Annotation
FALL 2023
Charles University
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
(This is not a class for Erasmus students)
Daniele De Santis, Ph. D.
Office hours: Thursday 14:30-15:30 Room: 223
Email: daniele.desantis@ff.cuni.cz
Contemporary Theoretical Philosophy A
Being, Beings and Consciousness
An Introduction to One of the Basic Problems of Philosophy
Lecture: Thursday 9:10-10:45 (Room: 217)
Seminar: Thursday 12:30-14:05 (Room: P225V) 1. General Description and Aims of the Module
The present module wants to be an opinionated introduction to 20th century philosophy, with special focus on problems of ontology. More explicitly, the module would like to address the way in which the “problem of being” (whatever this expression may mean) was addressed – sometimes critically and in order to dismiss it once and for all – over the course of the last century. But the question of being will be addressed primarily from the standpoint of that entity which alone experiences being or to which being is given, namely, “consciousness” (or some of its variations). A priority question will have to be raised: what is the relationship between consciousness and being? What determines what? The problem will be tackled by first considering the Master of Suspicions (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud): they will usher us into the 20th century all the way to the beginning of the 21st century. The phenomenological tradition will be first studied, along with the Vienna Circle, Croce and the Italian neo-idealism; then, we will move on to the neo-Parmenidean movement, and finally to some of the recent developments of bio-politics. Is the latter meant to represent a (new) paradigm shift?