The basic presupposition behind the course is that 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, philosophy need not seem as a remote or alien activity but something which is, upon a closer look, quite familiar to us: something in which we may “feel at home”. The course does not follow the logic of the “history of philosophy”; it is rather concerned with some major and significant themes or “topic-clusters” philosophers have found worth discussing from Heraclitus till the present day. Although the historical context in which certain ideas crystallised will of course not be neglected, the main goals are to make students aware that what counts as a problem for philosophy is a philosophical question itself and to kindle and deepen cross- cultural awareness in terms of engaging students in a conceptual process, while encouraging them to reflect on this very process of conceptualisation.
Prerequisites:
Since each “technical term” will carefully be explained and clarified, previous training in philosophy is an advantage but by no means a prerequisite. Some genuine interest in philosophical problems is, however, presupposed.
Additional student cost:
The field-trip to Budapest is optional and the student will assume some costs. Further details will be provided onsite.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course, students should be:
aware that philosophy has its own characteristic areas and reductions and an awareness of how these areas are related and of these reductions is one of the most important tasks of philosophy;
acquainted with the most significant areas of philosophical thinking, from the standpoint of our present situation;
aware that there are two major traditions in Western philosophy: the “Continental” and the “Anglo- Saxon” one, but in the past twenty years they have started to seek not what would divide but what would connect them;
able to acquire the rudiments of philosophical argumentation in both traditions and they should realise that philosophy may bring not only torment but joy, too.
Method of presentation:
There will be 20, ninety minute-long meetings; each 90-minute-long class will be concerned with two major activities: there will be 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, will be given as well; part of the class will be 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); photocopies of the compulsory readings will be available in the Center Library in a course-packet. The course will pay 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. The course will use the lecture- format, primarily at the beginning of the term, but will do 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.
Required work and form of assessment:
Take-home Midterm exam: (40%) 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, time available: 90 minutes
Take-home Final exam: (40%) 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
Class participation: (20%) If you cannot attend for some serious reasons (such as illness or
emergency), please contact, if possible, the Registrar (personally or by phone) before the class you are going to miss.
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: Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, The Lord Chandos Letter, trans. from the German by Russell Stockman, Marlboro, Vermont: The Marlboro Press, 1986, pp. 11-33
2nd week: Movement, stability, science and method
– 3rd 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.
– 4th 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.
3rd week: Philosophy as clarification
– 5th 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.
– 6th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: verification, meaning, definition, speech-act, conversational implicature Compulsory reading: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, (1958), 1984, §§ 203- 255
4th week: “ Wh at can I k n ow?” Dou b t an d c ert ai n t y
– 7th 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
– 8th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: argument, proof, innate ideas, scepticism, 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
5th week: Experience and the mind
– 9th 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
– 10th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: consciousness, thought, abstraction, subjective, objective Compulsory reading: Henry James: “Does „Consciousness‟ Exist?”, In Daniel Kolak (ed.), The Mayfield Anthology of Western Philosophy, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998, pp. 943-948.
MIDTERM WEEK
6th week: Expe ri en ce an d th e “s el f”
– 11th meting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: phenomenon, phenomenology, “phenomenological reduction”, “epoché”, subject Compulsory reading: Edmund Husserl: “The World of the Natural Standpoint: I and my World about Me”, from Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology In Morton White (ed.), The Age of Analysis, 20th Century Philosophers, New York: New American Library, 1955, pp. 100-115.
– 12th 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.
7th week: Et h i cs an d “t h e go od li f e”
– 13th 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
– 14th 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.
8th week: “What, then, is time?”: time and history
– 15th 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
– 16t 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.
9th week: Being
– 17th 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.
– 18th 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.
10th week Art
– 19th 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 Judgement, In WPhA, pp. 555- 561.
– 20th 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.
11th week:
21st meeting:
FINALS-BACK session
Required readings:
the excerpts above from:
Augustine, The Confessions, New York: Penguin Books, 1961.
Bretall, Robert (ed.), A Kierkegaard Anthology, New York: The Modern Library, 1946.
Commings, Saxe and Robert N. Linscott (eds.), The Social Philosophers, New York: Modern Pocket Library, 1954.
Cottingham, John (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Cottingham, John (ed.), Western Philosophy. An Anthology (=WPhA), Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996.
Fogelin, Robert J., Understanding Arguments. An Introduction to Informal Logic. Third edition, San Diego, New York, etc.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1987.
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.
Houlgate, Stephen (ed.), The Hegel Reader, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998.
Hoffmannsthal, Hugo von, The Lord Chandos Letter, trans. from the German by Russell Stockman,
Marlboro, Vermont: The Marlboro Press, 1986.
Kolak, Daniel (ed.), The Mayfield Anthology of Western Philosophy, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998.
White, Morton (ed.), The Age of Analysis, 20th Century Philosophers, New York: New American Library, 1955.
Introductions to philosophy are endless; practically each university will publish an introduction and/or an anthology (usually with introductory essays and notes). A serious, and sometimes difficult but excellent introduction to the “Anglo-Saxon way” of doing philosophy is
– Grayling, A. C. (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide through the Subject, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
An outstanding introductory guide to the “Continental” (German and French) way of philosophising is
– Hammond, Michael, Jane Howarth and Russell Keat (eds.), Understanding Phenomenology, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
As a general reference-book, trying to cover both traditions (but being slightly biased to the British and American approach)
– 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.
The basic presupposition behind the course is that 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, philosophy need not seem as a remote or alien activity but something which is, upon a closer look, quite familiar to us: something in which we may “feel at home”. The course does not follow the logic of the “history of philosophy”; it is rather concerned with some major and significant themes or “topic-clusters” philosophers have found worth discussing from Heraclitus till the present day. Although the historical context in which certain ideas crystallised will of course not be neglected, the main goals are to make students aware that what counts as a problem for philosophy is a philosophical question itself and to kindle and deepen cross- cultural awareness in terms of engaging students in a conceptual process, while encouraging them to reflect on this very process of conceptualisation.
Since each “technical term” will carefully be explained and clarified, previous training in philosophy is an advantage but by no means a prerequisite. Some genuine interest in philosophical problems is, however, presupposed.
The field-trip to Budapest is optional and the student will assume some costs. Further details will be provided onsite.
By the end of the course, students should be:
There will be 20, ninety minute-long meetings; each 90-minute-long class will be concerned with two major activities: there will be 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, will be given as well; part of the class will be 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); photocopies of the compulsory readings will be available in the Center Library in a course-packet. The course will pay 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. The course will use the lecture- format, primarily at the beginning of the term, but will do 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.
Take-home Midterm exam: (40%) 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, time available: 90 minutes
Take-home Final exam: (40%) 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
Class participation: (20%) If you cannot attend for some serious reasons (such as illness or
emergency), please contact, if possible, the Registrar (personally or by phone) before the class you are going to miss.
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: Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, The Lord Chandos Letter, trans. from the German by Russell Stockman, Marlboro, Vermont: The Marlboro Press, 1986, pp. 11-33
2nd week: Movement, stability, science and method
– 3rd 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.
– 4th 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.
3rd week: Philosophy as clarification
– 5th 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.
– 6th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: verification, meaning, definition, speech-act, conversational implicature Compulsory reading: Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, (1958), 1984, §§ 203- 255
4th week: “ Wh at can I k n ow?” Dou b t an d c ert ai n t y
– 7th 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
– 8th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: argument, proof, innate ideas, scepticism, 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
5th week: Experience and the mind
– 9th 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
– 10th meeting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: consciousness, thought, abstraction, subjective, objective Compulsory reading: Henry James: “Does „Consciousness‟ Exist?”, In Daniel Kolak (ed.), The Mayfield Anthology of Western Philosophy, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998, pp. 943-948.
MIDTERM WEEK
6th week: Expe ri en ce an d th e “s el f”
– 11th meting: Concepts to be explained and discussed: phenomenon, phenomenology, “phenomenological reduction”, “epoché”, subject Compulsory reading: Edmund Husserl: “The World of the Natural Standpoint: I and my World about Me”, from Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology In Morton White (ed.), The Age of Analysis, 20th Century Philosophers, New York: New American Library, 1955, pp. 100-115.
– 12th 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.
7th week: Et h i cs an d “t h e go od li f e”
– 13th 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
– 14th 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.
8th week: “What, then, is time?”: time and history
– 15th 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
– 16t 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.
9th week: Being
– 17th 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.
– 18th 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.
10th week Art
– 19th 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 Judgement, In WPhA, pp. 555- 561.
– 20th 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.
11th week:
21st meeting:
FINALS-BACK session
the excerpts above from:
Augustine, The Confessions, New York: Penguin Books, 1961.
Bretall, Robert (ed.), A Kierkegaard Anthology, New York: The Modern Library, 1946.
Commings, Saxe and Robert N. Linscott (eds.), The Social Philosophers, New York: Modern Pocket Library, 1954.
Cottingham, John (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Cottingham, John (ed.), Western Philosophy. An Anthology (=WPhA), Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996.
Fogelin, Robert J., Understanding Arguments. An Introduction to Informal Logic. Third edition, San Diego, New York, etc.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1987.
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.
Houlgate, Stephen (ed.), The Hegel Reader, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998.
Hoffmannsthal, Hugo von, The Lord Chandos Letter, trans. from the German by Russell Stockman,
Marlboro, Vermont: The Marlboro Press, 1986.
Kolak, Daniel (ed.), The Mayfield Anthology of Western Philosophy, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998.
White, Morton (ed.), The Age of Analysis, 20th Century Philosophers, New York: New American Library, 1955.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, (1958), 1984.
Introductions to philosophy are endless; practically each university will publish an introduction and/or an anthology (usually with introductory essays and notes). A serious, and sometimes difficult but excellent introduction to the “Anglo-Saxon way” of doing philosophy is
– Grayling, A. C. (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide through the Subject, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
An outstanding introductory guide to the “Continental” (German and French) way of philosophising is
– Hammond, Michael, Jane Howarth and Russell Keat (eds.), Understanding Phenomenology, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
As a general reference-book, trying to cover both traditions (but being slightly biased to the British and American approach)
– 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.