Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to:
BA students in Filosofie, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including History of Modern Philosophy, Cultuurfilosofie, Continentale filosofie, Philosophy of Mind.
BA students in Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including World Philosophies: Modern Europe, Philosophy of Culture, Concepts of Selfhood, and at least one of the courses World Philosophies: China, World Philosophies: India, World Philosophies: Africa, World Philosophies: Middle East.
Pre-master’s students in Philosophy who are in possession of an admission statement and who have to complete an advanced seminar, to be selected from package A.
Description
Our exploration of existentialism—and the philosophy of existence more broadly—will start with its prehistory, focusing specifically on the philosophy of choice that emerges within Blaise Pascal's Pensees. Our examination of Pascal will unveil two lines of inquiry, each of which will be expanded, transformed, and enriched by later existentialists: the forerunners (such as Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche), the German school (including Martin Buber, Martin Heidegger, and Karl Jaspers), the French school (comprising Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre), and the black existentialists (including Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire).Despite this subsequent expansion and transformation, Pascal’s two lines of inquiry provide a good starting point for mapping and understanding the twists and turns in the history of existentialism.
Our first line of inquiry starts from Pascal’s contention that each individual human being needs to choose between various incompatible modes of existence, none of which can be dictated by external sources, necessitating a subjective choice. This explains why existentialist philosophers often felt the need to combine philosophy and literature. On the side of philosophy, they aim to invent existential categories that provide a particular kind of coherence to the various, incompatible modes of existence, without reducing them to clear-cut solutions. On the side of literature, they intentionally develop forms of communication that allow their existential categories to remain open-ended, maintain a continuous tension between the incompatible modes of existence, and prevent any of these modes of existence from being imposed upon the reader.
In our weekly readings, we will explore the strong relationship between existentialism and literature by pairing two different types of sources: a longer selection from a philosophical text, frequently employing literary techniques (taken from the works of the existentialist philosophers mentioned above); and a shorter selection from a literary text that presents certain existential dilemmas in concrete contexts (taken from the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Miguel de Unamuno, Albert Camus, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison).
Our second line of inquiry, initially delineated by Blaise Pascal, pertains to the disparity between an authentic existence characterized by a willingness to choose and an inauthentic existence distinguished by a refusal to make such a choice. It is widely acknowledged among existentialist philosophers that an authentic existence does not refer to the selection of a particular mode of existence but instead centers on the act of choosing itself, whereas an inauthentic existence is characterized by the avoidance of such a choice. Pascal, for instance, refers to this avoidance as diversion, while Jean-Paul Sartre characterizes it as bad faith, Martin Heidegger discusses it under the concept of Uneigentlichkeit, and Søren Kierkegaard uses various designations, including the demonic.
Although not all existentialist philosophers place equal emphasis on the significance of choice, they all grapple with philosophical questions about human existence, freedom, otherness, and responsibility to varying degrees. Moreover, they commonly identify specific affective states associated with these concerns, such as anxiety, despair, anger, and resentment
Course objectives
This course aims to present existentialism in the light of its history and evaluate its significance today.
Students who successfully complete the course will have a good understanding of:
the most important questions and authors of existentialism;
the various twists and turns in the history of existentialist philosophies;
the need within existentialism to develop alternative forms of expression.
Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:
describe and analyze existence and experience philosophically;
develop a personal question discussing one or several authors read during the seminar;
analyze the intertwinementt of existentialism and literature and the reasons behind it.
Timetable
The timetables are available through MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
- Seminars
Class attendance is required.
Assessment method
Assessment
Graded assessment
- Final essay
Non-graded exercises
Research project in preparation of the final essay.
Proposal for the final paper.
Peer review of the proposal of other students.
Each student has to present a reading of the literature and discuss it with the group.
The non-graded exercises are required for getting admission to the final exam (paper).
Weighing
- Final essay (100%)
Resit
The resit consists of a paper and counts as 100% of the grade, overwriting all previous graded exam components.
Class participation is required for taking the resit.
Students who have obtained a satisfactory grade for the first examination cannot take the resit.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Extracts from Blaise Pascal’s Pensees.
Extracts from Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembing
Extracts from Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death
Extracts from Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
Extracts from Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality
Extracts from Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Sein und Zeit)
Martin Heidegger, Letter on Humanism (Brief über den Humanismus)
Extracts from Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (L'être et le néant)
Extracts from Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme)
Extracts from Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity (Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté)
Extracts from Albert Camus, Myth of Sisyphus (Le mythe de Sisyphe)
Extracts from Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Peau noire masques blancs)
Franz Fanon, *“The Lived Experience of the Black”
W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Conservation of Races”
Short selections from literary pieces by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Miguel de Unamuno, Albert Camus, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison
Further literature will be published via Brightspace. Literature will be studied at home and discussed in class. Each student will also make a presentation of a short text (probably in groups of two).
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudymap is not possible for this course. Students are requested to submit their preferences for the third-year electives by means of an online registration form. They will receive the instruction and online registration form by email (uMail account); in June for courses scheduled in semester 1, and in December for courses scheduled in semester 2. Registration in uSis will be taken care of by the Education Administration Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the information bar at the right hand side of the page.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc., contact the Education Administration Office Huizinga
Remarks
Not applicable.