Online Philosophy Tutor Matteo Johannes

A former teacher at the Istituto Europeo of Florence (Italy), I’ve presented my research and lectured across Australia, Poland, Canada, and Belgium. I’m now an Adjunct Instructor at the Lorenzo de' Medici International Institute of Florence (Italy), where I teach (in English) the undergraduate course ‘The Pursuit of Happiness: Cultivating Well-Being in Difficult Times’ (PHI220F). Under this heading, this course explores the most influential theories of happiness from antiquity to contemporaneity, with a special emphasis on the key eudemonistic theories of the Western canon: Plato, Aristotle and Epictetus.

My early research interest was concentrated on American thought: especially, Dewey’s experiential pragmatism, and Thoreau and Emerson's transcendentalism. A former member of the Thoreau Society of Concord, I was eventually introduced to Pierre Hadot's and Michel Foucault’s works on ancient spirituality, which now constitute the central axis of all my investigations in the history of philosophy. While I specialized in ancient philosophy and have expertise in medieval philosophy, my interest has never been limited to any of these. As a matter of fact, I have a solid preparation in the entire history of Western philosophy, from the pre-Socratics all the way up to 20th-century continental philosophies such as phenomenology, existentialism, and post-structuralism.