Major Figures in Twentieth-Century Philosophy

Catalog description

Close study of a major figure in twentieth-century philosophy by means of one central text or several important texts. PHIL 564 Major Figures in Twentieth-Century Philosophy (3 per semester/maximum of 12) The course aims to provide students with a "building block" in their knowledge of the history of philosophy. That is, the students will achieve an expert's understanding of the central ideas of one figure in twentieth-century philosophy. On this basis, students will be able to develop a comprehensive understanding of the figure's entire corpus and complete range of ideas. Moreover, students will be able to develop a comprehensive understanding of the historical period. There are many possible figures for this course: Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Alain Badiou, John Dewey, Jurgen Habermas, Rudolf Carnap, Wilfred Sellars, W. V. O. Quine, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty. In relation to Husserl, for example, students will master the problems (relativism and skepticism) to which phenomenology is responding; the phenomenological method (the epoche, the reductions, eidetic variation); and how the transcendental position of phenomenology at once responds to the question of knowledge and to the question of being. This knowledge will allow students to develop an understanding of the phenomenology's crucial role in the development of twentieth-century philosophy, influencing not only existentialism, structuralism, and post-structuralism, but also analytic philosophy. In relation to Merleau-Ponty, for example, students will learn how embodied perception attempts to respond to the traditional problem of mind-body dualism. This knowledge will allow students to develop an understanding not only of Merleau-Ponty's view of language but also his view of politics. From this developed understanding of Merleau-Ponty, students will be able to understand how Merleau-Ponty differs from Bergson, Merleau-Ponty's predecessor, from Sartre, Merleau-Ponty's contemporary, and from Foucault, Merleau-Ponty's inheritor. The course content will vary, dependent upon the instructor.