2013-2014 Philosophy Courses

The relationship between knowledge and power has been a central concern throughout the Western philosophical tradition. In this seminar, we will study two key texts of the tradition, Plato’s Republic in the fall semester and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil in the spring. While aiming to grasp each text as a whole and in all of its complexity, we will pay special attention to its understanding of the nature of knowledge, as well as its conception of how life in society is best organized. In this way, fundamental branches of philosophical enquiry —metaphysics, epistemology, and political philosophy—will be illuminated by way of their history. Plato’s examination of knowledge and power led him to hold that they must be fused in a society, while Nietzsche undertook a radical subversion of the tradition—aiming to reveal that knowledge is power in a different guise. We are still living out the complex consequences, both intellectual and political, of Nietzsche’s subversive project. As the course unfolds, the extraordinary breadth and depth of the two philosophers’ questioning and the diversity of their responses will lead us to reflect on the structure of philosophical thinking and its continuing importance in shaping the culture and politics of our present. 

In this course, we will consider what language tells us about the nature of religious experience, as well as what religious experience tells us about the nature of language. Particular attention will be paid to the idea that certain religious experiences are said to be “beyond the limits of language.” The word used to describe this in the case of Western mysticism is “apophatic.” Interestingly, many Western mystics wrote at great length about their experiences—but by using various literary devices to “unsay” what they had just said. The Zen koan tradition is also apophatic in some sense but uses what appears to be paradox to “unsay” what is being said. We will look at the uses of language in these two traditions, with attention to a distinction between what Wittgenstein called “describing” and “expressing”—a distinction also found in the work of the great Zen philosopher mystic, Eihei Dogen. We will also consider the nature of prayer and mantra, the Biblical notion that God “speaks,” the uses of metaphor and analogy in religious discourse, the connection between language and creation, and the Western notion of the “Logos” or “Word,” all of which can be topics for conference work. Readings will be from Herrigel, Buber, Panikkar, Plotinus, Sells, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, among others.

Intermediate. Open to sophomores and above.

One of philosophy’s abiding preoccupations is the nature of human knowledge. This will be the focus of our seminar, as we study Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit in the fall semester and, in the spring, turn to one among the following later thinkers: Kierkegaard, Marx, Zilberman, Heidegger. The Phenomenology is an extraordinary, difficult, immensely exciting, deeply influential text; we will examine both the authority and the problems Hegel’s philosophical construction posed for his successors. One important reason to study Hegel’s thought is its pervasive influence on the horizon of contemporary debates on issues of knowledge and diversity, insofar as these debates have been lastingly defined by Hegel’s heirs and ciritcs. In our reading of the Phenomenology and the texts that follow, we will aim not only to grasp the significance and the rich legacy of Hegel’s philosophical enterprise, but also to articulate the ways in which the plurality of philosophical constructions is itself a problem for philosophical reflection on the nature of human knowledge. 

In his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Kant says, “I freely confess that it was the objection of David Hume that first, many years ago, interrupted my dogmatic slumber.” Kant clearly intended this declaration as a clue to the meaning of his Critique of Pure Reason and his whole philosophy, but what did he mean by it? We shall investigate this question by reading selections from the early writings of Kant; from the Metaphysics of Alexander Baumgarten, a prime example of dogmatic metaphysics, which Kant used to teach his classes in metaphysics; from Hume’s Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding; from the Prolegomena; and, if time permits, from the Critique itself. 

This course will be devoted to a careful reading of a small number of texts from a major figure in ancient philosophy. The goal of the course is twofold: First, it is designed to acquaint students with one of the seminal figures of our tradition in more than a superficial way, forcing us to slow our usual pace of reading and to read almost painfully carefully with a view to understanding the thinker as he wrote and as he understood himself and not as a stage in an historical development. Second, the course will introduce and encourage this kind of careful reading. The text for Fall 2013 will be Plato’s Timaeus.

This course will be devoted to a careful reading of a small number of texts from a major figure in ancient philosophy. The goal of the course is twofold: First, it is designed to acquaint students with one of the seminal figures of our tradition in more than a superficial way, forcing us to slow our usual pace of reading and to read almost painfully carefully with a view to understanding the thinker as he wrote and as he understood himself and not as a stage in an historical development. Second, the course will introduce and encourage this kind of careful reading. The text for Spring 2014 will be Aristotle’s Physics.