Philosophy (MsC/Ph.D)

Philosophy (MSc/PhD)

Overview

The mission of the Unisinos Graduate Philosophy Program is to form professionals who are able to examine, discuss and contribute to both contemporary and classical philosophical problems . Our aim is to have a long lasting impact on the philosophical debate at regional, national and international level. Our main lines of research are : Ethical Systems; Epistemology, Language and Philosophy of Science; Social and Political Philosophy. The program maintains a partnership with the School of Philosophy of the Università degli Studi di Padova and the Programme de doctorat en philosophie de l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) and stands out for its academic excellence at regional and national level. We aim to expand and consolidate our cooperation with national and international Universities through scientific meetings and research groups, in order to maintain and further develop our academic excellence.

Emphasis:

Philosophy

Areas of Study

Ethical Systems
In this line of research, classic themes on Ethics and the contemporary problems of Metaethics and Applied Ethics are investigated. Furthermore, central issues about the rationale for the is–ought problem, the justification of the first principles, and the relations between ethics and culture. Besides, in the field of practical philosophy, it attempts to establish the interdisciplinary dialog, a current urgent topic, with other areas of knowledge and human activity.

Language, Rationality, and the Discourse of Science
This line of research deals with philosophical issues understood under these thematic frames of reference, meeting the demands posed by the contemporary philosophical problematization in questioning their mutual relations and in its necessary interface with science in the construction of reality. Therefore, it starts from the exploration of language, rationality, the discourse of science in its several dimensions, exploring the scopes and the limits of the conceptions involved, besides their inter-relations, in courses that contemplate the different philosophical aspects involved: logical, ethical, epistemological, and ontological.

Social and Political Philosophy
The tension that articulates theory and practice is studied in this line of research, aiming and building theoretical frames of reference to reflect upon relevant social and political issues. It is our intention to promote a productive, emancipatory, and transdisciplinary dialog with other areas, such as Social Sciences, Law, History, Psychology, and Education. Therefore, the research on the current ethical, political, and social challenges is emphasized: globalization of economics, unidimensional massification of technology and culture, unidirectionality of world politics, and technoculture. Moreover, ideology, power, Human Rights, theories of History, and theories of Justice as investigated.

Faculty Back to menu

Head of Program

Luiz Rohden
PhD in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Hermeneutic-Phenomenological tradition and its re-reading of Plato from the standpoint of dialectics and metaphysics, Literature, Language, Games, and Arts.

E-mail: rohden@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Academic Staff

Adriano Naves de Brito
PhD in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Hume, Kant, Tugendhat, and Philosophy of Language, with special attention to the theories of reference. He currently conducts research on normativity and values from a naturalist and evolutionary perspective in the intersection with psychology, cognitive sciences, and biology.
E-mail: brito@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Alfredo Santiago Culleton
PhD in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: History of Pre-Modern Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Latin-American Scholastic Philosophy, and Philosophy of Law and Economics.
E-mail: culleton@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Castor Marí Martin Bartolomé Ruiz
PhD in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Ethics, practical philosophy from the perspective of critical philosophy, and alterity, Subjectivity, Alterity, Truth, (bio)power, and Theories of justice in dialog with modern and contemporary authors.
E-mail: castor@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Denis Coitinho
PhD in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Ethics and Political Philosophy, with emphasis for the themes: practical rationality, normativity and justification, theories of justice and virtues, neo-contractualist ethics.
E-mail: deniscs@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Gabriel Ferreira
Areas of Interest: 19th Century Philosophy, Metaphysics, History of Late Modern and Contemporary Philosophy.
E-mail: gabrielferreira@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Inácio Helfer
PhD. in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Political philosophy in the 18th and 19th centuries' classical thinkers of German philosophy (Kant, Hegel, and Marx) and their influence in the contemporary debate between communitarians (especially Charles Taylor) and liberals (John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin).
E-mail: helfer@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Marcelo Fernandes de Aquino
PhD. in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Dialectics, ethics, language, system, logic, metaphysical foundation of ethics in modern and contemporary philosophy.
E-mail: aquino@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Marco Antonio Oliveira de Azevedo
PhD. in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of Medicine, concepts of duty and practical reason, biomedical ethics and neuroethics, and human improvement.
E-mail: marcooa@unisinos.br Currículo Lattes

Nicola Claudio Salvatore
PhD. in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Epistemology (with particular focus on Ancient and Contemporary Skepticism, Moral Epistemology, Religious Epistemology, Social and Political Epistemology); Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Language ( with particular focus on the "Second Wittgenstein" and the contemporary debate on Wittgenstein´s "On Certainty").
E-mail: ncsalvatore@unisinos.br Currículo Lattes

Polyana Cristina Tidre
PNPD CAPES
PhD in Philosophy.
Currículo Lattes

Sofia Inês Albornoz Stein
PhD in Philosophy.
Areas of Interest: Semantics, Ontology, Cognitive sciences, Theories of meaning and representation, Theories of perception, Human Mind and Behavior.
E-mail: sofiai@unisinos.br
Currículo Lattes

Professor Emeritus

Carlos Roberto Velho Cirne-Lima
PhD Philosophy.
Currículo Lattes

Curricular Structure for the Master's Degree Program Back to menu

Master's Degree

The master's degree consists of 30 credits, distributed as follows: two credits equivalent to the Thesis Seminar; Twenty credits equivalent to courses, of which at least 8 (eight) in courses in the Line of Research students and their advisor professors are associated with; one credit related to a publication (or acceptance to publication) in an area-related journal and on paper presentation in an area-related event; five credits related to the thesis approval.

Courses - Areas of Study: Ethical Systems
- Is–ought Genesis and Structure (4 credits)
- The Great Ethical Systems (4 credits)
- Ethics and Culture (4 credits) » Ethics and History (4 credits)
- Bioethics (4 credits) » Environmental Ethics (4 credits)

Courses - Areas of Study: Language, Rationality, and the Discourse of Science
- Analytics of Language (4 credits)
- Argumentation Theory (4 credits)
- Phenomenology and Hermeneutics (4 credits)
- Ontology and Language (4 credits)
- Discourse of Science (4 credits)
- Rationality of Science (4 credits)

Courses - Areas of Study: Social and Political Philosophy
- Philosophy and Society (4 credits)
- Philosophy and Politics (4 credits)
- Philosophy and Law (4 credits)
- Philosophy and History (4 credits)
- Theories of Justice (4 credits)
- Theories of the Subject (4 credits)

Common Courses IN THE Areas of Study:
- Thesis Seminar (2 credits)
- Special Topics 1 (1 credit)
- Special Topics 2 (2 credits)

Doctoral Degree

The Doctoral Degree consists of 40 credits, distributed as follows: Eight credits in courses in the Line of Research students are associated with; at least 4 (four) with their advisor professor; Four credits in Advanced Seminar; Two credits related to two publications (or acceptances to publication) in area-related journals; Two credits related to two paper presentations in area-related events; Four credits (60h) related to the participation in events organized by the Program; Twenty credits related to the dissertation approval.

Courses - Areas of Study: Ethical Systems
- Is–ought Genesis and Structure (4 credits)
- The Great Ethical Systems (4 credits)
- Ethics and Culture (4 credits)
- Ethics and History (4 credits)
- Bioethics (4 credits)
- Environmental Ethics (4 credits)

Common Courses IN THE Areas of Study:
- Advanced Seminar (2 credits)
- Special Topics 1 (1 credit)
- Special Topics 2 (2 credits)

Research Groups Back to menu

Research Group Kierkegaard´s Works (leader: Alvaro Luiz Montenegro Valls)
The Research Group on the” Kierkegaard´s Works” brings together researchers who, in Brazil and in neighboring countries, seek to understand the work of the Danish thinker, both in the context of the history of philosophy of the 19th century and in dialogue with a wide range of disciplines such as psychology, sociology, theology and literature. The Group aims to read Kierkegaard´s texts in Danish and in other international languages and to produce scholarly translations of the works of the Danish thinker

Research Group Chiron: Ethics, Language and Human Nature (leader: Adriano Naves de Brito)
The group is concerned with the philosophical investigation of morality from a naturalized perspective; that is to say, an analysis of morality compatible with the results of empirical research on human behavior. The analysis of moral language, associated with evolution and the idea of a human moral nature, plays a central role in the work of the group . With regard to the history of philosophy, the group studies classic works of modern and contemporary authors such as Hume, Kant, Tugendhat, Dennett and Patricia Churchland. Since 2015, with the installation of the Laboratory of Cognitive Studies in Unisinos Philosophy, the group has started a program of studies in cognitive sciences applied to ethics and works with experiments with the laboratory's EEG.

Research Group: Nietzsche, conscience and culture. (Leader: Adilson Felicio Feiler)
The group is dedicated to the study of Nietzschean literature and to the investigation of the themes of bad conscience and resentment, in order to describe and propose an ethics of vital plenitude in the context of Nietzsche´s Trans-valuation of Will . Moreover, following Nietzsche´s reflections , the group investigates a number of subjects such as institution, morals and culture.

Research Project Scholastica colonialis (Leaders: Alfredo Culleton UNISINOS and Roberto Pich PUCRS)
The group is the local branch of the project Scholastica colonialis (www.scholasticacolinialis.com). This international project is financed by CAPES / PGCI and CAPES / FCT.
This research involves the following universities: UNISINOS, PUCRS, Catholic University of Peru, Catholic University of Chile, the University of Porto and is supported by the Société Internationale pour L'Étude de La Philosophie Mediévale and the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame (USA). The aim of the project is to rescue, catalog and study Latin American philosophical texts from the 16th and 17th centuries. The group meets regularly and promotes Paleography courses and the reading of original Latin texts. The group brings together professors and students from various institutions (UNISINOS, PUCRS, UFRGS) and PPGs (Philosophy and History). More recently, the group has joined the project De restitutione: The iberian school of peace and the idea of justice in the occupation of America (16th century) , developed under the leadership of professor Pedro Calafate and financed by FCT.

Research Group: Ethics, Biopolitics and Alterity (leader: Castor M.M. Bartolomé Ruiz)
The Group studies topics related to the law and the use of new technologies and the paradox of human life as a resource. The group's research aims to address the legitimacy of contemporary “technologies of life control “ and confront them with the concept of human otherness, which imposes itself as an ethical criterion for life. In this epistemic context, ethics becomes a practice of constituting subjectivity through which the subjects, in addition to resisting the devices of control , can constitute themselves as historical subjects through their relationship with the other.

Research Group: “Ethics and Contemporary Political Philosophy” (leader: Denis Coitinho da Silveira)
The group Ethics and Contemporary Political Philosophy is focused on the investigation of a number of ethical and political problems such as the reflection on justification, normativity, practical rationality, deliberation, responsibility, and legitimization.. This research is based on contemporary theories of ethics and political philosophy, especially on neo-contractualism, discursive theory of law, theories of justice, virtue ethics, naturalism, coherence theory and expressivism, etc. The group is formed by professors and researchers of PPGs from UNISINOS, UFPel, UFSC, UERJ, UFRJ, UFMG and organizes a biannual Ethics and Contemporary Political Philosophy, which had its first edition in 2014 , at Unisinos.

Research Group: Political philosophy, normativity and dialectic (leader: Inácio Helfer)
The group investigates aspects of classic German philosophers of the 18th and 19th century (Kant, Hegel and Marx) and their influence on the contemporary debate between communitarians (Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel and Michael Walzer) and liberals (John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel and TM Scanlon). Among our fields of inquiry we devote special interest to the following topics : the political relation between particular and general, legal normativity, ethics and morality, political justice, political recognition, the unsociable sociability of man, political contractualism and the procedural dynamics of history. Our Rector, Prof. Dr. Fr. Marcelo Aquino, is part of the research group.

Research Group: Hermeneutics and/in Philosophy and Literature (leader: Luiz Rohden)
The research group investigates themes and issues related to the hermeneutic tradition , in dialogue with philosophy and literature from a dialectical point of view. The group is informed by Gadamer´s hermeneutic tradition - read thru the lenses of Heidegger and Ricoeur - with the scope of contributing to the reconfiguration of a dialectical metaphysics and an ethical proposal in light of Plato's thought and Aristotle's practical philosophy. The group aims both to defend a reading of Gadamer´s philosophy as a dialectic metaphysics and, more importantly, as a valid contribution to the current debate. Moreover, this project aims to elaborate a hermeneutical ethics informed by the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle and Kant. As part of our investigation, we aim to deepen the dialogue with national and international research groups in philosophy and in a number of areas such as the law, history and literature.

Research Group: Cognition and social minds: biological, semantic and cultural aspects (leader: Sofia Inês Albornoz Stein)
The group is informed by naturalized philosophy , hence stresses the importance of participating in the investigation of human cognition in dialogue with cognitive sciences and neuroscience. While these areas privilege the investigation of the mind and the brain, as meaning and cognitive content are integral to the process of intersubjective communication, we aim to show that the description of social and linguistic behavior should contribute to the understanding of human cognition. The group focus both on the collection, interpretation and use of empirical data produced at Unisinos LAFIC (Laboratory of Experimental Philosophy and Cognition Studies), and on the production of articles submitted to national and international journals of Philosophy, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences.
The general objective of the research group is to contribute to the study of human cognition, especially with regard to perceptual capacities and conceptual and moral judgment, with the aid of data resulting from empirical investigations. The already documented correlations between the components of ERP (Event Related Potential) and a number of cognitive processes (such as the N400 and semantic processing) constitute a new tool capable of testing and improving philosophical and linguistic hypotheses.

Research Group “Epistemology and Philosophy of Language” (leader, Nicola Claudio Salvatore)
The group investigates a number of contemporary issues in epistemology and Philosophy of Language. In particular, we are interested in the following themes: Pyrrhonian and Neo-Pyrrhonian Skepticism, Radical Skepticism, the Epistemology of of Religious Beliefs, The Problem of Epistemic Relativism , Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology and Philosophy of Language, epistemic and practical rationality, the Problem of testimony and the relation between Certainty and Knowledge.

Contact Back to menu

Department of the Graduate Program in Philosophy
Phone: +55 (51) 3590-8781
E-mail: ppgfilo@unisinos.br
Hours: Mondays to Fridays, 8 am to 8 pm
Location: Unisinos São Leopoldo Campus