PHL 420 Existentialism
The course studies this important movement in modern philosophy, analyzes and evaluates its main branches, and unfolds its place in relation to the philosophical tradition. Lectures and readings will address various major themes of the movement, such as: existentialism as a philosophic revival in the 20th century and its antecedents in the 19th century, the contingency of the human being, the limits of reason, the call to transcendence in human life, the instability of human existence, estrangement, the finality and the immanence of death, solitude and the secret inner state of each individual, the concept of nothingness, the call to personal metanoia, the problem of attachment to this world, and the mystery of other persons. Authors covered will typically include Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Marcel, Buber, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard.