Syllabus
This course will be taught by Shawn Christopher Vigil
* Contact: 2quillswriting@gmail.com
Office Hours: TBD
Week I: General Introduction
Week II: Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” In Practical Philosophy, pp. 11 - 22.
Week III: Schopenhauer, Ch. 2: “What a Man Is,” in Parerga and Paralipomena, pp. 323 - 345.
Week IV: Schopenhauer, Ch. 4: “What a Man Represents,” in Parerga and Paralipomena, pp. 535 - 403.
Week V: Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as Educator,” in Untimely Meditations, pp. 127 - 130.
Week VI: Kierkegaard, “Either/Or, A Fragment of Life I,” in The Essential Kierkegaard, pp. 37 - 65.
Week VIII: Kierkegaard, “Either/Or, A Fragment of Life II,” in The Essential Kierkegaard, pp. 66- 85.
Week IX: Heidegger, “Building Dwelling, Thinking,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, pp. 141 - 160.
Week X: Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” in Basic Writings, pp. 213 - 266.
Week XI: Beauvoir, Ch. 1: “Ambiguity and Freedom,” in The Ethics of Ambiguity, pp. 7 - 32.
Week XII: Beauvoir, Ch. 3 “The Positive Aspects of Ambiguity,” in The Ethics of Ambiguity, §1, 2, 5.
Annotation
“To philosophize is to learn to die.” [« Philosophiser c’est apprendre à mourir »]. These are the famous words declared by the French essayist and philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533- 1592), echoing the ancient statesman Cicero (106 – 43 BCE).
And in this proclamation is an invitation for one to reflect on what it means to truly live. What sorts of persons are we? How can and do we come to define ourselves? What is the nature of the relationship between the individual and society? And most importantly, how ought we to edify and conduct ourselves in our lives and in the world at large? This course will survey these themes from prominent thinkers throughout the 19th and 20th century.