Boston-Area Consortium for Kant and 19th Century German Philosophy

In this introductory course, Marxism will be treated mainly as a conceptual framework for understanding history and society (including economy, politics and culture), and also as a critique of capitalism and a program of transforming the capitalist society for human emancipation, with an analysis of both its philosophical and ethical presuppositions and its conceptions of a post-capitalist society. The evolution of its theoretical bases, through its three stages (classical Marxism of Marx and Engels; the Soviet orthodoxy and its critics; and contemporary Marxisms) will be critically examined, and its practical (political, economic and cultural) impacts on the historical course since its inception briefly outlined.

An intensive study of Nietzsche’s philosophical thought. Topics to be addressed may include Nietzsche’s claim that modern morality is dangerous; that the death of God brings with it the possibility of the “last man”; that modern culture exhibits or leads to nihilism; that we have lost “higher values”; that all organisms manifest a “will to power”; that the will to truth is an expression of the ascetic ideal; that we need a “revaluation of all values”; that we must affirm the eternal recurrence of our lives; and that we have a superficial understanding of the nature of happiness. Readings will include a combination of primary and secondary sources.

The course covers two fundamental aspects of Kant’s critical philosophy. The first is the architectonic of Kant’s system of transcendental philosophy, which includes not only the three Critiques but also his metaphysics of nature and his metaphysics of morals. The second aspect concerns Kant’s conception of the history of pure reason and the role of his critical philosophy in this history. These analyses will highlight a tension within Kant’s thought between the claim to realize definitive systems and the critique that implies overcoming any historically given system.

In this course, we will read and discuss Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit from the 1830 Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences in Outline. We will proceed by situating Hegel’s concept ofGeist(spirit) in its own philosophical and historical context. Then, we will concentrate on the main themes of Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, namely anthropology, phenomenology (a shorter and different version than the 1807Phenomenology of Spirit), and psychology. Special attention will be given to Hegel’s account of feeling, thinking, and acting, drawing –where appropriate– on contemporary resources and literature

An introduction to the main questions of existentialist philosophy from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. The major issues dealt with include freedom and determinism, desire and death, anxiety and the search for the absolute.

In 1957, Karl Jaspers published Die groen Philosophen, a work collecting his interpretation of some of the foremost thinkers of all time. The book was translated into English in 1962 under the title The Great Philosophers, edited by Hannah Arendt. Taking this work as a starting point, but also referring to other writings by Jaspers, the seminar aims to analyze the Jaspersian interpretation of the thought of the following authors: Plato, Plotinus, Agustin, Anselm, Cusano, Descartes, and Spinoza. The intent is, moreover, to highlight the influence of these thinkers on Karl Jaspers’ philosophy of existence and metaphysics.

The course aims to explore the notion of the tragic as a philosophical concept. While ancient tragedy is characterized by the compassion aroused by the suffering of the tragic hero and the fear aroused by tragic theology, the idea of a wicked god disappears quite early. In contemporaryphilosophy, the notion of the tragic will be increasingly linked to the drama of freedom, the finitude and absurdity of the human condition, and the pessimistic worldview. The course will take place in the form of a seminar and will especially deal with thephilosophyof the 20thCentury. The following authors (and texts) will be read: Unamuno (The Tragic Sense ofLife), Scheler (On the Tragic), Camus (“On the Future of Tragedy”, The Myth of SisyphusandThe Rebel), Benjamin (The Origin of German Tragic Drama), C. Schmitt (Hamlet or Hecuba: The Intrusion of Time into the Play), Jaspers (Tragedy is not enough), Ricur (“The Wicked God and the Tragic Vision of Existence”).

This course approaches the theme of suffering as a challenge to phenomenology and Christian theology. Suffering is distinguished from pain, and explored in relation to various modes of meaning-giving. Extended attention is given to the possibility of meaningless suffering, with reference to medical literature and the testimony of victims of the Shoah. The theme of meaningless suffering resists phenomenological interpretation and challenges Christian theodicy. Authors studied will include the book of Job, Augustine, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Husserl, Levinas, and P. Levi.

The course will deal with the social-political writings of Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, and others.