European Philosophy

Gerd Van Riel is professor of ancient philosophy at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy.Gerd Van Riel is als gewoon hoogleraar antieke filosofie verbonden aan het Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte (De Wulf-Mansioncentrum) van de KU Leuven. Zijn specialisatiedomein is de filosofie van Plato en de Platoonse traditie.Guy Claessens is postdoctoral researcher at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy.Guy Claessens is als gastdocent verbonden aan het Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte (De Wulf-Mansioncentrum) van de KU Leuven. Hij is gespecialiseerd in de receptie van de antieke wijsbegeerte en in de theorie van de geschiedschrijving.

• INTRODUCTION 1. Plato’s cave 2. Philosophy and ideology 3. The historicity of philosophyPart 1. THE FORTUNES OF PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALITYChapter 1. PHILOSOPHY IN ANTIQUITY (6th c. BC - 6th c. AD) 1. The origins of philosophical rationality1.1 From mythos to logos1.2 The natural philosophers: the development of a cosmologyHeraclitus: ‘everything flows’Parmenides: ‘being is’1.3 The emergence of ethicsThe relativism of the SophistsSocrates (469-399 BC)2. Philosophy becomes a system 2.1 Plato (428-347 BC)Under the spell of SocratesThe soulThe intelligibleThe problem of moral educationThe moral order of the stateKnowledgeParticipationThe GoodDetaching the soul from the body2.2 Aristotle (384-322 BC)A systematic scienceThe categoriesFour causesForm and purpose: teleologySoul as formForm and matter: hylomorphismChange: act and potencyEthicsThe divine3. Later Antiquity: Philosophy as a way of lifeAn increase in scale: Hellenism (323-30 BC) and the Roman Empire (c. 200 BC-475 AD)The StoicsEpicureanismNeoplatonismChapter 2. THE MEDIEVAL PERSPECTIVE (5th-15th Centuries)Christianity 1. The Early Middle Ages: Augustine (354-430)The will and reasonThe enlightenment of the mind (illumination)Philosophia ChristianaEarly medieval intellectual life2. The High Middle Ages: The rediscovery of AristotleMedieval (Aristotelian) natural philosophy 3. The Integration of AristotleAristotelian sources of conflict3.1 The Synthesis of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)Reason and faithKnowledgeUniversalsGodThe human soulEthics3.2 The Nominalism of William of Ockham (c. 1285–c. 1348)Reaction against realismParticulars, not universalsOckham’s razor...cuts both waysChapter 3. THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY (15th-19th Centuries)1. ViolenceThe crisis2. The New ScienceFrancis Bacon (1561-1626)Science and philosophy drift apartNature as an enemy to conquer3. The rise of the subject4. Modern philosophy at the service of science and subject4.1 The rationalism of René Descartes (1596-1650)DoubtFirst certainty: ‘I think, therefore I am’DualismThe problem of the bridgeSecond certainty: the existence of GodThird certainty: the existence of the external worldThe mathematical structure of reality4.2 The empiricism of John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776)‘No innate ideas!’SkepticismMind, substances and causalityScience in crisis?4.3 The critical idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)Rationalism and empiricismA Copernican revolutionThe transcendental point of viewAnalysis of cognition: Phase 1. Transcendental aestheticPhase 2. Transcendental analyticPhase 3. Transcendental dialecticTraditional metaphysics as an impossible scienceCritique of practical reason4.4 The absolute idealism of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831)The starting point: the French RevolutionThe project: thinking the absoluteThe enemy to conquer: the understandingHegel’s reaction to KantIdealismThe dialectical methodSpirit4.5 Philosophy as a social practice: Karl Marx (1818-1883)Historical materialismAgainst HegelLaborDivision of labor, private property and exploitationSelf-alienationClass strugglePhilosophy as a social practiceChapter 4. THE END OF MODERNITY? (19th-20th Centuries)1. Revolution2. Limits of the belief in scienceThe belief in progress debated3. Dethroning the subjectThe ‘masters of suspicion’4. A philosophical revolutionNew emphases in contemporary philosophy4.1 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), philosophizing with a hammerMummified ConceptsRejection of ‘the’ truthRejection of ‘Platonism’ and the Judeo-Christian traditionRejection of moralityRejection of religionWhere do we go from here?4.2 Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and phenomenologyThe crisis of scientific rationalityA transcendental standpointPhenomenologyIntentionalityThe lifeworld as (re)constructionObjectivity4.3 Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and existential phenomenologyDaseinExistentialsOur dealings with things in the worldMit-sein and Mit-DaseinThe ‘They’ (das Man)Openness (Entschlossenheit)TemporalityThrownness, projection and fallennessAnxietyDeathBeing and time – and beyond4.4 Hannah Arendt (1906-1975): The active lifeVita activaThe banality of evil4.5 Existentialism: freedom at its peak‘Pour soi’ and ‘en soi’‘L’être et le néant’Condemned to be free4.6 The deconstruction of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)StructuralismLanguageWritingDeprecation of writing‘La différance’The world as textDeconstructionTime and the ‘undeconstructible’5. A new voice in an old debate: Analytic philosophy5.1 Philosophy of language‘Continental’ and ‘analytic’ philosophy5.2 The scientific nature of the language of logic: L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (‘Wittgenstein I’)The program: to avoid ‘chatter’Meaning, reference and truthOnly empirical statements are meaningfulPhilosophy as clarification of languageThe mysticalThe separation of factuality and values 5.3 The reality of ‘ordinary’ language: L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (‘Wittgenstein II’)5 Language-game‘Meaning is use’Language as a tool-boxForms of lifePart 2. PHILOSOPHY AS A HISTORICAL-HERMENEUTICAL SCIENCEIntroduction1. Historicism2. History repeats itself – or doesn’t it? Oswald Spengler and Karl PopperPatterns in historyKarl Popper’s criticism3. The question of ‘meaning’ in the humanities and social sciencesPositivism in the social sciencesChapter 1. THE BIRTH OF HERMENEUTICS AS A SCIENCE1. The emergence of a general hermeneutics2. The reproductive hermeneutics of F. Schleiermacher (1768-1834)Universal hermeneuticsReproductive hermeneuticsThe hermeneutical circleChapter 2. HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING IN THE HUMANITIES1. Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911): Verstehen Objective SpiritNacherleben2. Martin Heidegger on understanding and interpretationFore-structuresSinn3. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s historicization of understandingHistorically-effected consciousnessPrejudicesTraditionFusion of horizonsThree criticisms of Gadamer. 1. Emilio BettiCriticism 2. Jürgen HabermasCriticism 3. Jacques DerridaNew HistoricismEPILOGUE: IS THIS THE END?PostmodernismThe end of history?Bibliography of quoted worksName index