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
This course gives an introduction to German Idealism, an extraordinary phase in German philosophy characterized by a wealth of ideas produced by different authors in a remarkably short time-period. The course is in two parts.
In Part I, we will provide an overview of the development of German Idealism by reading primary texts by Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Hölderlin and Schelling. Our emphasis on these texts is on the development of the meaning of idealism as a striving for the unification of philosophical oppositions, as it is reflected in:
1. A constant reinterpretation of the cognitive faculties, in particular the relation between understanding (Verstand) and reason (Vernunft);
2. How all German idealist authors affirm the limitations of mere understanding, and attempt to develop a richer philosophical conceptuality capable of conceiving the absolute, life and freedom, particularly in its main guises of religion and art;
3. How this leads to the development of new forms of philosophical texts (think of Kant’s and Fichte’s treatises, Jacobi’s letters, the prominence of new literary journals in Jena around 1800, the fragment and the poem for German Frühromantik, and finally new forms of philosophical ‘system’ for the early Romantics, Schelling and Hegel).
In Part II, we will take one author to study more in-depth: Hegel. We will focus on his early development, and how his engagement with the concerns of his idealist contemporaries lead him into his own first systematic exposition in the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit.
We will study Hegel’s collaboration with Schelling in his Jena-period, his early diagnosis of contemporary philosophy and philosophy’s relation to critique and skepticism, and his development of an organic, dialectical notion of philosophical systematicity.
Throughout the course, we will familiarize ourselves with some of the main shared concerns of German Idealist thought, such as those of the nature of life and freedom and their relation to conceptuality, an organic notion of system, the relations between art, religion and philosophical knowledge, and the problem of the (im)possibility of knowledge of the absolute, and its presentation or Darstellung.
Course objectives
Students who successfully complete the course will have a good understanding of the development of German idealist philosophy and its main concerns, such as:
the meaning of idealism;
the striving for the absolute as the unification of philosophical oppositions;
the continual reinterpretation of the cognitive faculties, in particular of (the limits of) the understanding (Verstand) and of reason (Vernunft);
the attempt to arrive at a new, organic philosophical conceptuality capable of grasping the absolute, life and freedom, particularly in relation to religion and art;
the development of new forms of philosophical texts, such as Kant’s and Fichte’s treatises, Jacobi’s letters, the prominence of new literary journals in Jena around 1800, the fragment and the poem for German Frühromantik, and finally new forms of philosophical ‘system’ for the early Romantics, Schelling and Hegel;
the development of Hegel’s dialectics out if the concerns of German idealism.
Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:
reconstruct, interpret, compare and critically evaluate the main ideas, concepts and problems of German idealist philosophy;
propose and defend both in writing and orally, basic arguments pertaining to any section of the course;
write an independent paper on German idealist philosophy.
Timetable
The timetables are available through MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar.
Assessment method
Assessment
Active participation
Attendance and active participation in the seminars is mandatory. If you miss more than two classes, you will be asked to write a paper in which you discuss the readings for the weeks you have missed. If, due to logistical or health-related reasons, you cannot come to the campus, please inform the lecturer.Questions for discussion
Everyone is required to submit a question for discussion on the readings for that week to the forum on Brightspace. Discussion-questions are meant for you to engage actively with the texts and formulate your thoughts, and for the professor to gauge what the main issues are and what we should be focusing on in class.Midterm paper
In the midterm paper you write a presentation and interpretation of a selected piece of primary source material from the course.Final paper
End-of-term paper.
Weighting
Midterm paper (35%);
Final paper (65%).
Resit
Students qualify for a resit if they do not have a passing final grade but have fulfilled all (other) course requirements. The resit consists of a paper (5,000 words, including everything, +/- 10%). No separate resits will be offered for subtests. The grade for the resit will replace all previously earned grades for subtests.
Reading list
Primary texts by Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel;
Specific texts tba on brightspace and in the syllabus (before the 10th of January).
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 right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga.
Remarks
None.