Fall 2006 & Spring 2007 Courses

Course descriptions are immediately following. Click to view the schedule for Fall 2006 classes, including days and times. There may be periodic changes and additions, particularly to Spring 2007 courses, so please check back frequently.

To view courses for 2005-06, click here.

COURSES

GPHI 5002
Philosophy of Dialogue
Spring 2007. Three credits.
Dmitri Nikulin
The aim of this course is to discuss various accounts of dialogue as a genre and form of philosophizing. We refer mostly to modern debates (de Maistre, Hirzel, Buber, Bakhtin, Jacques, Gadamer, Taylor) and attempt to identify the structures and elements of dialogue in relation to notions of dialectic, the person, the other, authorship, voice, unfinalizability, and being.

GPHI 5006
Kierkegaard as Philosopher and as Religious Thinker
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Agnes Heller
The class follows the development of Kierkegaard’s work step by step. Discussion concentrates on the following books: Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, The Concept of Anxiety, Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and Sickness unto Death.

GPHI 6011
Modern Deductive Logic
Spring 2006. 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 6018
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit I
Fall 2006. Three credits.
J.M. Bernstein
This is the first part of a yearlong course. The course commences with a reading of “The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate,” in which Hegel first articulates the core components of his ethical vision: the critique of Kantian moralism, the postulation of a “fate” in which the denial of the other yields the destruction of the self, and consciousness formation through criminal action—the original statement of the work of “the negative.” All these are set within an implausible metaphysics of life. Phenomenology of Spirit is the attempt to salvage the insights of the early program without its metaphysics. During the semester, we carefully read Hegel’s introduction to the book, the accounts of “Consciousness” and “Self-Consciousness,” and, at least the first half of the chapter on “Reason.” As we proceed, fundamental objections to Hegel are considered: Heidegger’s critique of Hegel’s phenomenological method, Feuerbach’s contention that consciousness need never leave the world of sense-certainty, and Derrida/Bataille’s argument that the dialectic of master and slave involves an illegitimate transfiguration of the negativity of death into a moment of development and growth. At stake throughout is an interrogation of Hegel’s conception of idealism and its governing premise: subjectivity is grounded in (at least) intersubjectivity. It is that thesis that installs sociality and ethical normativity into the heart of Hegel’s project.

GPHI 6022
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit II
Spring 2007. Three credits.
J.M. Bernstein
In the second half of this yearlong study of Hegel’s pivotal early work, our focus is on the chapter on “Spirit.” In it, Hegel proposes that reflective self-understanding of ourselves as modern, self-determining subjects is a historical accomplishment and hence that philosophical self-consciousness is necessarily historically mediated. Central to this argument is his account of the Greek world represented in Sophocles’ Antigone (against which a variety of feminist critiques have been lodged), the French Revolution and the Terror, and the critique of the moral philosophies of Kant and Fichte (against which a variety of Kantian counters have been lodged). The course then turns to Hegel’s account of “Religion,” which raises the question of whether his system is merely a philosophical interpretation of Christian revelation or an atheistic system whose core ideals are merely anticipated by Christianity. Finally, we study Hegel’s account of “Absolute Knowing” (his ultimate defense of idealism against epistemological realism) and his conception of philosophy as “speculative” writing in the Preface. Consideration of contemporary accounts of Hegel’s idealism by Pippin, Brandom, and others is a leitmotif of our reflections.

GPHI 6028
Bergson and Deleuze on Time and Difference
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Edward S. Casey
Is time a creation of difference (e.g., of countable temporal intervals) or is it a sheer continuum that defies any formal or rigorous differentiation? How do we apprehend the passing of time: as part of ordinary sensory perception, by intuitive projection, or by a special apperceptual mode? Where is time located—in the world or in the human subject? How does time relate to space and, more particularly, to place? What is the character of difference, and how does it relate to novelty and repetition? How are difference and space related to each other, and how many kinds of space can we discern (formal vs. lived, smooth vs. striated)? These and other closely related questions are pursued in selected writings of Bergson and Deleuze. The course opens with a close reading of parts of Bergson’s Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory. Deleuze’s Bergsonism is read as providing a pivot between the two philosophers, at once connecting and disconnecting them. Chapters from Deleuze’s Difference and Repetitition and from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? form the epicenter of the rest of this course, which is designed both as an introduction to the two (and sometimes three) French thinkers and as an opportunity to deepen one’s understanding of each by constructing an ongoing dialogue between both. A class report and a final essay are required.

GPHI 6045
Hannah Arendt: Politics and Philosophy
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Richard J. Bernstein
The impulse to political philosophy may be thought of as an endeavor—and failure—to assimilate a conception of the nature of the world and the meaning of human existence and activity to the political life of a historical period. It is in that context where the most general political standards—good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice—have been raised and where every political philosophy seeks to comprehend for itself. The achievement of Hannah Arendt as a political thinker may be measured by the light—reflected from those same standards of political judgement—which she shed on the unprecedented darkness of the her times. Whatever its extent, that light is utterly unlike any that came before in its comprehension of the relation of philosophy and politics, or thinking and acting—of what traditionally have been conceived of as the vita contemplativa and the vita activa. This course assesses her achievement, and the problems its entails, through a consideration of such major works as The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, Between Past and Future, and The Life of the Mind, supplemented by other readings. Cross-listed as GLIB 5505.

GPHI 6071
The Will in Modern Philosophy and Ideology
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Yirmiyahu Yovel
A distinct feature of modernity is the central role it assigns to the concept (and activity) of the will. This lecture course examines modern shifts in the concept of will along two tracks. One track deals with select philosophical views from Descartes to Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. The other track looks at the role of the will in movements of political practice that are characteristics of modernity—such as nationalism, socialism, imperialism, fascism, and capitalist consumerism.

GPHI 6072
The Basic Works of Freud
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Alan Bass
This course covers the major concepts in Freud, stressing their revolutionary nature. Topics include trauma, defense, wishes, dreams, unconscious processes, infantile sexuality, perversion, narcissism, identification, life and death drives, anxiety, disavowal, and ego splitting. Cross-listed as GLIB 5506.

GPHI 6073
Descartes
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Bernard Flynn
This course consists of a close study of Descartes’s major philosophical works: Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Discourse on Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, and The Passions of the Soul. These works are read within the context of the intellectual history of the 17th century and in conjunction with certain classical secondary sources. The last part of the semester is devoted to two 20th-century interpreters of Descartes, Husserl and Heidegger, as well as the debate between Foucault and Derrida on the role of madness in Meditations.

GPHI 6074
Basic Problems of Phenomenology
Summer 2006. Three credits.
James Dodd
This course provides an introduction to the project of classical phenomenology as it is found in the writings of Husserl and Heidegger. Topics include expression and meaning, consciousness and Dasein, time and temporality, perception and intentionality, and evidence and truth.

GPHI 6075
Phenomenology of Light and Architecture
Fall 2006. Three credits.
James Dodd
This course is an introduction to classical phenomenological philosophy and to the fundamentals of phenomenological practice, with particular emphasis on the theory of perception, the problems of time and space, and the theory of meaning. The set of specific problems and questions of interpretation for this introduction will be the manifold role that light plays in the built world. Could the classical phenomenological themes of presence and absence, expression and meaning, phenomenality and being be employed to frame a research program on the architecture and design of light? And, in turn, could a sophisticated understanding of what is implicit in our capacity to design the experiential feel of built space reopen the very question of the being and essence of phenomenality, and with that its fundamental relation to human existence and action?

GPHI 6076
Freudians and Post-Freudians
Spring 2007. Three credits.
Alan Bass
This course surveys some of the most important contributions to psychoanalysis in the broadly Freudian tradition. Authors to be studied include Ferenczi, Abraham, Klein, Winnicott, Loewald, Bion, Lacan, and Laplanche.

GPHI 6077
Philosophical Psychology: Ancient Greek Thinking on the Soul
Spring 2007. Three credits.
Claudia Baracchi
By reference to texts ranging from the pre-Socratic thinkers to Plato and Aristotle, from tragedy and lyrical poetry to contemporary meditations on the ancient insights, in this course we broach the question of the meaning of the word psukhe. We attempt to disclose psukhe especially in its physiological implications: first of all as breath, pneuma, and hence as that which lives, that whose work is living—as a principle and power of animation, which differentiates an animal (an animate, living being, zoon) from inert matter. Subsequently, we deepen our understanding of the meaning of being alive—of life in its manifold movedness (ranging from metabolic functions, to desirous and emotional drivenness, to imaginative, deliberative, and reflective powers).

GPHI 6078
Foucault’s Political Ontology
Fall 2006
Johanna Oksala
This course focuses on Foucault’s understanding of power and on the notions that are intimately tied to it: subject, knowledge, violence, and truth. We ask what kind of ontological commitments underlie Foucault’s genealogies and what their political implications are. We also consider whether his analyses of power amount to an implicit or explicit metaphysics of power, as some commentators have claimed. Texts include central book chapters, lectures, essays and interviews from Foucault’s genealogical writings.

GPHI 6079
Later Merleau-Ponty
Spring 2007.  Three Credits
Mauro Carbone
This course tries to understand what Merleau-Ponty meant when he confessed to feeling that a “mutation of the relationship between humanity and Being” is under way in our epoch.  It does so by focusing on Merleau-Ponty’s last writing on painting (‘Eye and Mind’), his unfinished book (‘The Visible and the Invisible’), and the notes from the last courses at the Collège de France, some of which are not translated in English.

GPHI 6080
Spinoza’s Ethics
Spring 2007.  Three Credits
Julie R. Klein
We devote the semester to an intensive reading of Spinoza’s Ethics, looking at it both in the context of seventeenth century philosophy (e.g., Descartes, Hobbes, medieval Judaeo-Islamic Aristotelianism) and in connection with our own philosophical discourses (e.g., contemporary Continental philosophy and psychoanalysis).  The primary themes for the course are: (1) Spinoza’s philosophy of nature and its connection with ethics and politics; (2) Spinoza’s account of knowing and its relationship to affectivity; (3) Spinoza’s nominalism and materialism (e.g., his critique of language and reason, critique of free will, and critique of teleology).  In addition to working on the primary texts, we read select works of important contemporary interpreters.  By way of preparation, we read parts of Spinoza’s Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, Cogitata Metaphysica, and the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect.

GPHI 6510
Gadamer’s Truth and Method
Spring 2007. Three credits.
Richard J. Bernstein
The primary focus of this seminar is a close reading of Gadamer’s Truth and Method. We also consider some of Gadamer’s other writings, as well as his relationship to Heidegger, Habermas, Ricoeur, and Derrida.

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GPHI 6516
Introductory Proseminar: Philosophical Dialogues
Fall 2006. Not for credit.
Miranda Nell, Chris Roberts
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, offering 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 6548
Prospectus Seminar
Fall 2006, Spring 2007. No 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 coursework. The course does not count toward the Philosophy department’s PhD seminar requirement.

GPHI 6571
Transnational Justice
Spring 2007. Three Credits.
Nancy Fraser
Traditionally, theories of justice have assumed the sovereign nation state as the relevant frame or context of justice. Today, however, on many pressing issues of justice the appropriate frame does not coincide with the borders of existing states; the community of those who raise claims to justice does not coincide with established citizenries. Thus the discourse of justice needs to be rethought: What is the appropriate context of justice today? How should the relevant grounds and institutions of justice be reframed? In this seminar we will consider some contemporary approaches to these questions. Readings by such figures as John Rawls, Thomas Pogge, Onora O’Neill, John Ruggie, Amartya Sen, Jürgen Habermas, Robert A. Dahl, Seyla Benhabib, Rainer Forst, and David Held.

GPHI 6584
On Sublimation
Fall 2006, Spring 2007. One and one-half credits per semester.
Julia Kristeva
The course intends to present an interpretation of “sublimation” according to Freud, beginning with a commentary on several of his classic texts and accompanied by a development of his thought by Julia Kristeva based on her own experience as a clinical psychoanalyst and literary theorist. In the second semester, texts on the history of religion are examined in order to identify how various religious formations have tried to sublimate the love experience. This course is spread over two semesters, and students register for the Fall and Spring sections separately. The Fall section of the course is a prerequisite for the Spring section.

GPHI 6585
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Richard J. Bernstein
The course centers on a close reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and his related writings. We also consider some of the recent interpretations of the Tractatus.

GPHI 6586
Heidegger’s Middle Period
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Agnes Heller
The following papers by Heidegger, written from the end of the 1920s to the beginning of the 1960s, are discussed: “What is Metaphysics?”; “On the Essence of Truth”; “On the Essence of Ground”; “Nietzsche’s Word: ‘God Is Dead’”; “The Age of the World Picture”; “The Origin of the Work of Art”; the “Letter on Humanism”; “The Question Concerning Technology”; “Building Dwelling Thinking”; “What Calls for Thinking?”; “The Way to Language”; and “The End of Philosophy.”

GPHI 6587
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Introduction to the Philosophy of History
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Agnes Heller
The course covers Hegel’s Philosophy of Right plus his Introduction to the Philosophy of History (“Reason in History”), and includes a close reading of his Philosophy of Right. The last section of Hegel’s book of lectures on world history is discussed alongside Introduction to the Philosophy of History.

GPHI 6588
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Reconsidered
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Yirmiyahu Yovel
This course is a text seminar based on Kant’s first Critique. We start by reconstructing Kant’s meta-philosophy and his stated project (which many overlook today) of creating a valid “metaphysics as science”. Against this background, we read the chapters of the Critique of Pure Reason in detail, at least up to the end of the Transcendental Analytic, and try to see what made Kant think that it realized that program. This will take us to the last weeks of the semester, in which the Transcendental Dialectic will be treated in a more generalized way. Central themes along the road will be the various aspects of the Copernican revolution and the relation between rationality and finitude.

GPHI 6589
On War
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Claudia Baracchi
In this course, we approach the phenomenon of war in its political as well as psychological dimensions. Our work revolves especially around texts by Plato and Freud, but considers also more recent contributions to an understanding of the political in light of psychoanalytical insight and to a renewed debate on cosmopolitanism. This perspective radically problematizes customary dichotomies such as those between the private and public, ethics and politics, the visible and the invisible. In exploring war in its pervasiveness and normality, we assess the possibility of peace to come.

GPHI 6590
Early Plato
Fall 2006. Three credits.
Dmitri Nikulin
This course centers on a close reading of Plato’s earlier dialogues, including the Ion, Lysis, and Euthydemus. While discussing a variety of topics such as love, friendship, self-knowledge, wisdom, temperance and the like, we attempt to investigate—and thereby hopefully practice—Socratic dialectic, including its structures, conclusions and inconclusiveness, insights and limitations.

GPHI 6591
Philosophy of History
Spring 2007. Three credits.
Dmitri Nikulin
This course attempts to examine different philosophical approaches toward understanding history. Readings include texts by Hegel, Collingwood, Popper, Nora, Heller, and others.

GPHI 6592
The Sacred and the Profane
Spring 2007. Three credits.
Claudia Baracchi
We live at a time in which religious institutions and scientific discourses (the latter variously involved in the technological application and commercialization of their findings) are competing for authoritativeness in an increasingly polarized fashion. At stake in such a contraposition are issues concerning nature and human nature, the origin of the cosmos, the experience and interpretation of embodiment (sexual orientation, reproduction, death), and what should and should not be pursued, especially now that certain scientific fields (e.g., genetics) are disclosing heretofore inconceivable opportunities of research and promising options unavailable up until now (e.g., medically assisted procreation). By reference to various philosophical reflections, in this course we critically assess the inveterate opposition between faith and reason and explore the human experience of the sacred, the holy, and the divine, in its political implications as well as its irreducibility to religious institution.

GPHI 6593
Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology
Spring 2007. Three credits.
Alice Crary
This course explores central themes in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, placing special emphasis on his treatment of psychological concepts. Course texts include, in addition to the Philosophical Investigations and Zettel, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (volumes I and II), Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, and recently published portions of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass.

GPHI 6594
Conceptions of Memory
Spring 2007.  Three credits
Ross Poole
There are two distinct traditions of thought about memory.
The first focuses on memory as an individual phenomenon; its theorists – philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists – provide more or less sophisticated versions of a model which can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. On this account, an initial experience leaves an internal ‘trace’ (imprint, idea, impression), and this trace provides the basis for later recall. The second, and more recent tradition, is to be found in the work of social, political and cultural theorists, where memory is conceived as primarily a social phenomenon, and is based on external objects (cultural artifacts such as memorials, museums, rituals, bodily practices, etc.) and their interpretation. This course looks at both traditions, but it is also concerned to question the distinction, and to examine recent work which points towards a unified conception of memory. Further, we investigate various byways and misadventures of memory, including: the medieval art of memory; ghosts; trauma and repression; and amnesia. While the main texts are drawn from philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Nietzsche, Bergson, etc.), readings also include literature (Shakespeare, Proust), psychoanalysis and psychology, and cultural theory and history.

GPHI 6595
Pragmatism: Self, Community, and Experience
Fall 2006.  Three credits
Mitchell Aboulafia    
There is perhaps something misleading about entitling this seminar “Pragmatism,” since there are in fact a variety of pragmatisms and thinkers who have been labeled ‘pragmatists.’ Nevertheless, there is a recognizable pragmatic tradition.  Highlighting the themes of self, community, and experience will enable us to address classical figures in this tradition and draw relevant comparisons to European thought. The course focuses on the work of William James, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey, specifically, James’s writings on habit, the stream of consciousness, and radical empiricism; Mead on sociality, novelty, the self, and self-consciousness; and Dewey on experience, community, and democracy.  We also discuss Sartre’s model of consciousness and his account of “the other” in Being and Nothingness, which sets the stage for comparisons between classical pragmatists and an important strand of mid-twentieth century Continental thought.  This course provides the basis for appreciating the work of contemporary pragmatists and neo-pragmatists, such as Rorty, whom we discuss briefly.        

GPHI 6596
Hume’s Treatise
Fall 2006.  Three Credits
Catherine Kemp
This course offers a close reading of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, with special emphasis on Hume’s empiricism, construed broadly as a philosophy of the nature and the effects of experience.  Along the way, we address traditional themes in Hume including: the nature of impressions and ideas; the role of relations; belief and knowledge; causation; probability; skepticism; Hume’s varieties of reason; the ubiquity of the passions; sympathy; and his moral theory.  The integration of these themes relies on an awareness of Hume’s motivations in their late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth century context.  Finally, the reading offered supports interests in Hume as a figure in the history of philosophy, important not only for Kant but also for nineteenth century psychology and phenomenology.

GPHI 6597
Aesthetics and Politics
Spring 2007.  Three Credits
Mauro Carbone
“The grief surrounding these columns is overwhelming and we look on as if hit by a wave of turbulence”: this phrase by Charles Bernstein concerning the missing flyers on the columns of the subway station in Times Square after September 11th  spontaneously reminds us of an image by Immanuel Kant concerning the experience of the Sublime. Taking its point of departure in aspects of Kant’s theory of the Sublime and its interpretation by Lyotard, as well as in Proust’s conception of involuntary memory, this seminar endeavors to think through the following questions: could we think of the memory of September 11th as opening the possibility of a new idea of community; could we think of some images of September 11th as giving that possibility a non-metaphysical ground, a non-necessary foundation; in particular, could we find in these images a peculiar temporality understood as a mythical temporality, the involuntary memory of which could give that possibility of a new idea of community something like a chance?

GPHI 6990
Independent Study
Fall 2006, Spring 2007.
One, two, or three credits.
This is a student-initiated course which gives students the opportunity to pursue advanced research on a specific topic with the guidance of a faculty member. Permission of the instructor is required.

GPHI 6992
Practical Curricular Training
Fall 2006, Spring 2007. One-half credit.
J.M. Bernstein
Practical curricular training provides students the 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 June 11, 2007.