Continental
Philosophy:
Existentialism
80-253
Summer I, 2005
Teaser Trailer
1. Have you ever considered smoking in order look like a cool French Existentialist?
2. Is this man happy?
Find answers to these and other burning questions this summer in Continental Philosophy.
Your Instructor
Name: David Gray, Graduate Student Extraordinaire
Office: Baker Hall 143
Work Phone: 412-268-8148
Email: degray@andrew.cmu.edu
Course Description
This course explores the existential movement in European philosophy as it emerged from the rationalistic tradition of Kant and Hegel. In part, existentialism considers questions no person can avoid: the status of human existence in the face of death, the meaning and impact of the God-Idea, the significance of our interpersonal relationships, the source of our moral values, and the role of reason and emotion in understanding our lives. Generally, existentialists believe that life has little "objective" value, while arguing that the "subjective" individual must create his or her own values by affirming live and living it. This separates existentialism from the more traditional philosophical movements. In particular, we shall examine how the philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus address these fundamental problems. In addition, short fiction of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Franz Kafka, and films by Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, and Woody Allen will augment our understanding of existentialism.
Important Handouts
Schedule
| Date |
Topic |
Readings |
| May 16 | Introductions |
None |
| May 17 | Descartes |
Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Handout) |
| May 18 | Kant's Critique of Pure Reason | Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, pp. 9-25 (Handout) |
| May 19 | Kant: Morality and Freedom | Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, pp. 25-38 (Handout) |
| May 20 | Hegel | Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, pp. 39, 45-63 (Handout) |
| May 23 | The Escape from Rationalism | Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground, pp. 3-29 |
| May 24 | Movie Day! Ikuru @ 3:00 PM |
None (Reread Dostoevsky) |
| May 25 | Kierkegaard: the Individual | Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, "How Johannes Climacus Became an Author", in Bretall, A Kierkegaard Anthology (KA), pp. 193-194 Kierkegaard, The Point of View for my Work as an Author, in KA, pp. 324-335 Kierkegaard, The Present Age, "The Individual and 'The Public'", in KA, pp. 260-269 Optional: Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, Part II, pp. 263-264, 270-271, 274-276, 278-281, 336-342 (Handout) Optional: Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, "An Edifying Divertissement", in KA, pp. 231-252 |
| May 26 | Kierkegaard: The Paradox of Faith | Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, "The Absolute Paradox", pp. 46-47, 49-50, 54-59, 61, 63-66 (Handout) God, The Bible, "Genesis", 22:1-13 (Handout) Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, "Problemata: Preliminary Expectoration", pp. 36-43 (Handout) Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, "Problem I: Is There Such a Thing as a Teleological Suspension of the Ethical?" in KA, pp. 129-134 |
| May 27 | Kierkegaard: Subjectivity | Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, "Truth is Subjectivity" and "The Subjective Thinker", in KA, pp. 210-231 Take Home Exam #1 Handed Out |
| May 30 | No Class! | Memorial Day - Woo Hoo! |
| May 31 | Kierkegaard: Despair and Freedom | Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, in KA, pp. 341-371 |
| June 1 | Schopenhauer: The Aesthetic | Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation Vol 1, Sections 34, 38, 39, 52, pp. 178-181, 195-207, 255-267 (Handout) Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Section 220, in Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche (BN), p. 338 |
| June 2 | Schopenhauer: The Ascetic | Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation Vol 2, Chapters 46, 49, pp. 573-588, 634-639 (Handout) Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, Sections 6, 7, in BN, pp. 539-544 |
| June 3 | Movie Day! Winter's Light |
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Sections 1, 3, 5, 7-9 in BN, pp. 33-38, 41-44, 48-52, 56-72 (you might want to read the sections in-between, but they are not as important) (Study Guide) Take Home Exam #1 Due |
| June 6 | Nietzsche’s Aesthetics | Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Sections 10-15, 18, 24, in BN, pp. 73 – 98, 109-114, 139-143 |
| June 7 | Nietzsche's Account of Truth | Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (Handout) Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Sections 110-112, 121, 246, 354, 355, 373 (Handout) Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Preface, Sections 1-2, 4, 10, 21-23, 39, 43, 230, in BN, pp. 192-194, 199-202, 206-207, 218-222, 239-240, 243, 349-352 Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, Section 12, in BN, pp. 554-555 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, "Reason in Philosophy" (Section 6), "How the 'True World' Finally Became a Fable" (Handout) |
| June 8 | Nietzsche's Psychology of Morality and Religion | Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Sections 108-109, 125, 343 (Handout) Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Sections 186-187, 198-200, 260-262, in BN, pp. 287-290, 299-302, 394-402 Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, Second Essay, Sections 1-6, 8-11, 16-21, 23-25, in BN, pp. 493-503, 506-512, 520-528, 529-532 |
| June 9 | Nietzsche's Revaluation of All Values | Nietzsche, Daybreak, Section 103 (Handout) Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 335, 341 (Handout) Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue 1-6; First Part: "On the Three Metamorphoses" (Handout) Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Sections 44, 56, 61-62, 203, 211-212, 242, 272, 296, in BN, pp. 243-246, 258, 262-266, 307-308, 325-329, 366-367, 411, 426-427 |
| June 10 | Movie Day! Breathless |
Sartre, The Wall, pp. 1-17 (Handout) (Study Guide) Take Home Exam #2 Handed Out |
| June 13 | Heidegger: Death and Resoluteness | Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Illich, pp. 123-167 (Handout) |
| June 14 | Sartre and Existentialism | Sartre, "Existentialism" [the actual title should be "Existentialism is a Humanism"], in Existentialism and Human Emotions, pp. 9-51 |
| June 15 | Sartre's The Flies, Freedom, and Guilt | Sartre, The Flies, in No Exit and Three Other Plays (NE), pp. 49-124 Notes on Nothingness and Bad Faith (handout) |
| June 16 | Sartre, No Exit, in NE, pp. 3-46 | |
| June 17 | Movie Day! The Seventh Seal |
Camus, "Absurdity and Suicide" and "Absurd Walls", in The Myth of Sisyphus (MS), pp. 3-28 (Study Guide) Take Home Exam #2 Due |
| June 20 | Camus: Absurdity and Suicide | Camus, "Philosophical Suicide", in MS, pp. 28-50 |
| June 21 | Camus: The Absurd Man | Camus, "Absurd Freedom" and "The Absurd Man", in MS, pp. 51-92 |
| June 22 | Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus | Camus, "Philosophy and Fiction", "Ephemeral Creation", and "The Myth of Sisyphus", in MS, pp. 93-104, 113-123 |
| June 23 | Movie Day! Crimes and Misdemeanors |
None |
| June 24 | Camus, "Return to Tipasa", in MS, pp.195-204
Tolstoy, What is Art? (Handout) |
|
| June 27 | No Class | Final Take Home Exam Due by Noon |
Power Point Slides
Pre-Introduction
Introduction
Descartes
Transition to Immanuel Kant
Kant
Hegel
Useful Links
Routledge Encyclopedia
of Philosophy -- http://www.rep.routledge.com/index.html
Sweet online resource! Go here first. There is also a CD-ROM version available
from CMU's Hunt Library.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
-- http://plato.stanford.edu
Another good online encyclopedia for philosophy.
Dr. Anthony Storm's Commentary
on Kierkegaard -- http://www.sorenkierkegaard.org/
A useful place to get overviews of most of S.K.'s work.
Answers
1. I know I have!
2. According to Albert Camus (one handsome philosopher, I might add), this man must be thought of as happy...
I love Apache! So should you!
