Continental Philosophy

Nietzsche claims that “genuine philosophers” (unlike “philosophical laborers” like Kant and Hegel, who simply “press into formulas” existing moralities) are creators of value, or, as he puts it, “commanders and legislators:  they say, ‘Thus it should be,’ they determine first the ‘where to?’ and ‘what for’ of a people” (Beyond Good and Evil, section 211).  If Kant and Hegel are not “genuine philosophers” in this sense, then who is?  Homer?  The Presocratics? Plato? Nietzsche?  And what values then does Nietzsche create?

The first half of the seminar will examine Nietzsche’s reasons for treating moralities as historical artifacts, that can be explained in terms of the psychological needs of particular peoples at particular times, rather than timeless or objective standards governing human conduct.  We then consider the possibility that Nietzsche is a “genuine philosopher,” a “creator of values,” and try to understand what that means.  In the second half of the seminar, we consider whether several major Greek figures--Homer, whom Nietzsche lauds; the Presocratics, whom he, likewise, admires; and Plato, about whom Nietzsche is decidedly more ambivalent--created new values.

Nietzsche readings will be from Daybreak, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality, and Twilight of the Idols, as well as his early lectures on Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks and “Homer’s Contest.”  From the Greeks, we will consider portions of Homer’s Iliad, Plato’s Apology and Crito, as well as selections from Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Topic: Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Kierkegaard's pseudonym Johannes Climacus argues in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript that to be a true philosopher, one must be a uniquely subjective thinker. While subjectivity has traditionally been associated with a lack of objectivity (and thus a negative attribute), Kierkegaard aims to recover this concept. For him, rather, to be subjective is to be the sort of person who does not merely read or study philosophy, but to be someone who lives differently as a result of it. Thus, our aim in this course is to read the Postscript as Climacus would have it read. In asking about the nature of subjectivity, commitment, religion, and action, our goal will be ever on our own lives and how they ought to be lived.

The seminar will explore aspects of Nietzsche’s theory of value, especially regarding morality and aesthetics, in the context of two major intellectual 19th-century influences on his thought:  naturalism (especially through Schopenhauer and German Materialism) and Romanticism.  The first half of the seminar (led by Leiter) will emphasize naturalistic themes in his understanding of morality in On the Genealogy of Morality and excerpts from Beyond Good and Evil.  The second half (led by Forster) will examine the influence of Romanticism, including in The Birth of Tragedy and selections from later works.  

This course will provide a rapid-fire survey of the philosophical sources of contemporary literary and critical theory.  We will begin with a brief discussion of the sort of humanism at issue in the critique—accounts of human life and thought that treat the individual human being as the primary unit for work in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences.  This kind of humanism is at the core of contemporary common sense.  It is, to that extent, indispensable in our understanding of how to move around in the world and get along with one another.  That is why we will conduct critique, rather than plain criticism, in this course: in critique, one remains indebted to the system under critical scrutiny, even while working to understand its failings and limitations.  Our tour of thought produced in the service of critique will involve work by Hegel, Marx, Gramsci, Freud, Fanon, Lacan, and Althusser. We will conclude with a couple of pieces of recent work that draws from these sources.  The aim of the course is to provide students with an opportunity to engage with some extraordinarily influential work that continues to inform humanistic inquiry. (A)

This course will provide a rapid-fire survey of the philosophical sources of contemporary literary and critical theory.  We will begin with a brief discussion of the sort of humanism at issue in the critique—accounts of human life and thought that treat the individual human being as the primary unit for work in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences.  This kind of humanism is at the core of contemporary common sense.  It is, to that extent, indispensable in our understanding of how to move around in the world and get along with one another.  That is why we will conduct critique, rather than plain criticism, in this course: in critique, one remains indebted to the system under critical scrutiny, even while working to understand its failings and limitations.  Our tour of thought produced in the service of critique will involve work by Hegel, Marx, Gramsci, Freud, Fanon, Lacan, and Althusser. We will conclude with a couple of pieces of recent work that draws from these sources.  The aim of the course is to provide students with an opportunity to engage with some extraordinarily influential work that continues to inform humanistic inquiry. (A) (I)

This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed.

The last volume of Foucault's history of sexuality has finally been published after more than a 30 year wait. In this volume Foucault moves from his previous focus on Greco-Roman culture to early Christianity, and his account culminates in an extensive discussion of Saint Augustine. This seminar will consist of a close reading of "Les Aveux de la chair", supplemented by a few other texts from the later Foucault. We will also try to draw some general methodological and philosophical conclusions from our reading.

This course is designed to give students a broad and rapid introduction to the philosophical and other sources that inform contemporary literary and critical theory. We will cover a lot of ground very quickly. The variety of humanism at issue in our work will be the sort that informs common sense or, as one of our authors might put it, ordinary understanding of the things that strike many of us as obvious about ourselves and other people. The critique will not make anything stop seeming obvious. But it will provide some tools for thinking differently about contemporary commonsense understandings of human life. We will conclude by seeing the way this material shapes work by two prominent recent critics, Slavoj Žižek and Lauren Berlant.

It's been ten years that a growing interest for Phenomenology is manifest in the field of the contemporary philosophy of mind, especially amongst others phenomenologists, for Sartre. We will try to discuss most of the contemporary approaches of Sartre and try to understand what could be an actual and sustainable sartrean position today in the debates turning around the notion of self-consciousness.

This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed.