PHIL 209 - Phenomenology and Existentialism

Credit(s): 3
Lecture: 3
Non-Lecture: 0
An examination of some of the leading motifs of phenomenology and existentialism. Thinkers and topics to include: Kierkegaard: Impossibility of an existential system; Faith and subjective truth; Teleological suspension of the ethical. Nietzsche: Death of God; Master morality, slave morality, and traditional morality; Will to power and the superman; Overcoming nihilism. Husserl: Critique of psychologism and historicism; Consciousness as intentionality; Grounding of knowledge and action on transcendental subjectivity; Life-world and the sciences. Heidegger: Meaning of Being and human existence; Authentic and inauthentic being towards-death; Human existence, temporality, and history. Sartre: Being, consciousness, and nothingness; Existence precedes essence; Freedom, bad faith, and authenticity; Possibility of an ethics. Offered every other year.