PHIL 230 SYLLABUS
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 11:50AM PHILOSOPHY 230 NINETEENTH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
HOL 207 2:30 – 3:50 MW
KEVIN O’NEILL
BEKINS 101
OFFICE HOURS
MONDAY, 12 - 2
FRIDAY 2:30 – 4:00
EVERY OTHER TUESDAY, 1 – 3
748-8655
CELL 323 841 5171
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Some people think that modern philosophy began with Descartes' method of doubt; some believe it traces its origins to late Renaissance Italian thinkers. Everyone agrees that the emergence of modern physical science and astronomy under the aegis of Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler and especially Newton were a decisive factor in changing the course of philosophy. Many also note that the Protestant Reformation in its Lutheran, Calvinist and Anabaptist forms provided further, if different, impeti to modern philosophy.
This course does not reject those ideas but challenges them, arguing that two characteristic forms of modernity -- existential skepticism and Romantic optimism -- emerged later in the work of the German philosophers Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel, whose work we will read and discuss in this class.
These writers are not mere historical curiosities. They helped shape how the many modern worlds created themselves, in politics, art, letters and religious belief, and in conceptions people hold of who they are and what their lives mean. Kant’s modernist anxiety and moral purism and Hegel’s visionary Romanticism still delimit the boundaries of our intellectual and artistic visions.
BOOKS
The Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel KANT (translated by Guyer and Wood)
The Phenomenology of Spirit Georg HEGEL (translated by A V Miller)
The Age of German Idealism Kathleen HIGGINS and Robert SOLOMON
EVALUATION
There will be a mid-term essay exam and a final essay exam. The first will be about Kant and the second about Hegel. Both will involve the analysis of selected passages from the writings of the principals, as well as the analysis of sections of Higgins-Solomon text that concern our principals.
Each exam will count 30% toward the final grade.
Each member of the class will select a research topic - we will discuss which topics make sense -- and produce an object that can be presented to the other class members in whatever form seems apposite. This can take the form of a pamphlet, a YouTube video, a Face book entry of substantial length, a blog, an academic paper, a long series of tweets that connect, more or less, or a holographic projection and so forth. This object will be worth 35% of the grade.
The remaining 5% is discretionary, a function of class attendance, participation and the like.
We will use YouTube clips, blogs and such as teaching and learning tools. There is a lot out there about both K and H and we will exploit some of it.
CALENDAR
SEPTEMBER
9 Introduction. For Monday, Sept. 14, please read Introduction to Critique, pages 1 - 23.
14 Discuss reading. For Wed., Sept. 16, Read First and Second Prefaces, 99 - 124.
16 Analyze Prefaces. FOR MONDAY, SEPT. 21, READ INTRODUCTION, 127 - 152.
21 Analyze Introduction. FOR WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 23, READ 155 - 162. TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS, TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC, FIRST EDITION
23 Analyze Trans. Doctrine of Elements, Trans. Aesthetic, Part I Space. FOR MONDAY SEPT. 28 READ 162 - 171.
28 Analyze Time. FOR WEDNESDAY SEPT. 30 READ SAME SECTIONS FROM THE SECOND EDITION - SPACE, 172-178
30 Analyze Second Edition Space. FOR MONDAY OCTOBER 5 READ SECOND EDITION TIME178 - 192.
OCTOBER
5 Analyze Second Edition Time. FOR WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 7 READ TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC 193 - 200?
7 Analyze Transcendental Logic. FOR WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 14 READ TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC AND ANALYTIC OF CONCEPTS, 200 - 218.
12 Study Day
14 Analyze Analytic of Concepts FOR MONDAY OCTOBER 19 READ 219 - 236.
19 Analyze Beginning of Transcendental Deduction, First Edition. FOR WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, READ 236-244
21 Analyze Deduction from First Edition FOR MONDAY OCTOBER 26 READ 245 - 260.
26 Analyze Nub of Deduction from Second Edition. FOR WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 28 READ 260 - 266.
28 Analyze completion of Deduction from Second Edition. Hand out exam questions.
NOVEMBER
2 Summarize Kant. Answer questions about exam questions.
4 Exam due.
9 First Hegel class
11 WE WILL SPECIFY HEGEL ASSIGNMENTS ON NOVEMBER 4.
16
18
23
25 T-giving break
30
DECEMBER
2
7
9
14 HEGEL EXAM DUE
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