Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to:
BA students in Filosofie and Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives
International pre-master’s students in Philosophy who are in possession of an admission statement, and for whom this course is part of their programme.
Description
The world can become a concrete problem because we do not understand it or because there is something wrong with it. For example, in the contemporary world we encounter ecological, technological and geopolitical problems that we would also like to address through philosophy. Learning to do this by means of continental philosophy, in particular, is the starting point and the final aim of this course.
To face real-world problems as philosophers, we need to understand what the world is as a philosophical problem. Indeed, the world is an important philosophical concept in its own right.
In this course we will study the evolution of the concept of world in continental philosophy. This is how we will gain deeper insight into the ways in which continental philosophy proceeds. We will see why and how world came to be conceptualized as horizon of experience in the first place, and how problematizing the concept of experience leads to problematizing the concept of world – and inversely. We will start by examining the classical phenomenological formulations of world developed by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, and we will confront these with critiques coming from Jacques Derrida and Claude Romano. As phenomenology has been criticized for subjectivism and anthropocentrism, we will then examine pluralist and materialist counterproposals first formulated within so-called poststructuralism by Gilles Deleuze and further developed by Bruno Latour, and in the 21st century by Karen Barad and Jane Bennett.
Throughout the course, we will see how real-world problems sometimes oblige us to refine and even reformulate abstract philosophical concepts. For example, in current ecological, technological or geopolitical circumstances, does the world appear as what makes sense to me, or as the unknown horizon of my life? Is the span of my world local, planetary, cosmic? Is there something “outside” of my world? Is the world “mine” or “ours”? If it is “ours”, who belong to this “we” and does it also include nonhumans? Or is the world on the contrary the factual framework of experience independently of its being anybody’s world? Is the world one, or is it characterized by plurality and relationality? We will see how this kind of questions emerge when trying to make the concept of world strong enough to meet the challenges of real world.
In sum, in this course, the philosophical concept of world will be used to clarify contemporary ecological, technological and geopolitical problems, and conversely, these will be used to challenge and sharpen the concept of world.
Course objectives
The aim of the course is to give the students deeper insight into key developments in continental philosophy by showing how one key concept, “world”, has been discussed by its most distinctive authors. Rather than a simple historical presentation, the course is a systematic exploration of the different dimensions of the concept of world. The students will familiarize themselves with primary sources that they will learn to interpret, analyse and evaluate critically.
The aim of the course is also to use and test philosophical concepts on contemporary reality. The strength of different formulations of the concept of world is tested against different problems of the contemporary world, especially ecological, technological, and geopolitical problems.
Students who successfully complete the course will have a good understanding of
Phenomenological method
Poststructuralist and new materialist ways of philosophizing
The different ways in which world has been conceptualized in 20th and 21st century continental philosophy.
Students who successfully complete the course will be able to
Research, analyse, interpret and critically discuss short but challenging extracts of phenomenological, poststructuralist and new materialist texts.
Evaluate different conceptions of “world” and different approaches to it.
Use the above-mentioned philosophical concepts to analyse concrete ecological, technological, and geopolitical problems of the contemporary world.
Mobilize the philosophical insights obtained during the course to analyse a real-world problem requiring societal awareness. This will be prepared by groupwork and presented in an in-class presentation.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
- Lecture
Class attendance is required. The sessions will take the form of lectures by the instructor and discussions in class. The students will also do group work leading to a presentation.
Assessment method
Assessment
Group work and presentation
Final examination: three-hour written exam
Each student must participate in a group work assignment leading to an in-class presentation. Individual participation in the common work must be documented. Grading: pass/fail. The completion of the group work is a mandatory requirement for taking the written examination.
Final examination is a written examination with essay questions.
#### Weighing
Group work and presentation: pass/fail
- Final examination: 100%.
The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher
Resit
The resit is a written examination with essay questions. There is no resit for the group work and presentation.
Students who have obtained a satisfactory grade for the first examination cannot take the resit.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
A full course syllabus will be distributed via Brightspace. Subject to changes, texts will include extracts from.
Edmund Husserl, Ideas 1. Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Tr. Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Indianapolis (Cambridge): Hackett Publishing Company, 2014.
Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. John Mcquarrie and Edward Robinson, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962.
Martin Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, World, Finitude, Solitude. Tr. William McNeill and Nicolas Walker, Indiana University Press, 1995.
Jacques Derrida, Sovereignties in Question. The Poetics of Paul Celan. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.
Claude Romano, Event and World. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Capitalism and Schizophrenia). University of Minnesota press, 1987.
Bruno Latour. Politics of Nature. How to Bring Science to Democracy. Harward University Press 2004.
Karen Barad. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. 2007.
Jane Bennett. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2010.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga
Remarks
Not applicable.