at UNICAMP;
c) prove, on the occasion of the selection process, proficiency in two foreign languages. Modern German, French, English and Italian languages are eligible. In the case of PhD projects in History of Ancient Philosophy, History of Medieval Philosophy and, History of Modern Philosophy, Classical Greek (for History of Ancient Philosophy) and Latin (for History of Medieval and Modern Philosophy) are added as eligible languages for proficiency demonstration;
d) have fulfilled all the credits in courses, according to the catalog of the year of admission;
e) be approved in the qualifying exam, which should only occur after the conclusion of all the credits in the courses;
f) be approved in a public defense of PhD Thesis, observing the dispositions of the General Rules for Postgraduate Courses (Deliberation CONSU-A-010/2015 and Deliberação CONSU-A/2008).
https://www.pg.unicamp.br/norma/3862/0
Selection Exam (for more information see Selection Process)
The selection exam is annual and will be conducted in three stages: 1) analysis of projects, transcripts, and curricula; 2) interviews and specific tests; 3) modern languages exam (eliminatory).
- Analysis of Projects, Transcripts, and Curricula – the following criteria will be considered:
(a) level of conceptual elaboration of the project and feasibility of its execution within the planned deadlines;
b) adequacy of the project to the Program's Lines of Research;
c) adequacy of the curriculum to the project presented, as well as to the Program's Lines of Research;
d) experience in research (scientific initiation or equivalent);
e) availability of supervision by professors of the Program.
- Interviews and Specific Tests – the candidates approved in the previous phase may be
submitted to an interview and/or specific test, at the discretion of the Sub-Committee for Graduate Studies in Philosophy.
- Modern Languages Exam – the candidates approved in the previous phases must take a
proficiency test in a modern language, being eligible the German, French, English and Italian languages.
Credits
To obtain the PhD title in Philosophy, the student must fulfill the total number of credits specified in the catalog for the year of admission, available on the Pro-Rectory of Graduate Studies at Unicamp’s website (www.prpg.unicamp.br).
Foreign Language Aptitude
Prove, at the time of the selection process, proficiency in at least one foreign language, for the Master's, being eligible the modern German, French, English and Italian languages.
Qualifying Exam
The qualifying exam must take place by the end of the third semester for the Master's, and by the end of the sixth or seventh semester for the PhD. The examination can only take place after the completion of all course credits.
The qualification text should consist of an activity report (including transcripts), an activity plan, a detailed exposition of the project, and a text corresponding to a sufficiently mature part of the dissertation.
Defense of the Dissertation
The defense of the dissertation must be scheduled on the SIGA system (DAC/UNICAMP) 40 (forty) days in advance, according to the procedures described in the Dissertation/Thesis Defense Manual, available at http://www.ifch.unicamp.br/ifch/pos/formularios
Completion
In the case of PhD, the minimum and maximum deadlines for completing the Course must be obeyed, according to the catalog of the year in which the student is admitted, available on the Pro-Rectory of Graduate Studies at Unicamp’s website (www.prpg.unicamp.br).
Leave of Absence
For exceptional reasons, with the agreement of the Advisor and at the discretion of the Sub-Committee for Graduate Studies in Philosophy, the student may leave the Course for up to two semesters, consecutive or not, not counting towards the maximum time required for completion. The remaining time at the moment of each request must be greater than or equal to the duration of the requested leave.
SCHOLARSHIPS
The Graduate programs at IFCH receive, annually, quotas of scholarships for Master's and PhD students funded by CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) and CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), which will be assigned in order of classification in the selection process for admission to the respective Courses, according to criteria established by the Graduate Committee.
The maximum duration of the CAPES and CNPq scholarships is 24 (twenty-four) months for the Master's and 48 (forty-eight) months for the PhD. In addition, there is the possibility, with the supervisor's support, of individual requests for Master’s and PhD scholarships from FAPESP (The São Paulo Research Foundation).
GENERAL QUALIFICATION EXAM
In order to take the qualifying exam, the student must have completed all the minimum credits required in course subjects and have passed the Foreign Language Reading Training (2-doctoral and 1-master's).
The qualifying exam must be scheduled in accordance with the instructions in the Dissertation/Thesis Defense Manual:
https://www.ifch.unicamp.br/ifch/pos/procedimentos
Deadline for scheduling:
Consult the Dissertation/Thesis Defense Manual https://www.ifch.unicamp.br/ifch/pos/procedimentos
for the qualifying exam
RESEARCH
The lines of research are supported by research centers and groups involving professors and students of the Graduate Program who meet regularly in seminars, meetings and colloquia to present and debate their research projects. Several projects involve more than one professor from the same line of research, which demonstrates the fruitful interaction and collaboration between the Program's professors. In addition, a significant number of the permanent professors and students participate in more than one line of the program, which allows greater integration between them and the formation of research links based on the affinities of the philosophical questions and methodological approaches explored in their research.
Around 70% of our permanent professors are CNPQ Research Productivity Fellows and lead various research projects in national and international networks. This not only demonstrates the full adherence of our professors to the field of philosophy, but also the high quality of our intellectual output and the link between formation and research.
Within the scope of research networks, which bring together two or more institutions and research groups, it is worth highlighting the existence of FAPESP Thematic Projects and international agreements led or made up of professors from the Program:
Thematic project funded by FAPESP “Rationality, logic and probability: RatioLog” (process 20/16353-3), coordinated by Prof. Marcelo Esteban Coniglio.
Thematic Project funded by FAPESP “Crises of democracy: Critical Theory and diagnosis of the present time” (process 19/22387-0), coordinated by Prof. Marcos Severino Nobre.
Institutional Internationalization Program - CAPES-PRINT “The Transformations of Philosophy”, coordinated by Prof. Márcio Augusto Damin Custódio.
SPRINT FAPESP Project - International mobility in a cooperation agreement with CONICET (Process: 20/00703-5), coordinated by Prof. Marco Antonio Caron Ruffino.
CAPES/COFECUB Project - “Logic and the intelligibility of computational processes" (Process: 88881.878969/2023-01), with the participation of Professor Marcelo Esteban Coniglio
Maria Sibylla Merian Centres for Advanced Studies conviviality-inequality in Latin America, directed by Professor Marcos Severino Nobre, with funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
LINES OF RESEARCH
The Graduate Program in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas currently has four lines of research that cover the entire field of the program's area of concentration, which is Philosophy, and are also harmoniously articulated. The program's four Lines of Reaserch are:
The Graduate Program in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas currently has four lines of research that cover the entire field of the program's area of concentration, which is Philosophy, and are also harmoniously articulated. The program's four Lines of Research are:
I. HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Description: This line covers the following segments:
a) History of Ancient Philosophy, dedicated to the classical authors of Greek Philosophy and is intended to investigate, with the help of philological analysis of the Greek text, the fundamental philosophical themes around which the philosophy of the period is organized;
b) History of Medieval Philosophy: using the reception of the classics of philosophical antiquity as a guiding thread, it covers authors, schools or themes from the period known as the “Middle Age” (5th-14th centuries);
c) History of Modern Philosophy, which covers the 17th and 18th centuries and aims to include the authors who began the rationalist tradition, contractualist theorists such as Rousseau and Hobbes, Enlightenment philosophers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Kantian philosophy and German idealism;
d) History of Contemporary Philosophy, which covers various contemporary strands of philosophy, with an emphasis on Critical Theory, Aesthetics and Philosophy of culture.
PROFESSORS:
BRENO ANDRADE ZUPPOLINI
ENEIAS JUNIOR FORLIN
FÁTIMA REGINA RODRIGUES EVORA
INARA LUISA MARIN
LUCAS ANGIONI
MARCIO AUGUSTO DAMIN CUSTODIO
MARCOS SEVERINO NOBRE
MONIQUE FRAGELLI HULSHOF
TAISA HELENA PASCALE PALHARES
OSWALDO GIACOIA JUNIOR
RAFAEL RODRIGUES GARCIA
YARA ADARIO FRATESCHI
II. LOGIC
Description: This line is dedicated to the investigation and systematic analysis of logical systems from the perspective of contemporary formal philosophical logic in its plurality. This line includes the following segments:
a) Non-Classical Logics, dedicated to the investigation of the various conceptual aspects of paraconsistent, fuzzy, modal, intuitionistic logics, and other so-called “non-classical” logic systems, seeking to find interrelationships between different types of logics (using, for example, translations between logic systems), as well as the definition of appropriate proof systems and semantics; and
b) Formal Semantics, dedicated to the investigation and proposal of formal semantics such as semantics of bivalences, possible worlds, probabilistic and possibilistic semantics, logical matrices and twist structures. Within this segment, the study and development of non-deterministic semantics stands out, especially through non-deterministic matrices and swap structures, the latter introduced by M. Coniglio and W. Carnielli. These studies include algebraic aspects and category theory. One of the aims of developing general semantics is to apply it to the theory of combinations between logics.
PROFESSORS:
FABIO MAIA BERTATO
ÍTALA MARIA LOFFREDO D’OTTAVIANO
JULIANA BUENO
MARCELO ESTEBAN CONIGLIO
MARCO ANTONIO CARON RUFFINO
WALTER ALEXANDRE CARNIELLI
III. ETHICAL-POLITICAL THOUGHT
Description: This line of research is dedicated to the systematic investigation of classical and contemporary themes in ethics and political philosophy. This line covers the following areas:
a) The relationship between ethics and politics from the perspective of updating classical themes in the contemporary debate, with a relevant historical-philosophical study for reflection on the demands and problems of the present;
b) Theories of Democracy, the State and Law, from different perspectives and theoretical matrices, with an emphasis on Critical Theory and the republican, liberal, socialist and democratic strands (representative, participatory, deliberative and radical democracy) and their most prominent representatives in modern and contemporary times.
c) Feminist Theories, focusing on the relationship between Ethics and Politics based on the diagnosis of the exclusion of women from the public sphere and the demand for women's rights;
d) Critical Race Theory, focusing on the relationship between Ethics and Politics based on the diagnosis of the exclusion of black people from the public sphere and the demand for their rights, as elaborated by contemporary black philosophers.
PROFESSORS:
JEANNE MARIE GAGNEBIN DE BONS
JOAO CARLOS KFOURI QUARTIM DE MORAES
MARCOS SEVERINO NOBRE
MONIQUE FRAGELLI HULSHOF
RAFAEL RODRIGUES GARCIA
TAISA HELENA PASCALE PALHARES
YARA ADARIO FRATESCHI
IV. THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND LANGUAGE
Description: Dedicated to approaching classic themes in the theory of knowledge and to philosophical, methodological and historical reflection on science and language, this line covers the following segments:
a) Philosophy of Language, dedicated to the analysis of meaning and its epistemic and metaphysical developments, as well as to the pragmatic aspects of communication;
b) Philosophy of Psychology and Psychoanalysis, which investigates the explanatory models of conceptual genesis and the strategies of grounding in psychology and psychoanalysis;
c) Theory of Knowledge, seeks to investigate the philosophical reflections that have been made throughout the history of philosophy on the nature of knowledge, its sources, its limits, and above all, its validity and means of justification;
d) Philosophy of Science, investigates the nature of scientific knowledge, its foundations and implications; among the issues addressed are: genesis and justification of scientific theories; rationality and progress of science; scientific realism and anti-realism; scientific explanations; the interface of the philosophy of science with the history of science; conceptual and theoretical problems relating to the foundations of physical theories; social and ethical aspects of scientific activity; and finally,
e) History of the Philosophy of Nature, which is designed to investigate fundamental themes of historical reflection on the philosophy of nature, from Aristotle to the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, passing through the reception and transformation of Aristotelian thought in the Middle and Modern Ages.
DOCENTES:
DANIEL OMAR PEREZ
FÁTIMA REGINA RODRIGUES EVORA
INARA LUISA MARIN
LUIZ BENEDICTO LACERDA ORLANDI
MARCO ANTONIO CARON RUFFINO
MARCIO AUGUSTO DAMIN CUSTODIO
SILVIO SENO CHIBENI
ZELJKO LOPARIC