PHIL 314 | Survey of 20th Century Continental European Philosophy | Spring 2010 | Dr. Deborah Achtenberg

Course texts:  Dermot Moran, The Phenomenology Reader (Routledge) Stephen H. Daniel, Contemporary Continental Thought (Pearson Prentice Hall) Texts can be purchased used at reduced cost. Consciousness is intentional, phenomenologist Edmund Husserl says near the beginning of the century.  That is, consciousness is of an object by way of a meaning.  No consciousness without meaning! What are the consequences of such a view, a view that implies we never passively receive data but, instead, give meaning to what we receive?  We will follow out the consequences in our readings of Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Derrida and others.  What role does time play in our lives and our understanding?  Do I have an essence?  According to Martin Heidegger, my being is not an essence but is up to me.  Moreover, my being is not present but is to be.  Jean-Paul Sartre says I can transcend my facticity.  He calls denial of transcendence bad faith. Simone de Beauvoir adds complexity to this view of freedom as transcendence of whatever conditions me.  She asserts that subjection to conditions can be inflicted on me.  Such subjection is oppression, for example, the oppression of women.  Once I recognize oppression, however, it is a moral fault if I do not reject it.  Hannah Arendt, in a different vein, delineates three kinds of human activity in relation to conditions--cyclical labor, work on the world, and the freedom of action. For Heidegger, since my being is to be--that is, is in relation to the future--my being is being toward death.  Arendt, a student of Heidegger, speaks instead of our capacity to begin something new.  She calls it natality.  Emmanuel Levinas, who studied for a time both with Husserl and Heidegger, speaks of fecundity, a manner of promoting the newness or uniqueness of the other.  Jacques Derrida, Levinas's student, speaks at the end of his life of survival (in French, survivre, living on).  The other survives me--lives longer than me, and lives on--or off of--me.  Natality, fecundity, survival--all critique Heidegger's being toward death and substitute for it a type of living in relation to new life. For Sartre, the other objectifies me and therefore is a threat to my freedom or subjectivity.  For Beauvoir, the other is necessary for my freedom.  For Levinas, I am fundamentally for an other--and am free when I am responsible for the other. Later in his life, Sartre maintains his view of the other as a threat was not a general truth but a view of my relation to others under capitalism.  In capitalist conditions of scarcity, the other is essentially threatening--but it need not be that way. To do phenomenology, Husserl asks us to move our attention away from the actual object and focus on the meaning we give to it.  He calls this process bracketing the natural attitude and names it the epoche.  Levinas, in a similar move, declares the job of a philosopher is reduction of the said to the saying--indicating recognition that what we say--the said--is as much about us as about the object or person about whom we speak (giving our meaning to objects).  Derrida calls such a process not epoche or reduction but, famously, deconstruction.  To deconstruct, Derrida says, is not to naturalize what is not natural.  Once asked to say in a nutshell what deconstruction is, Derrida replied--in a useful nutshell--that deconstruction means there are no nutshells. What are the implications of the epoche, of the reduction, of deconstruction, for our relation to others?  Can I relate to an other as someone unique and new?  In speaking to the other, is their saying it as important as what they say?  Must I constrain the other in a concept?  Or can I treat him or her as a singularity?  Can the colonized other, the 'subaltern', as Gayatri Spivak says, even speak, given the concepts and categories culture makes available to him or her?  My relation to others and objects, freedom and subjection, death and new life, concepts and singularity, temporality and meaning--these are among the topics we will discuss in our one-semester survey of 20th century continental European philosophy. Course requirements:  To be announced. Please revisit this page for further information.