STEFANO VELOTTI

Second Semester

Bachelor’s Degree Programme – 12/6 ECTS, Second Semester 2025–26

Course Title: Kant and the Critical Foundation of Modern Aesthetics

Course Codes:

• 33525 Philosophy L-5 R
• 33529 Literature, Music and Performing Arts L-10 R
• 33522 Historical-Artistic Studies L-1

Lecturer: Stefano Velotti
Email: stefano.velotti@uniroma1.it
Office: Villa Mirafiori, Room 202a
Academic Year: 2025/2026
Course Period: February 26, 2026 – May 27, 2026
Credits: 12 ECTS / 6 ECTS (LMS only)

Classroom (Google Classroom):
https://classroom.google.com/c/MjE5OTU4NTExMTda?cjc=be7vlt26

Office Hours

Every Friday from February 27 to May 22, 14:45–16:00, Room 202a, Villa Mirafiori (no appointment required).
Exceptions: April 3, April 10, May 1, May 8.
Appointments may also be arranged via email.

Beginning of Classes

Thursday, February 26, 2026, Aula III, Villa Mirafiori
Schedule and Classrooms

• Wednesday: 10:00–12:00, Aula XIII
• Thursday: 12:00–14:00, Aula III
• Friday: 12:00–14:00, Aula XIII
• Friday: 16:00–18:00, Aula I

Course Description

Aesthetics emerged in Europe during the eighteenth century (“the age of criticism”) and found its fundamental text in Critique of the Power of Judgment by Immanuel Kant.
The course primarily aims to provide an analytical reading of the entire first part of the work, the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, set against the intellectual debates of Kant’s time. Following an introduction to the main contemporary philosophical positions, the course will offer an overview of Kant’s philosophical development in order to clarify the reasons that led him to write his third critical work, Critique of the Power of Judgment, whose detailed textual analysis constitutes the main objective of the course.
This work has had an influence that is difficult to overestimate—not only on the aesthetic thought of Kant’s contemporaries and on German Idealism, but on the entire philosophical tradition up to the present day. The text is indispensable not only for reflections on taste, art, creativity, beauty, and the sublime, but more broadly for understanding the meaning of experience itself. Contemporary aesthetic, epistemological, and ethico-political thought continues to revisit Kant’s work, whose implications remain productive and seemingly inexhaustible.
In addition to Kant’s text, students are required to study one book chosen from the provided reading list, all of which will be presented and discussed during the Friday class (12:00–14:00), unless otherwise indicated.

Note:
The course as a whole awards 12 ECTS.
For students enrolled in the LMS programme, the course awards 6 ECTS and includes only selected parts of Kant’s text together with one book of choice (see Exam Readings).

Assessment Method
Assessment consists of a final oral examination.
The oral exam will begin with a detailed commentary on passages selected by the student and will evaluate the student’s ability to:

• conduct an in-depth textual analysis from both a technical (terminological and conceptual) perspective,
• reformulate the content using non-technical language,
• connect the passage to the broader philosophical framework of the authors studied

From the discussion of the selected passage, the examination will extend to the entire syllabus.
To pass the exam, students must demonstrate:

1. Knowledge of the content of the assigned texts;
2. The ability to present them clearly, with correct mastery of the author’s specialized terminology;
3. The ability to identify and critically discuss the main theoretical issues;
4. The ability to develop independent arguments related to the course topics.
5. Fulfilment of points 1 and 2 is a necessary condition for passing the exam.

Grades higher than 27/30 will be awarded to students whose performance satisfies all four criteria.

TESTI ADOTTATI
- Testo Obbligatorio
Esame da 12 CFU: Immanuel Kant, Critica della facoltà di giudizio, Einaudi, Torino 1999 (e successive ristampe). Solo le seguenti parti: Prefazione di Kant; Introduzione di Kant (§§ I-IX); §§ 1-60.
Esame da 6 CFU (per LMS): Immanuel Kant, Critica della facoltà di giudizio, Einaudi, Torino 1999 (e successive ristampe). Solo le seguenti parti: Prefazione di Kant; Introduzione di Kant (§§ I-IX); §§ 1-5; §§ 6, 8-9; §§ 10-13; 15-16; §§ 18-22; §§ 32-38; §40; §§ 43-46; § 49-50; §§ 55-56 comprese Nota I e Nota II; §59.

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First Semester
Classes begin: Thursday, October 2
Class schedule: Monday 6:00-8:00 p.m. classroom XIII; Thursday 6:00-8:00 p.m. classroom XIII

https://classroom.google.com/c/MjM1NTIyNTI0MzZa?cjc=ghrue5gc

Office hours in person, room 202 a (from October 2 to December 18, 2025) Thursday 4:45-6:00 p.m.

Aesthetic experience, social actions, and the construction of common sense.
Artworks, festivals, performances, raves, heterotopias: this course, in seminar format, aims to explore certain forms of social action characterized by traits typically associated with aesthetic experience, which usually alter the spatial and/or temporal perception of everyday life. Regarding space in particular, we will analyze and discuss Michel Foucault's texts dedicated to "other spaces," to "heterotopias" ("real places [...] that constitute a sort of counter-places, kinds of utopias effectively realized in which [...] all the other real places found within the culture are simultaneously represented, contested, and subverted"). Foucault himself connects heterotopias to "heterochronies," where, along with space, time is suspended or configured in a peculiar manner, as happens precisely in festivals (on which we will read texts by Aldo Capitini, Furio Jesi, H.G. Gadamer, and others), but also in certain artistic performances (for example, those by Tehching Hsieh, all lasting one year) and in rave parties (on which we will analyze, among others, texts by McKenzie Wark).
The questions that will be raised regarding these phenomena concern their conditions of possibility, their structure, their meaning, their potential attainability and relevance in our time, the role they can play in shifting some coordinates of the dominant common sense, their strength and their limits (a notion, that of "common sense," repeatedly questioned by philosophy, and particularly by Kant, and which here will be revisited through reading the text developed by the “Forum Disuguaglianze e diversità”, Squarci. L’arte nella contesa per il senso comune). These questions are linked to the role of social control, self-control, and their interweaving with the partial but essential dimension of uncontrollability that characterizes human experience and which emerges prominently in these phenomena, making itself visible.

Given the seminar character of the course, students will be invited to give a class presentation (20' approx.) on a topic relevant to the issues analyzed. The presentation will constitute 30% of the final evaluation and will serve to test the ideas that will be developed in the written paper, on which the remaining 70% of the evaluation will be based.
Non-attending students will only be evaluated on the written paper.
The paper (20.000-25.000 characters, spaces included) will focus on the analysis and critical assessment of one or more texts covered in the course. The topic of the paper must be agreed with the teacher on the student's proposal and must be delivered in definitive form at least two weeks before the exam.

ESEMPI DI DOMANDE E/O ESERCIZI FREQUENTI
Since there is no oral exam or written exam with predefined questions, it is not possible to provide examples of questions. However, it should be emphasized that students will need to propose, during the course of the seminar, topics for their oral presentation (in class) drawing inspiration from the themes discussed based on the course texts. This presentation may serve as the basis for writing the final paper.
Non-attending students must submit to the instructor, via email or in person, the outline of the topic they intend to address.

Testi adottati
The texts will be taken from the following books. In some cases, pdfs of the relevant pages will be provided
Capitini, Aldo Il potere di tutti, La nuova Italia, Firenze 1969, con un’introduzione di N. Bobbio.
Barca, F. e Zabatino, A. (eds.), Squarci. L’arte nella contesa per il senso commune, Fondazione Feltrinelli, Milano 2025.
Foucault, Michel, Eterotopia (1967), Mimesis, Milano 2018.
Gadamer, Hans Georg, L’attualità del bello. L’arte come gioco, simbolo, festa, (1975) Marietti, Bologna 2021.
Jesi, Furio, ll tempo della festa(1977), Nottetempo, Milano 2023.
Velotti, Stefano, Sotto la soglia del controllo, Laterza, Roma Bari 2024.
Wark, Mckenzie, Raving, Nero, Roma 2023.

Frontal teaching of the texts and topics covered. Oral presentations by the participants.Seminar discussion of the topics covered with possible “flipped classroom” experiments.
Attending the course is highly recommended

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EXAMS
 
22/04 (straordinario)
10/06
26/06
15/07
10/09
25/09
11/11 (straordinario)

2027
13/01 (2026-27)