Fall 2007 & Spring 2008 Courses

Course descriptions are immediately following. There may be periodic changes and additions, particularly to Spring 2008 courses, so please check back frequently.

To view courses for 2006-07, click here.

COURSES

GPHI 6002
Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction II
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Alan Bass
This course will be devoted to Derrida’s more recent texts on psychoanalysis, including study of the texts he analyzes. Included will be the two essays on Lacan, the work on Abraham and Torok, the rereading of Freud’s Moses in Archive Fever, the essay on telepathy, the re-engagement with Foucault on Freud in Resistances of Psychoanalysis, and the analysis of fetishism in Glas. While not a prerequisite, students are strongly urged to be familiar with the material from Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction 1.

GPHI 6011
Modern Deductive Logic
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Shamik Dasgupta
The purpose of this course is to provide students with knowledge and understanding of the basic concepts of modern deductive logic, both in syntax and semantics. We start with sentential logic and discuss methods of constructing truth tables, truth trees, and derivations (for both the systems of SD and SD+). We then turn to predicate logic and consider certain differences and similarities between sentential and predicate logic and adjust the methods of truth trees and derivations to predicate logic.

GPHI 6030
Kant’s Critique of Judgment
Fall 2007. Three credits.
J.M. Bernstein
Kant’s third Critique is widely regarded as the central text constituting modern aesthetics, as well as, in its attempt to negotiate between the extremes of freedom and law-governed nature that are the consequence of Kant’s practical and theoretical philosophy, the opening shot of German idealism. While this course focuses on a detailed reading of Part I, “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” we shall also read the usually ignored Part II, “Critique of Teleological Judgment.” Among the questions addressed: Why does this work have the two parts it does? How are judgments of taste possible? What is the role of reflective judgment in Kant’s system generally? Are judgments of sublimity parallel to judgments of beauty? If not, what is the role of the sublime? Why, for Kant, is natural beauty more central than artistic beauty? What is the relation between beauty and moral goodness? In what sense are successful works of fine art products of “genius”? What is the role of the sensus communis? Apart from reading the Critique itself, and in the hope of locating the contemporary standing of this work, students are expected to engage with a range of secondary literature: Allison, Longuenesse, Pippin, Lyotard, Derrida, etc.

GPHI 6034
Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction I
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Alan Bass
As a major force in contemporary thought, deconstruction has been strongly influenced by psychoanalysis. In turn, as part of its critique of metaphysics, deconstruction has had much to say about the uncritical presuppositions of psychoanalysis. The aim of this course is to study deconstruction and psychoanalysis from both points of view and then to envision how each theory transforms the other. After introducing the basic issues via comparative readings from Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger, readings focus on Derrida’s deconstructive texts. Other deconstructive and psychoanalytic thinkers are studied with particular attention to the Lacan debate, psychoanalysis as science, and the rethinking of sexual differentiation.

GPHI 6035
Descartes
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Dmitri Nikulin
An examination of the philosophy of Descartes. Readings include the Regulae, Discourse on the Method, Le Monde, Meditations, and Descartes’ letters.

GPHI 6048
Schelling
Spring 2008. Three credits.
James Dodd
This lecture course covers the development of Schelling’s philosophy from his 1795 essay “Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism” to his 1809 treatise Of Human Freedom. Our concern will be to grasp the potential and promise of Schelling’s approach to philosophy on its own terms, without relegating it to the status of a mere transitional phase in the history of thought.

GPHI 6058
Mind and Reality
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Richard J. Bernstein
This lecture will concentrate on the writings of Wilfrid Sellars, John McDowell, and Robert Brandom. A close reading of their work focuses on Kantian, Hegelian, and pragmatic themes as they pertain to mind, language, and world.

GPHI 6081
Kant and Husserl
Fall 2007. Three credits.
James Dodd
The importance of a reading of Kant and Husserlian phenomenology cannot be overestimated. Husserl’s interpretation of Kant, as well as his struggle against rival interpretations (e.g., by neo-Kantians), is a key element of his philosophical development. Moreover, it is clear that any assessment of Husserl’s transcendental idealism requires an engagement with Kant’s legacy. In this seminar we will develop a comparative reading of Husserl and Kant that takes both of these ways of posing the question of their relation into account. Our focus is on phenomenological interpretations of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason, taking as our interpretative point of departure Husserl’s Ideas I and his Formal and Transcendental Logic, as well as a number of lectures and shorter essays. We will also consider the question of possible phenomenological approaches to Kant’s Critique of Judgment from a Husserlian perspective.

GPHI 6082
Platonic Philosophy as a Mathematical Enterprise
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Dmitri Nikulin
This course involves a discussion of Plato’s theoretical philosophy as a Pythagorean mathematical enterprise, its criticism in Aristotle, and a reconciliation of the two approaches in Proclus’ reading of Euclid.

GPHI 6083
Nietzsche as Critic and Affirmative Thinker
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Yirmiyahu Yovel
Nietzsche, though often called a nihilist, was as much an affirmative thinker as he was a devastating critic of the culture of his time and of the rationalist mode of modernity. We stress both aspects of his thought. The reading includes his major works—from The Birth of Tragedy and The Dawn (early thoughts on the critique of morality) to Gay Science (critique of basic philosophical concepts, the “shadows of the dead God,” and eternal recurrence in its early form), to Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morals (the revaluation of values and “slave morality,” the mental structure of ressentiment, critique of guilt and asceticism) to eternal recurrence, amor fati, and the will to power and its modes. We discuss Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, and of leading modern ideas like rationalism, liberalism, socialism, and nationalism.

GPHI 6084
The Concept of the Theological-Political
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Bernard Flynn
Carl Schmitt stated that all major political concepts are secularizations of theological notions. One of Claude Lefort’s major articles is entitled “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political?” This course focuses on the notion of the theological-political. Drawing from the works of Ernest Kantorowicz, Quentin Skinner, and Remy Brague, it begins with pre-modern Europe where one finds the direct grounding of political legitimacy on theological doctrines. Next, drawing on the works of the social contract theorists, particularly that of Hobbes, we consider the uncoupling of this direct relationship. Then we deal with the theorists of secularization and their critics, including among others Karl Löwith and Hans Blumenberg. After this, we study the new articulation of the political-theological in the 20th century in the form of political messianism (with and without a messiah) in the works of Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida and others. A different notion of the relationship between the political and the theological is considered in the philosophy of Claude Lefort. The course concludes with a reflection on the debate concerning the relationship between religion and politics in the United States today.

GPHI 6085
Moral Psychology
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Alice Crary
This course addresses a set of fundamental questions of moral philosophy, including, significantly, questions about reasons for acting, moral motivation, weakness of will, freedom of the will and moral luck. Humean approaches to these topics exert an enormous influence on how the topics get framed. For this reason, in each part of the course we discuss the work of Hume and/or contemporary Humeans and then consider Kantian, Hegelian and Aristotelian alternatives. The course objective is the kind of sophisticated understanding of the different issues afforded by an appreciation of connections among historical treatments.

GPHI 6086
Levinas
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Simon Critchley
This lecture course will attempt to introduce, explain and, to some extent, defend Levinas work via his complex relations to a series of other philosophers. Firstly, through those who most influenced him, positively and negatively: Husserl, Hegel and Heidegger. Secondly, through some of those readers who have engaged most powerfully with Levinas’s work: Blanchot, Derrida and Irigaray. We will also examine Levinas’s relation to a number of other ‘ands’: Judaism, psychoanalysis, Kant, politics, sexual difference and the experience of literature. My overall aim is to show the persuasiveness and fragility of Levinas’s thinking, where we will hopefully feel tempted and provoked by Levinas’s thinking, but in a way that does not discourage critique.

GPHI 6087
Plato’s Timaeus
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Claudia Baracchi
The close examination of this (probably) late Platonic dialogue provides the occasion for a sustained reflection on nature in its manifold significations. In our reading we traverse crucial moments in Plato’s thinking regarding the relation between nature and politics, the physiology of ethics, the fundamental questions of spatio-temporality, the dynamics of being and becoming, and, last but not least, the role of the imagination in philosophical inquiry.

GPHI 6088
Sartre’s Philosophical Century
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Nicolas de Warren
This seminar explores the philosophical thought of Jean-Paul Sartre and its significance for the development of contemporary French philosophy. Based on Sartre’s principal philosophical works, Being and Nothingness and Critique of Dialectical Reason, defining moments of Sartre’s thinking are examined along with various engagements with these themes in the writings of Lévinas, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, and Lacan.

GPHI 6089
Augustine’s Confessions: Time and Subjectivity
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Nicolas de Warren
This seminar offers a close reading of Augustine’s Confessions, with additional readings from On the Trinity, Against the Academicians and The City of God, against the backdrop of Plotinus and Cicero, and in light of twentieth-century interpretations of Augustine’s thinking (Arendt, Heidegger, Jauss, Lyotard, Schürmann, Derrida, Ricouer). Special emphasis is placed on the themes of time, narrative and subjectivity.

GPHI 6516
Introductory Proseminar
Fall 2007. Not for credit.
Adam Gies and Karen Ng
In this proseminar, we investigate a series of philosophical conversations, beginning with Plato and Aristotle and ending in the 20th century, and, through a close reading of selected texts, offer an introduction to the basic themes that inform the study of philosophy at The New School for Social Research. This is a noncredit proseminar for first-year students; while it is not compulsory, it is designed to help new students make the transition to graduate study. To this end, we intersperse lectures from Philosophy department faculty with seminar discussions. Time is also devoted to the issue of academic writing and more general questions associated with being a new graduate student in the department.

GPHI 6531
Critical Theory 2: Habermas and Beyond
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Nancy Fraser
Offered in conjunction with the November/December 2007 Hannah Arendt symposium, which bears the same name, this seminar examines the state of critical theory today and assess its future prospects, asking “what is living and what is dead in critical theory?” We begin by revisiting Habermas’s reconstruction of its normative and social-theoretical foundations. Then, aiming to explore possible “post-Habermasian” futures for critical theory, we survey work by the invited Arendt symposium speakers: Etienne Balibar, Luc Boltanski, Judith Butler, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Axel Honneth. Key issues include the relations among political philosophy, social theory, and cultural critique; the relative weight of Kantian, Hegelian, and Nietzschean moments; the relation of the theory to its addressees; the role of moral psychology versus discourse theory in establishing the theory’s normative underpinnings; the possibility/desirability of a “grand” totalizing theory versus a “modest” disciplinary division of labor; and the challenges of feminism, postmodernism, post-structuralism, postcolonialism and globalization theory.

GPHI 6548
Prospectus Seminar
Fall 2007, Spring 2008. Not for credit.
J.M. Bernstein
The course is designed to take students through the various steps involved in constructing a plan of research in order to write a PhD dissertation. By the completion of the course, all students will be expected to have produced an acceptable dissertation prospectus. This course is required for all PhD students who are completing their course work. The course does not count toward the philosophy department’s PhD seminar requirement.

GPHI 6598
Philosophy and Literature
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Alice Crary
This course addresses basic questions at the intersection of philosophy and literary studies. It will cover questions of authorship, intention and metaphor as well as questions about the relationship between the literary (or aesthetic) features of texts and their ethical content. Readings will alternate between theoretical treatments of these and other topics and classic and contemporary works of literature.

GPHI 6599
To Philosophize Is to Learn How to Die
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Simon Critchley
The aim of this seminar is to examine and defend the ideal of the philosophical death. Many authors will be read, beginning with the ancient Greeks, with a focus on Epicurus and Plato, but also classical Chinese philosophy, the deaths of Christian saints, as well as mediaeval and modern philosophy, with an emphasis on Montaigne, Spinoza, Hume and Schopenhauer.

GPHI 6600
The Philosophy of Immanence: Spinoza’s Presence in Modern Thought
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Yirmiyahu Yovel
“Every philosopher has two philosophies,” said the French philosopher Henri Bergson—“his own, and Spinoza’s.” Spinoza’s ideas are indeed present, in different forms, in the work of later thinkers who have shaped the modern mind, from Kant, Hegel, Schelling, and Shopenhauer to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Bergson himself, as well as Russel, Sartre, Deleuze, and Davidson, among others. All these thinkers share what may be called “a philosophy if immanence,” of which Spinoza had been the early modern initiator, and which they construe in different and rival ways. In following Spinoza’s presence in their work, a major pattern of modern philosophy can be traced and appreciated. (The thread of this story can be seen in the instructor’s Spinoza and Other Heretics Vol. II—The Adventures of Immanence.)

GPHI 6601
Hegel’s Science of Logic I
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Richard J. Bernstein
This is the first semester of a two-semester sequence dedicated to a study of Hegel’s Science of Logic. The first semester concentrates on “The Objective Logic” (The Doctrine of Being and The Doctrine of Essence). .

GPHI 6602
Genealogy and Memory
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Dmitri Nikulin
The questions on which we concentrate in this course are: why is there such a strong philosophical interest in genealogy in modern philosophy; how is genealogy appropriated in the philosophy of history and the history of philosophy; and, how is genealogy related to memory in the constitution of the historical. Readings include Voltaire, Vico, Nietzsche, Habermas, Deleuze, Pierre Nora, Jacques Le Goff, Martin Jay and Jan Assmann.

GPHI 6603
Torture and Dignity
Spring 2008. Three credits.
J.M. Bernstein
Using torture as the paradigm case of moral harm, this course interrogates the role of bodily integrity in the constitution of a theory of recognition. A premise of these reflections is that torture itself performs a kind of phenomenology of pain, isolating it by making its infliction the sole component in the relation between torturer and victim. Among the topics to be discussed are: the various kinds of torture, the role of torture in the Nazi genocide, the anthropological underpinnings of human cruelty, the relation between torture and other forms of harm (especially rape), and the way in which the human body becomes figured as something whose integrity requires respect as a minimum condition of possibility for its routine activities. Among the authors we read are Jean Améry, Elaine Scarry, Axel Honneth, and J.G. Fichte.

GPHI 6604
The Sacred and the Profane II
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Claudia Baracchi
We continue our exploration of this boundless theme. The course revolves around Freud’s reflections on religion, and especially on the issue of spiritual or intellectual development outlined in Moses and Monotheism. We juxtapose Freud’s work to a range of diverse texts (including poetic and mystical discourses), following Kristeva’s invitation to consider “post-theological,” secular means of sublimating our sickness of being, which is a sickness of love.

GPHI 6605
Hegel’s Science of Logic II
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Richard J. Bernstein
This is the second semester of a two-semester sequence dedicated to a study of Hegel’s Science of Logic. The seminar finishes “The Doctrine of Essence” and continues with “The Subjective Logic” (The Doctrine of the Notion).

GPHI 6606
Reading Lacan and Badiou
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Simon Critchley
We read a number of texts with a particular emphasis on the question of ethics including The Ethics of Psychoanalysis by Lacan and Badiou’s Ethics and other selections from his works. Students seeking background reading should look at the instructor’s Infinitely Demanding (Verso, 2007).

GPHI 6607
Leibniz and the Idealist Tradition
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Roger Berkowitz
Leibniz’s philosophy stands at the cusp of German Idealism. Looking back towards scholasticism and forward to the future philosophies of the will, Leibniz is meaningful today as the first idealist philosopher. This course focuses on the historical and intellectual development of Leibniz’s Monadology. We follow Leibniz as he sets himself against both medieval scholasticism and modern mechanistic and materialist theories. We see how Leibniz’s Monad, an ideal, rational, appetitive, and perceiving force that is the non-empirical ground of every substance, prefigures and even presages the thinking and ultimately willing subject of German Idealism. As we read Leibniz, we remain alert to the deep resonances that his thinking had with Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, among others. Readings include selections from Leibniz’s essays and letters, his New Essays on Human Understanding, and Heidegger’s Principle of Reason.

GPHI 6608
Philosophy and Colonial Experience: Frantz Fanon and After
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Nicolas de Warren
What is the relationship between Western philosophy and the colonial experience? This seminar explores the writings of three philosophers at the intersection of philosophy and colonial experience: Frantz Fanon (Black Skin, White Masks; The Wretched of the Earth); the Vietnamese philosopher Trân Dúc Tháo (Phenomenology and Dialectic Materialism); and the contemporary Beninian philosopher Paulin Hountondji (The Struggle for Meaning; African Philosophy: Myth and Reality).

GPHI 6609
The Visibility of Painting
Spring 2008. Three credits.
Nicolas de Warren
Modern painting has exercised a special fascination for 20th-century philosophers, especially those aligned with the phenomenological concern with the themes of “manifestation” and “visibility.” In this seminar, the aim is to explore the essence of painting—its logic—as a manifestation of visibility. We first address Merleau-Ponty’s “Eye and Mind” in connection with Panofsky’s seminal essay on perspective as symbolic form, as well as other discussions of Cézanne’s “revolution” (Novotny, Shapiro, Gowing, Rilke). Later, we compare Gilles Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Michel Henry’s study of Kandinsky. Readings may also include Jean-Luc Nancy, Jean-Luc Marion and Henri Maldiney.

GPHI 6610
The Emotional Life Of Politics
Fall 2007. Three credits.
Ross Poole
According to Montesquieu, fear is the principle of behavior appropriate to despotism, honor to a monarchy, and virtue to a republic. Nietzsche claimed that ressentiment is the motivational source of democracy and socialism. These claims provide a useful starting point for an examination of the role of the emotions, forms of character, and specific virtues and vices in political life. We examine the role of fear, not merely in despotism, but in its corrosive effect on the virtues necessary for democratic politics. We look at honor, and also its near neighbor, shame, both of which are as crucial to the practice of democracy as they are to monarchy. There is also a fascinating train of thought which relates the honor of women to the republican form of politics. The investigation of the moral life of politics range broadly, as far back as Ajax and as recently as Agamben, from the rape of Lucrece to honor killings amongst contemporary Moslems. As well as Montesquieu and Nietzsche, we look at Rousseau and Kant (also Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare and Lessing). However, the main thrust of the course is to recuperate the role of emotions in contemporary political philosophy.

GPHI 6990
Independent Study
Fall 2007, Spring 2008. One, two, or three credits.
Students pursue advanced research on specific topics of their own design with the guidance of a faculty member. Permission of the instructor is required.

GPHI 6992
Practical Curricular Training
Fall 2007, Spring 2008. One-half credit.
J.M. Bernstein
An opportunity to receive credit for professional training related to the degree. Students are expected to engage in such training for at least five hours per week. Training should take the form of teaching, research, or other work relevant to the student’s program of study. It may take place at institutions of higher learning, with governmental agencies, or at other sites as appropriate. Students meet regularly with an advisor and submit a written report at the end of the training. Grading is pass/fail.

READING GROUPS

The following reading groups meet regularly each semester. Interested students should contact the instructor during the first week of the semester.

French Reading Group
Not for credit.
Anna Strelis
The purpose of this group is to assist students in improving their reading skills, enriching their vocabulary, and refreshing their knowledge of French grammar in order to prepare for the French language exam required by the philosophy department. Texts are chosen mainly from 17th-century thinkers (Descartes, Arnauld, Malebranche) and from contemporary French philosophers.

German Reading Group
Not for credit.
R. Magee
This group is devoted to the translation and discussion of philosophical texts in German. The course is suitable for students with reasonably good reading skills who wish to improve their proficiency in reading philosophical German, or to prepare for the German language exam in the philosophy department. Texts are usually selected from concurrently offered seminars, and recent readings have been from Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger.

Greek Reading Group
Not for credit.
Erick Jiminez
This reading group is meant for students who wish to improve their proficiency in reading philosophical ancient Greek or to prepare for the Greek language exam in the philosophy department. Reasonably good reading skills are required for active participation. However, those who are less proficient are invited to see whether it will be of use to them or not. Texts are chosen according to the interests of the participants.

Latin Reading Group
Not for credit.
Erick Jiminez
This reading group is meant for students who wish to improve their proficiency in reading philosophical Latin or to prepare for the Latin language exam in the philosophy department. Reasonably good reading skills are required for active participation. However, those who are less proficient are invited to see whether it will be of use to them or not. Texts are chosen according to the interests of the participants.
 

This page was last updated January 9, 2008.