PHIL 215 - Phenomenology & Existential Thought

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Phenomenology and Existentialism are two interrelated philosophical movements originating in Europe in the early to mid 20th Century. Both are concerned with describing human experience, and addressing a number of questions that arise in the process. These include perennial philosophical concerns like “What is my relationship to the world I encounter in perceptual experience?” “How do I know other people exist?” and even ”What, if anything, gives life meaning?” In this course, we discuss phenomenological and existentialist approaches to these questions, and to topics as wide-ranging as how we relate to objects in everyday experience, how awareness of our own mortality structures our lives, the role of the body in our experience of the world, how to understand other people as just as much a “subject” as I am, and what (if any) moral, ethical, and political commitments might arise from existential/phenomenological responses to these questions. Figures discussed include Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, De Beauvoir, Levinas, and more. Rebecca Harrison.

Prerequisite(s): One 100-level Philosophy course or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS