EXISTENTIALISMSPRING 2014

Dr. Terezakis Email: terezak@rit.eduCourse PHIL 409-01 (50695) Office Hours: T/R

12:20–1:00 and by appt.LBR (Bldg 6), Room 3225 Office: Eastman (Bldg 1), Room 3218T/R 2:00-3:15pm

Dorothea Tanning The Philosophers

EXISTENTIALISM The existentialist movement is native to philosophical modernity, even paradigmatic of it. At the same time, different existentialist works first came about as critiques of traditional, academic scholarship. Existentialist thinkers have continued to criticize academic philosophy from within, urging us toward new paradigms in ethics, phenomenology, and theories of knowledge and action, and existentialists have taken their positions outside of academe, most often to create new forms of art. The thinkers and positions we could

label existentialist differ so much as to be mutually contradictory on some topics, for example, on the matter of religious theism. Nonetheless, despite their significant differences, existentialist models share in common the repudiation of essential, universal truths. They likewise share in a vindication of individual, tangible ways of living, making choices, and taking action. And, they share in examining the material context of human reason and action, for example, our situatedness in bodies and in particular kinds of social frameworks. All existentialists probe the staggering fact of human freedom, and all existentialists work to describe the ways in which this freedom is inevitably a situated freedom.

COURSE OBJECTIVE Our aim in this seminar is to uncover the different ways that studying the actual existence of unique individuals informs the existentialists’ investigation of human freedom. We will chart the relationship between the existentialist notion of freedom and anxiety, alienation, absurdity, dissent, difference, defiance, tragedy, responsibility and creativity, among other key concepts. We will follow existentialist arguments for a concerted, ethically determined atheism and we will consider other existentialist arguments for religious faith and practice. Likewise, we will consider some existentialists’ arguments for engaged political action and others’ resolvedly apolitical standpoints. As such, this course is devoted to understanding how the trajectory of existentialism arose and developed in modern philosophy. Students will begin an acquaintance with several major existentialist thinkers and paradigms; students will therefore begin developing expertise in the constellation of ideas that helped to shape our later modern cultural enterprises.

The best way to succeed in the class is, of course and fundamentally, to care about the ideas we will treat, and therefore to take them up with as much interest, seriousness, enjoyment, terror (etc.) as is necessary to put them to work in your own existence. Less dramatically but more concretely, you ought: 1) to read each day’s selection before class, taking notes on its key points as well as on your questions and concerns; 2) to attend to the day’s lecture, discussion, and presentations, using your own reading and discussion notes as a springboard to ask for clarifications and to amplify ideas in which you are interested; 3) to reread the week’s selections after the in-class discussions of them; and 4) to follow up with the professor, or anyone one else you’d like to engage in conversation, on any points still requiring clarification or amplification after lectures are delivered. Such follow up (with the professor) may be in class, in person during office hours or by appointment, or via email.

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THE SEMINAR This class is a seminar for advanced students, which in this case means students with the mental and emotional maturity to pursue the class material independently, and to use the class time as a way to clarify the work they are freely undertaking outside of class. At least one prior philosophy course is a prerequisite, although no particular expertise or form of theoretical knowledge is required. The seminar presupposes an interest in philosophy and a concern with the life of the mind. It requires of all students a willingness to think, argue, and critically engage the texts and one another.

The seminar structure is based upon the ideal of a small community of scholars, exploring arguments together, while working out their interpretations and objections in dialogue. As scholars of existentialism, we will investigate the conceptual and historical development of the existentialist movement in disparate bodies of thought. As philosophers, we will evaluate the significance both of existentialist thinking, and of the traditional philosophy it critiques, for everyday life.

CLASS PARTICIPATION As above, it is a matter of course that you will participate in a philosophy seminar. This attentiveness can only help you to do well on graded assignments. Perhaps, if you give the class dialogue your all, then by the end of the semester you will say with the philosopher Josiah Royce: “my life means nothing, either theoretically or practically, unless I am a member of a community.” On the other hand, you might by then side with Jean-Paul Sartre, who tells us that “hell is the other.” For now, the best short explanation of why it’s worth participating in class to which I can direct you was written by an RIT professor of philosophy. I suggest that you read it (and peruse the blog that houses it, too): http://knowledgeandexperience.blogspot.com/2013/01/undergrad-tips-for-participation.html

REQUIRED TEXT Robert Solomon’s Existentialism (2nd Edition, Oxford: 2005) is available at the campus bookstore and on most online venues. You must have this text by the end of the first week of class.

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Some of our class readings will come from different primary sources to/for which the instructor will provide the link or pdf via MyCourses. Readings to supplement the week’s Solomon sections will also be available here; students will want to check MyCourses regularly for the full list of each week’s readings.

REQUIREMENTS 1. Micro-essays. Each student will regularly write a short essay on an element of our readings. Roughly, they are due every two weeks, for a total of seven micro-essays. Further details regarding the intellectual expectations and due dates for the micro-essays will be discussed in class. Micro-essays should be between 700-1,000 words (about 2-3 pages without font or margin abuse). They will be posted by students to the MyCourses dropbox on the due date, and will not be accepted late or in any other format. Grades for each essay will appear on myCourses, but essays will not be returned. Interested students are encouraged to discuss their writings with the instructor in person during scheduled meetings or via email. Micro-essays are each worth 5% of the final grade, or 35% of the grade in sum.

2. Summative Essay. Each student will write a longer essay on a topic of her/his choice, either a focused assessment of a particular text or thinker, or an analysis of the trajectory of some body of thought relevant to our readings. Possible topics will be discussed in class. The summative essay should be about 2,000 words; its expectations will be discussed in more detail in class. The due date for this essay is May 22 by 6pm (via myCourses dropbox). Please note that this is during exam week, so a good essay will require your attention before the final hour (proverbially speaking---a good essay will actually require your attention well before the final week). Students may write and submit the essay earlier (after the midterm), one they have gained the professor’s approval of a topic. The benefits of an earlier submission include better knowledge of one’s final grade, the ability to rework any problematic material if one chooses, and avoiding the excess of assignments that tends to characterize the final week of class. The summative essay is worth 10% of the final grade.

3 & 4. Two exams will be taken, a midterm (during week 7 or 8 tba in class) and a final. Each exam will entail a range of formats, which could include multiple choice and true/false questions, and which will certainly include short answer questions. All exam questions will be taken from our readings and class discussions. Each exam is worth 20% of the final grade.

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5. Each student will give an in-class presentation, either alone or with a partner (or possibly as a group of three). Students will have the opportunity to choose to work alone or to choose their presentation partners. The purpose of a presentation is to develop and share a more in-depth understanding of our texts. Presenters should be able to explain and/or critique the text they handle, and to answer questions on it with a strong degree of familiarity.

Each member of the presentation group will receive an individual grade, although that grade will be impacted by the success of the group presentation as a whole. Each student will speak on a section of the given text or on a different thematic elaboration of it, and each will write a presentation overview, which is due in class at the outset of the presentation.

The presentation overview may involve separate sections, independently written by each presenter, or its body text may be more collaborative (though if students choose to collaborate on a unified text, they should make sure that the whole appropriately reflects the work each has done). The overview should be about 3 pages long. Paper copies must be distributed to each member of the seminar before the presentation. The presentation overview should elect and remind readers of the most pressing issues in the text at hand; it should highlight difficulties in the text and should attempt a reading, interpretation, critique and/or elaboration of those issues. It need not, and indeed cannot, be exhaustive. The presentation is worth 15% of the final grade.

Attendance is mandatory. One absence will not be questioned, although work (exams, presentations) that is not accomplished on the due date may not be made up, except in the case of a documented, verified emergency. A second and any subsequent absence will negatively impact the final grade. Repeated lateness and early departure will be treated as absenteeism.

SOME (OPTIONAL) SECONDARY SOURCE TEXTSWalter Kaufmann (Ed) Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (Penguin Books: 1975)Walter Kaufmann Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton: 1974)Karl Löwith From Hegel to Nietzsche (Columbia: 1964) [esp.II.4 “The Problem of Man”] Iris Murdoch Existentialists and Mystics (Penguin: 1997) [“Encountering Existentialism”]

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John O’ Neill (Ed) Hegel’s Dialectic of Desire and Recognition (SUNY: 1996) [esp. Kojeve,

Hyppolite, Sartre, Benjamin]

SOME (OPTIONAL) SECONDARY SOURCES ONLINEThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/

(etc., check Stanford for each of our key philosophers) The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/sartre-ex.htm

READING SCHEDULE (pdf’s and links on MyCourses)

Week 1JanuaryTu 28: Introduction: Contextualizing Existentialism/Hegel Th 30: Read Hegel: Lordship and Bondage; Read Solomon’s “Introduction” to Existentialism

Week 2FebruaryTu 4: Review Hegel and Solomon’s Introduction. Th 6: Read all of Solomon’s Kierkegaard selections, pp. 1-33

Week 3Tu 11: Kierkegaard, Thought Project & Fragments (pls read all of the pdf) Th 13: Complete Kierkegaard (splitting pdf readings roughly in half between both classes)

Week 4Tu 18 & Th 20We will view Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal in class. If you miss a portion of class, be sure to watch the film on your own.

By Sunday, February 23 at 4pm, you will upload your first microessay/journal to the dropbox.Please find, in the content section, a general description of the expectations of the Microessay. You will also find there some optional guiding questions. 

 Should you like to get ahead on the reading for the following week, it is from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. We will read the “Attempt at a Self-Criticism” as well as the first 15 sections of the text (this is about 50 pages of reading).

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The full text is here:http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_the_birth_of_tragedy/the_birth_of_tragedy.htm Week 5Tu 25 & Th 27As above, read from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music:  the “Attempt at a Self-Criticism” as well as the first 15 sections of the text.The full text is here:http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_the_birth_of_tragedy/the_birth_of_tragedy.htmOur discussion will cover about half of this reading on Tuesday and about half on Thursday Week 6Tu, March 4: from Solomon’s Nietzsche selections, pp. 67-78Th 6: from Solomon’s Nietzsche selections, pp.79-101

Second microessay due to dropbox by Monday, March 10, noon. Week 7Tu 11: Solomon, Heidegger selections, pp. 116-135Th 13: Solomon, Heidegger selections, pp. 135-152

(Fischer Talk: “Marx’s Critique of Ideology: How should we understand it?” Eastman 4287, 4pm http://www.rit.edu/cla/philosophy/Events.htm )

Week 8Tu 18: Review Heidegger and study guide (see content section) for midtermTh 20: Midterm exam in class

(Morality and Evolution talk, Eastman 2000, 4pm http://www.rit.edu/cla/philosophy/Events.htm )

Week 924-28 Spring Break: Become who you are.

Week 10April Tu 1: Literary existentialism: Dostoevsky (all Solomon selections)Th 3: Rilke; Beckett; Borges (all Solomon selections), AND additional Kafka selections, pdf

Week 11Tu 8: Sartre “Existentialism is a Humanism” (please read the complete text here, Solomon is

incomplete: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm) Th 10: Sartre: Selections in Solomon from Being and Nothingness

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(Structural Conditions for Civility talk, Eastman 2000, 4pm http://www.rit.edu/cla/philosophy/Events.htm )

Week 12Tu 15: DeBeauvoir: selections from The Second Sex (pdf, note that this is different from Solomon rdg) Th 17: DeBeauvoir: selections from The Ethics of Ambiguity (pdf, note that this is different from

Solomon rdg)

Week 13Tu 22: Agnes Heller Introduction and Lecture One from An Ethics of Personality (pdf)Th 24: Richard J. Bernstein “Existential Choice: Heller’s Either/Or” (pdf)

** Please attend if possible! Dr. Marcia Morgan: “Kierkegaard’s Existential Choice: Continuing a Recent Dialogue Between Agnes Heller and Richard J. Bernstein,” Eastman 2000, 4pm http://www.rit.edu/cla/philosophy/Events.htm )

Week 14 Tu (April) 29: Camus: All Solomon selections

(Weds, 4/30 Neil deGrasse Tyson talk at MCC, 7pm)

May(Week 14 ct )Th (May) 1: Merleau Ponty: “Hegel’s Existentialism” (pdf)

Week 15Tu 6: Merleau Ponty: Solomon selections Th 8 Review for final as well as summative essay

Week 16Tu 13: Final Exam in class

May 22: Summative Paper due by scheduled final exam time, 4:45pm.

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