The Modern Self as Subject: From Descartes to Kant

UFT Code: 
AP370
Unit Credit Points: 
15
Timetabling
Semester: 
Second Semester
Day: 
Monday
Time: 
10 - 1
Lecturer Profile: 
John Martis
Years Offered: 
2010

Can my experience of myself be trusted as what is finally real? Or is this experience just another obstacle to knowing things as they are? This unit explores the modern project, beginning with Descartes, and continuing through Hume and Kant, to place the knowing self at the centre of existence. 

Description
Learning Outcomes: 
  1.  discuss the issues attending Aristotle’s origination of the term “subject”
  2.  explain, and debate the significance of, the developments St. Thomas Aquinas brings to Aristotle’s idea of “being”
  3. explain why Descartes abandons the Aristotelian/Medieval view of the subject; debate the validity of the criteria Descartes employs in his quest for reliable knowledge.
  4. explain and critique the process by which Descartes attempts to confirm the existence of the (thinking) self
  5. critically assess the ways in which Hume, more radically still than Descartes, attempts to challenge key assumptions of the Aristotelian tradition, including the claim for an immaterial soul, and the reality of self-perception
  6. explain and assess the ways in which Kant’s description of the “I” of thought takes into account Hume’s objections to, e.g., Descartes
  7. discuss why, how, and how successfully Kant seeks to demonstrate that his reasoning subject has genuine freedom
  8. discuss how Kant’s description of the human faculty of judgement attempts to show how the “natural” subject and the “free” subject are reconciled
Prerequisites: 
30 points of Foundational study in Theology and Church History
Teaching Methods: 

3 hours of lectures and tutorials weekly for 12 weeks  

Contact Hours: 

36 Hours

Assessment: 

 2 x 3000 word essays (50% each)

Mode of Teaching: 
Semester
Bibliography: 

 * = set texts recommended for purchase

Please format reading lists according to Turabian

 

  • Ayer, A.J. Hume. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
  • Bunnin, N. and E.P. Tsui-James. The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
  • Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. 3rd ed. Mountain View: Mayfield, 1999.
  • Robinson, David, and C. Garratt. Introducing Descartes. Cambridge: Icon Books, 1999.
  • *Schacht, R. Classical Modern Philosophers: Descartes to Kant. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984.
  • Want, Christopher and Andrzej Klimowski. Introducing Kant. Cambridge: Icon Books, 1999.
 
Unit Fields
BTheol Field: 
Field A Humanities
BTheol Discipline: 
Philosophy
Department Name: 
Department of Philosophy
Unit Level
GradDip Field: 
Elective
MDiv Type of Study: 
Specialised
MTS: 
MTS
Postgraduate: 
No

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