Major Figures in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy

Catalog description

Close study of a major figure in nineteenth-century philosophy through one central text or several important texts. PHIL 563 Major Figures in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (3 per semester/maximum of 12) This course provides an intensive examination of one major figure in nineteenth-century philosophy, such as Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, Georg Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Auguste Comte, William James, Karl Marx, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Regardless of the figure selected, the course focuses on one major text written by that figure (such as in the case of Hegel the Phenomenology of Spirit or in the case of Schopenhauer The World as Will and Representation) or on two complementary texts by a major figure (for example, Schelling's First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature and his The Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature or Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals). Possible topics covered in relation to the figure selected would include as appropriate to the figure: knowledge; reason; language; subjectivity; logic; nature and spirit; dialectics; ideology; philosophy of history; religion; truth; ethics; aesthetics; and genealogy. The students will also be introduced to the major secondary works written about this author and the controversies they have generated. The course content will vary, dependent upon the instructor.