PHL 3007 Boredom
Why do we get bored? What is it about human beings that makes boredom possible? Is boredom avoidable? Or is it just something that we have to live with? That we are condemned to? Is boredom boring? These are some of the questions with which philosophers and human beings generally have been concerned for over two thousand years. They are the crucial questions that this course will raise. It will also address some of the answers philosophers have given to these questions. It will include readings from thinkers as diverse as Augustine and Sartre, Russell and Epicurus, Aquinas and Heidegger.