What Becomes of the Human
after Humanism?
Heidegger and The French
Philosophers of Difference
Philosophy
362
Rex Gilliland
Office: Norton 265 Phone:
226-7718
Home Phone: 930-0754
Email: rgillila@bsc.edu
Phil-Sci 308 TTh
3:
Office Hours: TTh
and by appointment
Syllabus Writing Center
Information
Tentative Schedule Click on dates for reading
questions. All changes in red.
T 2/5 Introduction to the course: Modern Science and the Future of Humanism
I. The Origins of the Debate
about Humanism
Th 2/7 Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism”;
encyclopedia entries on humanism
Topics: Freedom and the open future, subjectivity, Sartre’s stance toward
humanism.
T 2/12 Heidegger, selections from Being and Time, div. II; Letter on Humanism 239-255
Topics: Repetition, critique of subjectivity and metaphysics, the relationship of the human being to being
Th 2/14 Letter on Humanism 255-276
Short Paper Assignment, due
T 2/19 Structuralism,
Matthews, “Structuralism”; Levi-Strauss, “The Culinary Triangle”; selections
from “‘Primitive’ Thinking and the ‘Civilized’ Mind,” The Savage Mind, and The
Naked
Topics: What is a structural analysis? Critique of humanism and subjectivity, relation to modern science
II. The French Philosophers of Difference: Are They
“Post-Structuralists”?
Th 2/21 Foucault, selections from The Order of Things, The Archeology of Knowledge, and “Discourse on Language”; interviews: “The Order of Things” and “Foucault Responds to Sartre”
Topics: Difference and repetition, critique of subjectivity, relation to structuralism
T 2/26 Discipline and Punish 182-184; History of Sexuality 1-49, recommended 53-73
Topics: Power, normalization, and resistance
Th 2/28 Discipline and Punish 184-194, 307-308; History of Sexuality 77-102, 135-159, recommended 103-131
Regular Paper Assignment #1, due noon,
Friday 3/1
T 3/5 Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics 21-49; recommended 49-62
Topics: Intuition, the uniqueness and continuity of duration
Th 3/7 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition xv-xxii, 1-11, 208-214; selections from “Bergson’s Conception of Difference”; What is Philosophy? 155-162, recommended 35-60, 201-218
Topics: Difference and repetition, the virtual, empiricism
T 3/12 Difference and Repetition 258-259, 276-280; “A Philosophical Concept …”; selections from A Thousand Plateaus and The Logic of Sense; What is Philosophy? 210-213, recommended 16-34
Topics: Subjectivity, singularity and individuation, the concept
Th 3/14 Selections from The Deleuze Reader, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, and Dialogues
Topics: Ethics, politics, and the other
T 3/19 Derrida, “Différance”; Positions 9-10
Topics: Difference and repetition, the impossibility of presence, critique of ontological difference
Th 3/21 “The
Ends of Man”; Positions 41-42
Topics: Deconstruction, the residue of humanism and presence in Heidegger
Regular Paper Assignment #2 due noon Friday 3/24
3/25 – 3/29 Spring Break
III. Do Foucault and Derrida Retreat?
T 4/2 Foucault, The Use of Pleasure 1-32, 78-93, recommended 53-77; “Preface to The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2”
Topics: How does Foucault modify his project? Power and freedom
Th 4/4 Interview
– “On the Genealogy of Ethics”
Topics: Ethics, normalization, and self-mastery
T 4/9 Interview – “The Ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom”
Topics: Subjectivization and freedom
Th 4/11 “The
Subject and Power”; recommended “Useless to Revolt?” and Interview – “Iran: The
Spirit of a World without Spirit”
Topics: Power, strategy, and subjectivization
T 4/16 Derrida, Interview – “‘Eating Well’, or the Calculation of the Subject”
Topic: What becomes of the subject?
Th 4/18 “The
Politics of Friendship”; “Force of Law”?; and “Toward an Ethic of Discussion”
115-116, 148-149
Topics: Responsibility and the other, undecidability
Regular Paper Assignment #3 due noon Friday 4/19
T 4/23 Honors
Day – No Class
Th 4/25 No Class
T
4/30 Awards Day – Class Starts
Topics: European cultural identity and the other
Th 5/2 On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness
Topics: An ethics of hospitality, the impossibility of forgiveness
IV. Reconsidering Heidegger on the Human
T 5/7 Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology” 3-23
Topics: Freedom, another beginning, the relation of the human being to being
Th 5/9 “The Question Concerning Technology” 23-35
Final
Paper due during Final Exams 5/14 – 5/20. Exact date and time to be determined
later.