Introduction to Continental Philosophy: Self, Society, Science

Catalog description

In this course, we will read some of the most influential European philosophers of the 20th and late 19th centuries, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Our aim will be to get a general understanding of the major themes and ideas of these enduringly influential figures, as well as to see how we might apply their ideas in our own lives. To structure our studies, we will concentrate on questions about the self and our freedom: are there natural laws of the mind, or of societies? Are we who we choose to be, or who we are born to be? Can science help answer these questions, or are they beyond its limits? In taking up these questions, we will join one of the most exciting and extensively studied philosophical conversations of the last hundred years.