This course surveys leading thinkers and ideas that shaped the European intellectual tradition. We will consider works by thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud.
This course focuses on the role of subjectivity in the emergence of the modern European world. One of the most important differences between the ancient Greek worldview and the modern worldview comes from a modern preoccupation with the tensions between subjectivity and objective reality. Is experience a reliable source of knowledge? Do things exist objectively beyond consciousness? Or is the mind the basis for all of reality? This course traces these specifically modern European questions about subjectivity back to Descartes’ Meditations and then explores some of the most significant breakthroughs in the debate.
The emphasis will be throughout on analyzing what these thinkers say and why they say it. The main goal is to develop an understanding of the western philosophical approach, and to develop a critical understanding of some problems and arguments which continue to challenge us today.
