PHI 343 Existentialism
3 hours
This course surveys 19th- and 20th-century North Atlantic philosophy associated with existentialism, an intellectual movement centered on issues of individual responsibility, "radical freedom," and political engagement. Contextualizing it as a critical reaction to the abstract optimism and colonizing tendencies of the 18th-century Enlightenment, we explore existentialism’s focus on concrete situations and worldly problems. Topics include anguish, thrownness, bad faith, humanism, and facticity. Readings are selected from thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Unamuno, Cesaire, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, Fanon, Wright, and contemporary commentators.