The idea behind this 400 course, an upper-level seminar, is that those IES students who already have a relatively solid background in philosophy might find a forum where they are able to study philosophy on a more advanced level than the one offered by the course “PH360 CROSS-CULTURAL PHILOSOPHY”. PH460 is “built upon” PH360 in the sense that, while all students in the seminar attend PH360 (meeting twice a week for two classroom-hours, i.e. 2x90 minutes), they are also offered an additional session, meeting once a week for two classroom hours (90 minutes). The main goal of the additional session, creating a real upper-level seminar atmosphere is to help students write a seminar paper of about 20 standard pages on a topic they are particularly interested in and/or they already have done some research on at their respective home universities.
The basic presupposition behind the course is as behind PH360: philosophy is an activity we “are unable to resist”: since we reflect on the events around us, on ourselves and on our actions, and since we are also able to reflect on that reflection, and so on, we are, in a certain sense, “always already in philosophy,” yet there are various ways of performing this reflection. Thus, we may even “feel at home” in philosophy. The course looks at philosophy not as something which can be “explained” (or contains “self-explanation”) across time but as a rich collection of questions and problems worth visiting again and again. The ultimate presupposition is that whether later a “professional” philosopher or not, each of us should develop a personal and unique philosophy of her or his own. The cross-cultural aspect of the course is highlighted by juxtaposing the so-called Continental (German-French) and the Analytic (British and American) traditions in philosophy throughout the semester. (A “field-trip”, guided by the instructor to Budapest will try to back up the inter-cultural atmosphere of the course as well.)
Prerequisites:
Recommended chiefly to those students who are philosophy majors at their respective home universities, but it will also be of interest to those with a philosophy minor, to religious studies and psychology majors, and even to those who already have some significant experience in philosophy. It is open to those who have a genuine interest in philosophy and would like to produce a serious and well-researched paper on a philosophical problem they find worth investigating in depth.
Additional student cost:
The field-trip to Budapest is optional and although IES contributes to the expenses with approximately 30 euros, about 60 euros for lodging, food etc., can be expected if one travels to Budapest for a weekend.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course, students should know that philosophy, comprehensive as it is, and claiming to be the “mother” of a great number of modern disciplines, has its own characteristic areas and reductions; students should be familiar with, and outline clearly, both orally, and in writing, the most significant areas of philosophical thinking, from the standpoint of our present situation; students should be able to distinguish between the two major traditions in Western philosophy: the “Continental” and the “Anglo-Saxon” one, and should also know that, in the past twenty years, they have started to seek not what would divide but what would connect them; students should acquire the most significant skills in philosophical argumentation in both traditions, they should be able to creatively contribute to a philosophical debate and should be able to write a philosophical argumentative research-essay, using the appropriate methods and style of reasoning.
Method of presentation:
Since the course is built upon the PH360 course, students in PH460 will be required to attend PH360, and meet with one another and the instructor for an additional session of 90 minutes for 10 weeks. This means that students in this course will be required to write the Midterm and Final of PH360 as well but they will also be working on a roughly 20 page-long research essay. PH360 is composed of 20 ninety minute-long meetings; each 90-minute-long class is concerned with two major activities: there is a discussion of the piece under the heading Compulsory reading, and for each meeting 5 important philosophical concepts (under the heading Concepts to be explained and discussed) related to the main topic of the week, is given as well; part of the class is devoted to the explanation of the significance and the various possible interpretations of these concepts. The concepts – 100 all together, serving as a “basic vocabulary” for the course – are listed, together with the material to be read, in the relevant sections of the “Course content and schedule” (please see below); the compulsory readings will be available through Moodle. The course pays careful attention to the intercultural aspects of the ideas under discussion, with special reference to the immediate context: Vienna, a town famous for forming and shaping philosophical ideas, especially in the 20th century. PH360 sometimes uses the lecture-format, primarily at the beginning of the term, but does everything to engage students in genuine philosophical discussions and debates throughout the term and to prepare them well for the midterm and the final exams. The additional PH460 meetings will be more in the manner of discussion sessions.
Required work and form of assessment:
Midterm exam (20%): three short essays, answering three questions out of the choice of six, testing (1) familiarity with the basic concepts covered, (2) the ability to reproduce arguments (3) critical thinking: taking a stand, evaluating the feasibility of a certain position.
Final exam (20%): there will be some excerpts from the compulsory readings, and five concepts (from various classroom-sessions) will also be listed; students will have to comment on these, (otherwise the goal of testing as under the “Midterm exam”)
Class participation (10 %): absolutely regular attendance (see IES Vienna attendance policy, in your Student Handbook), activity in class, taking part in the discussions.
Upper-level Seminar Paper (50%): a roughly 20 page-long research-essay on a topic approved by the instructor and discussed in the weekly seminar sessions.
The topics to be written on will be discussed at the very beginning of the term and must meet the instructor’s approval. The ultimate choice of the topic will try to cater to individual needs and interests. The topic may conveniently be chosen from among the topics dealt with in PH360, thus developing a problem, an argument etc. into an in-depth analysis in the form of a mature philosophical essay. Since one of the tasks in the upper-level seminar will precisely be to collect secondary literature (also to be approved of, and possibly extended, by the instructor) on the subject-matter the student will be writing on, no list of secondary sources will be given beforehand.
The main substance of the upper-level seminar sessions would be as follows:
distribution and discussion of the topics the students will be working on (1st week)
research phase (2nd-3rd week): collecting relevant secondary literature, presenting outlines
presenting drafts and sections of the essays (4th-5th-6th-7th week)
presenting “almost ready” second drafts (8th-9th week)
presentation and submission of finished essays (10th week)
Outlines and drafts will be accessible through Moodle two days prior to the session, and each member is required to read everyone else’s material before the meetings. The sessions themselves will consist of presentations and critical commentaries on the material presented (and read beforehand) by all members of the seminar.
content:
1st week: Introduction
1st meeting: Getting acquainted and introduction: when are we already in philosophy? What is at stake in philosophy? What distinguishes philosophy form other disciplines? Should philosophy prepare us for living our lives? Concepts to be explained and discussed: philosophy, philosophy as wisdom, as theory, as an activity, as a ‘form of life.’
2nd meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: the philosopher’s position, an audience for philosophy, meditation, reflection, the “arrogance” of philosophy
Compulsory reading: Jean-Paul Sartre: “The Wall”, In Walter Kaufmann (ed.), Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, New York: Meridian Books, 1957, pp. 222-240.
3rd meeting: getting acquainted, distribution of topics, discussing course-work
2nd week: Metaphysics
4th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: movement, stability, illusion, reality, idea
Compulsory reading: Plato: “The Allegory of the Cave”, from The Republic In John Cottingham (ed.): Western Philosophy. An Anthology (henceforth: WPhA) Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996, pp. 61-70.
5th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: matter of fact, cause, effect, induction, deduction
Compulsory reading: David Hume: “The Problem of Induction” and “The Relation between Cause and Effect” from Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, In WPhA, pp. 321-331.
6th meeting: showing results of collected secondary literature, adjustments and possible extensions, presentation of outlines
3rd week: Philosophy as clarification and linguistic analysis: analytic philosophy
7th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: logic, syllogism, “the law of the excluded middle”, a priori, a posteriori
Compulsory reading: Robert J. Fogelin, “The Web of Language” and “The Language of Argument” In Robert J. Fogelin, Understanding Arguments. An Introduction to Informal Logic. Third edition, San Diego, New York, etc.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1987, pp. 3-48.
8th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: verification, meaning, definition, speech-act, conversational implicature
Compulsory reading: J. L. Austin, “Lectures I-III” In Austin, How To Do Things With Words, ed. by J. O. Urmson, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962, pp. 1-38.
9th meeting: showing results of collected secondary literature, adjustments and possible extensions, presentation of outlines
4th week: “What can I know?” Doubt and certainty: epistemology in continental philosophy
10th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: opinion, metaphysical certainty, truth, falsity, doubt
Compulsory reading: René Descartes: “First Meditation: What can be called into doubt?” and “Second Meditation: The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body” from Meditations on First Philosophy, In John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 76-86
11th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: argument, proof, innate ideas, skepticism, existence of the self
Compulsory reading: René Descartes: “Third Meditation: The existence of God”, from Meditations on First Philosophy, In John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 86-98
12th meeting: presenting drafts and essay-sections
5th week: Experience and the mind: epistemology in analytic philosophy
13th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: sense(s), primary qualities, secondary qualities, idea “in the mind”, the mind as a “blank page”
Compulsory reading: John Locke: “The Senses as the Basis of Knowledge” from Essay Concerning Human Understanding In WPhA, pp. 26-32
14th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: consciousness, thought, abstraction, subjective, objective
Compulsory reading: George Berkeley: “Nothing Outside the Mind” from Principles of Human Knowledge, In WPhA, pp. 91-97.
15th meeting: presenting drafts and essay-sections
6th week: Lived experience and the “self”: identity in continental philosophy and psychoanalysis
16th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: phenomenon, phenomenology, “phenomenological reduction”, “epoché”, subject
Compulsory reading: Leszek Kolakowski: “The Foundations of Certainty: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?: EDMUND HUSSERL”, In Kolakowski: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Trans. by Agnieszka Kolakowska, New York: Basic Books, 2007, pp. 213-223.
17th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: ego, “id”, the unconscious, dream-work, psychoanalysis
Compulsory reading: Sigmund Freud: “Introductory lectures on Psychoanalysis” In WPhA, pp. 203-209.
18th meeting: presenting drafts and essay-sections
7th week: Ethics, “the good life” and political philosophy
19th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: action, event, responsibility, normative ethics, categorical imperative
Compulsory reading: Immanuel Kant: “Duty and Reason as the Ultimate Principle”, from Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, In WPhA, pp. 381-387
20th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: individual, society, authority, revolution, state
Compulsory reading: Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Society and the Individual” from The Social Contract, In WPhA, pp. 498-504.
21st meeting: presenting drafts and essay-sections
8th week: “What, then, is time?”: time and history
22nd meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: cosmological time, inner time-consciousness, temporality, finitude, narrative
Compulsory reading: Augustine: “Book 11” of The Confessions, New York: Penguin Books, 1961, 1:1-14:17; 29:39-31:41
23rd meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: historical consciousness, spirit, superstructure, ideology, the absolute
Compulsory reading: G. W. F. Hegel: “Philosophy of History: Introduction” from Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, In Stephen Houlgate (ed.), The Hegel Reader, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998, pp. 400-415.
24th meeting: presenting and discussing second drafts
9th week: Being: ontology and existence in continental philosophy
25th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: “Dasein”, hermeneutical circle, nothingness, the uncanny (“Angst”), metaphysics
Compulsory reading: Martin Heidegger: “The necessity, structure, and the priority of the question of being” In Heidegger, Being and Time, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 21-35.
26th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: (the knight of) faith, “irrationality”, subjectivity, the absurd, existentialism
Compulsory reading: Søren Kierkegaard: “The Knight of Faith and the Knight of Infinite Resignation” from Fear and Trembling, In Robert Bretall (ed.): A Kierkegaard Anthology, New York: The Modern Library, 1946, pp. 118-134.
27th meeting: presenting and discussing second drafts
10th week: Art: aesthetics
28th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: the beautiful, the sublime, aesthetics, imagination, universality
Compulsory reading: Immanuel Kant: “The Concept of the Beautiful” In The Critique of Judgment, In WPhA, pp. 555-561.
29th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: mythology, imitation, poetry, metaphor, plot
Compulsory reading: Friedrich Nietzsche: “The Two Faces of Art” from The Birth of Tragedy, In WPhA, pp. 567-572.
30th meeting: end-of-the-semester discussion of results, submission of final versions of essays
ADDITIONAL(31st) meeting: evaluation of essay by instructor, discussing essays with students individually.
Required readings:
Augustine, The Confessions, New York: Penguin Books, 1961.
Augustine: “Book 11” of The Confessions, New York: Penguin Books, 1961, 1:1-14:17; 29:39-31:41.
Austin, J. L. “Lectures I-III” In Austin, How To Do Things With Words, ed. by J. O. Urmson, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962, pp. 1-38.
Austin, J. L., How To Do Things With Words, ed. by J. O. Urmson, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
Berkeley, George: “Nothing Outside the Mind” from Principles of Human Knowledge, In WPhA, pp. 91-97.
Bretall, Robert (ed.), A Kierkegaard Anthology, New York: The Modern Library, 1946.
Cottingham, John (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Cottingham, John (ed.), Western Philosophy. An Anthology (=WPhA), Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996.
Descartes, René: “First Meditation: What can be called into doubt?” and “Second Meditation: The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body” from Meditations on First Philosophy, In John
Cottingham (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 76-86.
Descartes, René: “Third Meditation: The existence of God”, from Meditations on First Philosophy, In John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 86-98.
Fogelin, Robert J. “The Web of Language” and “The Language of Argument” In Robert J. Fogelin, Understanding Arguments. An Introduction to Informal Logic. Third edition, San Diego, New York, etc.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1987, pp. 3-48.
Fogelin, Robert J., Understanding Arguments. An Introduction to Informal Logic. Third edition, San Diego, New York, etc.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1987.
Freud, Sigmund: “Introductory lectures on Psychoanalysis” In WPhA, pp. 203-209.
Hegel, G. W. F.: “Philosophy of History: Introduction” from Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, In Stephen Houlgate (ed.), The Hegel Reader, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998, pp. 400-415.
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.
Heidegger, Martin: “The necessity, structure, and the priority of the question of being” In Heidegger, Being and Time, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 21-35.
Houlgate, Stephen (ed.), The Hegel Reader, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998.
Hume, David: “The Problem of Induction” and “The Relation between Cause and Effect” from Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, In WPhA, pp. 321-331.
Kant, Immanuel: “Duty and Reason as the Ultimate Principle”, from Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, In WPhA, pp. 381-387.
Kant, Immanuel: “The Concept of the Beautiful” In The Critique of Judgment, In WPhA, pp. 555-561.
Kaufmann, Walter (ed.), Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, New York: Meridian Books, 1957
Kierkegaard, Søren: “The Knight of Faith and the Knight of Infinite Resignation” from Fear and Trembling, In Robert Bretall (ed.): A Kierkegaard Anthology, New York: The Modern Library, 1946, pp. 118-134.
Kolakowski, Leszek: “The Foundations of Certainty: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?” EDMUND HUSSERL”, In Kolakowski: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Trans. by Agnieszka Kolakowska, New York: Basic Books, 2007, pp. 213-223.
Kolakowski. Leszek, Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Trans. by Agnieszka Kolakowska, New York: Basic Books, 2007
Locke, John: “The Senses as the Basis of Knowledge” from Essay Concerning Human Understanding In WPhA, pp. 26-32
Nietzsche, Friedrich: “The Two Faces of Art” from The Birth of Tragedy, In WPhA, pp. 567-572.
Plato: “The Allegory of the Cave”, from The Republic In John Cottingham (ed.): Western Philosophy. An Anthology (henceforth: WPhA) Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996, pp. 61-70.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: “Society and the Individual” from The Social Contract, In WPhA, pp. 498-504.
Sartre, Jean-Paul: “The Wall”, In Walter Kaufmann (ed.), Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, New York: Meridian Books, 1957, pp. 222-240.
Recommended readings:
Grayling, A. C. (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide through the Subject, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Hammond, Michael, Jane Howarth and Russell Keat (eds.), Understanding Phenomenology, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
Urmson, J. O. and Jonathan Rée (eds.), The Concise Encyclopaedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, new edition, completely revised, London and New York: Routledge, 1991.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Géza Kállay earned MA degrees in Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, English Literature and Linguistics, with teaching degrees, and MA in General and Applied Linguistics at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary in 1984. He got his Ph.D. in Literature and Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1996. He went through the “habilitation” process at L. Eötvös University in 2003 and became full professor in 2007. He has been teaching at the School of English and American Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest since 1984, giving lectures and seminars on Renaissance English drama and cultural history, literary theory and the relationship between literature and philosophy. He is the program director of the MA program in English Studies at Eötvös University and head of the PhD Program in Renaissance Studies of the Doctoral School in Literary Studies. He was also visiting professor at Corvinus University, Budapest, teaching East- and Central European Culture. He pursued post-doctoral studies at the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University with Prof. Stanley Cavell, and was appointed visiting professor of philosophy and literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz (2004-05; 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009: Summer Sessions). He has been with IES, Vienna since 1989.
Current research areas include the relationship between philosophy and literature, Shakespearean tragedy and Hungarian literature. His recent publications include Személyes jelentés ([Personal Meaning], a book of essays on philosophy and literature, Budapest: Liget Publishers, 2007) "Semmi vérjel" [No Stain of Blood], a book of essays on mainly Hungarian literature and philosophy (Budapest: Liget Publishers, 2008); “És most beszélj!” – nyelvfilozófia, dráma és elbeszélés [“And now: speak!” – the philosophy of language, drama and narrative], forthcoming at Budapest: Liget Publishers, 2012; “ ‘What Wilt Thou Do, Old Man?’ – The Uneasy Pleasure of Being Sick Unto Death: Scrooge, King Lear, and Kierkegaard”, Partial Answers, Volume 9, Number 2, June, 2011, Publ. by The Johns Hopkins University Press and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, pp. 267-284; “At T-time, the Inchoative Nick of Time, and ‘Statements about the Past’: Time and History in the Analytic Philosophy of Language”, Journal of the Philosophy of History, Vo. 5 No. 3, 2011, Ed. by Frank Ankersmit, Mark Bevir, Paul Roth and Jeff Malpas, Leiden: Brill, pp. 322-351; “Nonsense and the Ineffable: Re-reading the Ethical Standpoint in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus”, The Nordic Wittgenstein Review 1 (forthcoming in August, 2012).
Cross-Cultural Philosophy - upper level seminar
The idea behind this 400 course, an upper-level seminar, is that those IES students who already have a relatively solid background in philosophy might find a forum where they are able to study philosophy on a more advanced level than the one offered by the course “PH360 CROSS-CULTURAL PHILOSOPHY”. PH460 is “built upon” PH360 in the sense that, while all students in the seminar attend PH360 (meeting twice a week for two classroom-hours, i.e. 2x90 minutes), they are also offered an additional session, meeting once a week for two classroom hours (90 minutes). The main goal of the additional session, creating a real upper-level seminar atmosphere is to help students write a seminar paper of about 20 standard pages on a topic they are particularly interested in and/or they already have done some research on at their respective home universities.
The basic presupposition behind the course is as behind PH360: philosophy is an activity we “are unable to resist”: since we reflect on the events around us, on ourselves and on our actions, and since we are also able to reflect on that reflection, and so on, we are, in a certain sense, “always already in philosophy,” yet there are various ways of performing this reflection. Thus, we may even “feel at home” in philosophy. The course looks at philosophy not as something which can be “explained” (or contains “self-explanation”) across time but as a rich collection of questions and problems worth visiting again and again. The ultimate presupposition is that whether later a “professional” philosopher or not, each of us should develop a personal and unique philosophy of her or his own. The cross-cultural aspect of the course is highlighted by juxtaposing the so-called Continental (German-French) and the Analytic (British and American) traditions in philosophy throughout the semester. (A “field-trip”, guided by the instructor to Budapest will try to back up the inter-cultural atmosphere of the course as well.)
Recommended chiefly to those students who are philosophy majors at their respective home universities, but it will also be of interest to those with a philosophy minor, to religious studies and psychology majors, and even to those who already have some significant experience in philosophy. It is open to those who have a genuine interest in philosophy and would like to produce a serious and well-researched paper on a philosophical problem they find worth investigating in depth.
The field-trip to Budapest is optional and although IES contributes to the expenses with approximately 30 euros, about 60 euros for lodging, food etc., can be expected if one travels to Budapest for a weekend.
By the end of the course, students should know that philosophy, comprehensive as it is, and claiming to be the “mother” of a great number of modern disciplines, has its own characteristic areas and reductions; students should be familiar with, and outline clearly, both orally, and in writing, the most significant areas of philosophical thinking, from the standpoint of our present situation; students should be able to distinguish between the two major traditions in Western philosophy: the “Continental” and the “Anglo-Saxon” one, and should also know that, in the past twenty years, they have started to seek not what would divide but what would connect them; students should acquire the most significant skills in philosophical argumentation in both traditions, they should be able to creatively contribute to a philosophical debate and should be able to write a philosophical argumentative research-essay, using the appropriate methods and style of reasoning.
Since the course is built upon the PH360 course, students in PH460 will be required to attend PH360, and meet with one another and the instructor for an additional session of 90 minutes for 10 weeks. This means that students in this course will be required to write the Midterm and Final of PH360 as well but they will also be working on a roughly 20 page-long research essay. PH360 is composed of 20 ninety minute-long meetings; each 90-minute-long class is concerned with two major activities: there is a discussion of the piece under the heading Compulsory reading, and for each meeting 5 important philosophical concepts (under the heading Concepts to be explained and discussed) related to the main topic of the week, is given as well; part of the class is devoted to the explanation of the significance and the various possible interpretations of these concepts. The concepts – 100 all together, serving as a “basic vocabulary” for the course – are listed, together with the material to be read, in the relevant sections of the “Course content and schedule” (please see below); the compulsory readings will be available through Moodle. The course pays careful attention to the intercultural aspects of the ideas under discussion, with special reference to the immediate context: Vienna, a town famous for forming and shaping philosophical ideas, especially in the 20th century. PH360 sometimes uses the lecture-format, primarily at the beginning of the term, but does everything to engage students in genuine philosophical discussions and debates throughout the term and to prepare them well for the midterm and the final exams. The additional PH460 meetings will be more in the manner of discussion sessions.
The topics to be written on will be discussed at the very beginning of the term and must meet the instructor’s approval. The ultimate choice of the topic will try to cater to individual needs and interests. The topic may conveniently be chosen from among the topics dealt with in PH360, thus developing a problem, an argument etc. into an in-depth analysis in the form of a mature philosophical essay. Since one of the tasks in the upper-level seminar will precisely be to collect secondary literature (also to be approved of, and possibly extended, by the instructor) on the subject-matter the student will be writing on, no list of secondary sources will be given beforehand.
The main substance of the upper-level seminar sessions would be as follows:
Outlines and drafts will be accessible through Moodle two days prior to the session, and each member is required to read everyone else’s material before the meetings. The sessions themselves will consist of presentations and critical commentaries on the material presented (and read beforehand) by all members of the seminar.
1st week: Introduction
2nd week: Metaphysics
3rd week: Philosophy as clarification and linguistic analysis: analytic philosophy
4th week: “What can I know?” Doubt and certainty: epistemology in continental philosophy
5th week: Experience and the mind: epistemology in analytic philosophy
6th week: Lived experience and the “self”: identity in continental philosophy and psychoanalysis
7th week: Ethics, “the good life” and political philosophy
8th week: “What, then, is time?”: time and history
9th week: Being: ontology and existence in continental philosophy
10th week: Art: aesthetics
Géza Kállay earned MA degrees in Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, English Literature and Linguistics, with teaching degrees, and MA in General and Applied Linguistics at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary in 1984. He got his Ph.D. in Literature and Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1996. He went through the “habilitation” process at L. Eötvös University in 2003 and became full professor in 2007. He has been teaching at the School of English and American Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest since 1984, giving lectures and seminars on Renaissance English drama and cultural history, literary theory and the relationship between literature and philosophy. He is the program director of the MA program in English Studies at Eötvös University and head of the PhD Program in Renaissance Studies of the Doctoral School in Literary Studies. He was also visiting professor at Corvinus University, Budapest, teaching East- and Central European Culture. He pursued post-doctoral studies at the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University with Prof. Stanley Cavell, and was appointed visiting professor of philosophy and literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz (2004-05; 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009: Summer Sessions). He has been with IES, Vienna since 1989.
Current research areas include the relationship between philosophy and literature, Shakespearean tragedy and Hungarian literature. His recent publications include Személyes jelentés ([Personal Meaning], a book of essays on philosophy and literature, Budapest: Liget Publishers, 2007) "Semmi vérjel" [No Stain of Blood], a book of essays on mainly Hungarian literature and philosophy (Budapest: Liget Publishers, 2008); “És most beszélj!” – nyelvfilozófia, dráma és elbeszélés [“And now: speak!” – the philosophy of language, drama and narrative], forthcoming at Budapest: Liget Publishers, 2012; “ ‘What Wilt Thou Do, Old Man?’ – The Uneasy Pleasure of Being Sick Unto Death: Scrooge, King Lear, and Kierkegaard”, Partial Answers, Volume 9, Number 2, June, 2011, Publ. by The Johns Hopkins University Press and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, pp. 267-284; “At T-time, the Inchoative Nick of Time, and ‘Statements about the Past’: Time and History in the Analytic Philosophy of Language”, Journal of the Philosophy of History, Vo. 5 No. 3, 2011, Ed. by Frank Ankersmit, Mark Bevir, Paul Roth and Jeff Malpas, Leiden: Brill, pp. 322-351; “Nonsense and the Ineffable: Re-reading the Ethical Standpoint in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus”, The Nordic Wittgenstein Review 1 (forthcoming in August, 2012).