Lecture (LEC)

• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inq

• Topic:
• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit

Topic: Intro german social thought

Topic: Introduction to German Thought & Culture: FLASHES OF INSIGHT Course Description: Der Blitz erleuchtet die Szene, ist aber weit davon entfernt, das Ganze zu erhellen. Gerade die großen und wirkmächtigen philosophischen Gedanken sind oft zurückführbar auf die Einzigkeit einer Erkenntnis, die nun zum Angelpunkt, zum archimedischen Punkt wird, um den sich alles dreht. --Eckhard Nordhofen This course is an introduction to some high points in the tradition of German thought. It approaches this heritage not by reconstructing one system of thinking or another, but through a series of flashes in the darkness of common sense. Our aim is not only to grasp the diverse thoughts of the tradition¿with their striking originality and power¿but also to grasp a style of thinking, a way of being receptive to surprise, an openness to the possibility that the world is other than we had taken it for. This means, among other things, that we will think in a way that is neither common sense nor science, neither familiar experience nor deduction. Rather, the thinking we aspire to -- as exemplified in these masterpieces¿is adventurous, strategic, risky, and exhilarating. We want to find occasions in our texts (or in their intersection with our times) to launch ourselves on inquiries that begin with the sentiment, "das wundert mich¿ich frage mich, warum..." Our exploration of these flashes of insight begins with the psychologist and linguist who coined the term "Aha-Erlebnis," Karl Bühler. Bühler helps us understand what sort of insight we'll be looking for in our philosophical texts. We then pick up the philosophical trail in the Reformation with Martin Luther's reflections on the paradox of freedom and servitude. We proceed through some astonishing passages in the German intellectual tradition, reading works by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, Arendt, and Habermas. We constantly curve back to the overarching theme of lord and servant (or obedience and freedom). Along the way, we learn key terms these thinkers have used to make the world visible to us: faith and word, private and public, subject and object, idea and context, norm and exception, abstract and concrete, sensuality and activity, autonomy and dependence, reason and history. And we inquire into topics such as whether the existence of god can ever be proved, whether education involves authority, whether creativity opposes or presupposes desire, and how things come to be concealed or revealed through our involvements.