Please notice that the all classes will be taught by visiting professor Burt Hopkins, PhD, a renowned expert in the field!

Office hours: By Appointment

Email: hopkins@flu.cas.cz

Introduction to Phenomenology

Wednesday: 15:30-16:50

Room: 5021

1. General Description and Aims of the Course

The course will provide an introduction to Phenomenology, one of the two major philosophical movements in the 20^th Century. Founded by E Husserl (born April 8, 1859, Prostějov, Czechia, died April 27, 1938,Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) as a pure philosophical science of consciousness and critically developed as a philosophy of existence and Being by Martin Heidegger (born September 26, 1889, Messkirch, Germany, died May 26, 1976, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany), phenomenology remains to this day the indispensable historical and systematic context for contemporary Continental philosophy.

This introductory course has three main aims: 1) provide instruction for developing the skill of critically reading primary philosophical texts: 2) provide an introduction to the basic concepts in Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies that represent the philosophical precedent to Phenomenology’s basic concepts; and 3) provide an introduction to Husserl’s pure phenomenology of consciousness and Heidegger’s existential-ontological phenomenology of Being.

2. Structure

The course will be composed of three modules:

1. Phenomenon and Being in Plato and Aristotle.

2. Phenomenon and pure consciousness in Husserl

3. Phenomenon and the Being of beings in Heidegger

3. Requirements

(1) Participation (including but not limited to: completing assignments, attendance, in-class active participation). NOTA BENE: “Participation” may also include, depending upon the number of students, a mandatory in-class presentation (more information will be provided in due course). If you areabsent, please ask some of your classmates for any assignments or key discussion materials missed.

(2) Examinations: Oral Mid-term and Final

(3) Short paper on Module 1

4. Course Outline

Week 1-Week 4

Phenomenon and Being in Plato

Texts: Plato Apology, Euthyphro

Week 5-Week 8

Phenomenon and Logos in Aristotle, Pure Phenomenology and the Critique of Historicism in Husserl

Text: Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research

(Week 9-Week 12)

Phenomenon, Existence, and the Question of Being in Heidegger

Text: Heidegger, Introduction to Phenomenological Research

Week 13

Recapitulation

Required Texts:

Plato, A Plato Reader, ed. C.D.C. Reeve, Hackett.

Heidegger, M. 2005. Introduction to Phenomenological Research. Trans. D. Dahlstrom, Indiana University Press.

Recommended Reading:

Primary texts:

Husserl, E. 1964. The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness. Trans. J. S. Churchill. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Husserl, E. 196). Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. Trans. D. Carins. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Husserl, E. 1969. Formal and Transcendental Logic. Trans. D.Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Husserl, E. 1970. Logical Investigations. Trans. J. N. Findlay. New Jersey: Humanities Press.

Husserl, E. 1970. The Crisis of European Philosophy and Transcendental Philosophy: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Trans. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Husserl, E. 2003. Philosophy of Arithmetic. Trans. Dallas Willard. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Husserl, E. 2014. Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Trans. Dan Dahlstrom. Hackett Publishing Company: Indianapolis/Cambridge.

Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and Time, J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson (trans.). New York: Harper & Row.

Heidegger, M. 1982. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, A. Hofstadter (trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Heidegger, M. 1985. History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, T. Kisiel (trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Heidegger, M. 1997. Plato’s Sophist, R. Rojcewicz & A. Schuwer (trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Secondary texts:

Hopkins, B. 1993. Intentionality in Husserl and Heidegger: The Problem of the Original Method and Phenomenon of Phenomenology. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Hopkins, B. 2010. The Philosophy of Husserl. Durham: Acumen.

Mohanty, J. N. 1985 The Possibility of Transcendental Philosophy. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Mohanty, J. N. 2008. The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl. New Haven: Yale University Press.