The Graduate Program in Philosophy at the University of Caxias do Sul (PPGFIL-UCS) offers Master's and Doctorate courses. The training offered by the program covers the classic and contemporary issues of Practical Philosophy, an area of concentration that favors the study and philosophical research of practical problems, such as those related to the normative domains of ethics, politics, law, and social problems widely considered. In order to meet the demands required by this area of concentration, two are the research lines that make up the curricular structure of the PPGFIL-UCS: (i) Ethics and (ii) Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy. These lines not only have the educational and formative commitment that derives from the thematic scope of the program, but are intended for the interdisciplinary commitment required by the professional and socio-political demands of the present. Since the inauguration of the PPGFIL-UCS, its most distinctive rigorous mark in terms of research has been interdisciplinarity, which is why the program is intended to offer training to professionals and students specializing in different areas of knowledge.
The Ethics Line comprises three research areas: Normative Ethics, Applied Ethics, and Metaethics. The study of these three philosophical dimensions of the ethical domain explores issues of both a speculative and practical nature. This reveals the formative commitment to the theoretical and social insertion of Practical Philosophy at the same time. The Political, Social, and Legal Philosophy Line, in turn, comprises three areas of investigation: Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy, and Legal Philosophy. The investigations of these three global areas of the domain of human actions seek to integrate methodological procedures that apprehend both the analytical specificity and the thematic connection of the fundamental concepts that structure the political, social, and legal experiences.
Since 2011, with the inauguration of the PPGFIL-UCS and its Master's course, the general goal of the philosophical education has been the presentation of theoretical tools, problematization of concepts, critical diagnoses of the present and dynamics of self-reflection about the place of Practical Philosophy in contemporary society for high-level researchers who are interested in facing the classic questions of the History of Philosophy and the contemporary problems that animate and contribute to the progress of Ethics. With the inauguration of the Doctorate course, in 2019, the PPGFIL-UCS consolidated its training tradition and expanded its areas of activity, integrating Political, Social, and Legal Philosophy.
The Master's Course welcomes candidates with higher education degrees in different areas of knowledge, as long as the research proposals are linked to the research lines. The Doctoral Course welcomes candidates with higher education degrees and master's degrees in different areas of knowledge, provided that the thesis proposals are linked to the research lines.
The Ethics Line comprises three research areas: Normative Ethics, Applied Ethics and Metaethics. In Normative Ethics, the object is formed by questions related to the foundation of morality analyzed from the three great ethical systems (virtue ethics, ethics of duty, and consequentialist ethics), as well as in the study of fundamental concepts, such as rules and norms, means and end, action and occasion, acts and activities, ability, free will, freedom, prescription, facts and acts, good, value and obligation, emotions and feelings, responsibility, otherness, benevolence, happiness, respect, justice, equity, friendship, will, compassion and others. In Applied Ethics, the object of research is technical and specific issues related to the domains of politics, law, society and the environment, education, religion, history, psychoanalysis, or other topics, such as corruption, tolerance, poverty, eugenics, abortion, euthanasia, death penalty, violence, family, war, etc. Finally, in Metaethics, the object of study are questions related to the ontological statute, the objective or subjective character of moral qualities, or the way in which they are accessible to us, which will be verified from the following axes in which the debate in the area has developed: Realism/Antirealism, Naturalism/Non-Naturalism, Descriptivism/Non-Descriptivism, and Cognitivism/Non-Cognitivism.
The Political, Social, and Legal Philosophy Line comprises three areas of investigation: Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy and Legal Philosophy. In Political Philosophy, the object is formed by questions related to classical political thought, the medieval conceptions of the organic character of the political body, contract theories, the Hegelian conception of the State and its critique by Marx, as well as those related to the analysis of concepts, such as State, power, obligation, representation, legitimacy, human rights, freedom, equality, justice, democracy, and its forms, totalitarianism, and socialism. In Social Philosophy, the object of research deals with human sociability in general, encompassing theories of action, coordination, and social cohesion, as well as the study and clarification of concepts such as the social division of labor, property, society civil, market, and social stratification. Finally, in Legal Philosophy, the object of study is questions related to the specificity of Law within the scope of the general theory of normativity, the foundations of validity and legitimacy of institutionalized legal orders, the relationship between natural and positive law, the foundations of the right to punish, theories of constituent power, the distinction between public and private orders, and the responsibility of law in relation to social justice.
Head: Evaldo Antônio Kuiava - eakuiava@ucs.br
Administrative Secretary: E-mail: ppgfil@ucs.br
Telephone: (54) 3218-2765