Timetabling
Semester:
Second Semester
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:
discuss the issues attending Aristotle’s origination of the term “subject”
explain, and debate the significance of, the developments St. Thomas Aquinas brings to Aristotle’s idea of “being”
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.
explain and critique the process by which Descartes attempts to confirm the existence of the (thinking) self
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
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
discuss why, how, and how successfully Kant seeks to demonstrate that his reasoning subject has genuine freedom
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
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
Unit Level
