PHIL 315 - Hegel

FDR: HU
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Fall, 2011 and every third year.

Prerequisite: At least sophomore standing. “The truth is the whole.” Hegel’s philosophy was inspired by an effort to reconcile various dichotomies of modern thought: nature and freedom, mind and body, immanence and transcendence, sensibility and understanding, reason and faith, romanticism and enlightenment, what is and what ought to be. This course examines the method and starting point of Hegel’s project, with a close reading of his Phenomenology of Spirit. In the process, we explore and assess his attempt to comprehend all of the perennial philosophical problems with a revolutionary, systematic approach. Because Hegel is also the first philosopher to take the history of philosophy seriously and make history a fundamental category of philosophy, we gain a better understanding of both his predecessors and those whom he influenced (including existentialists, Marxists, and postmodernists) in our own time. Lambert.