Modern & Existentialist Philosophy

Explore the foundational contributions of René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. This module delves into their attempts to establish knowledge through reason, their metaphysical systems, and the enduring problem of mind-body interaction, setting the stage for modern philosophical inquiry.

• The Intellectual Crisis of Early Modernity & Descartes' Foundationalism (19 questions)
• Spinoza's Monistic Rationalism and Ethical Imperatives (22 questions)
• Leibniz's Pluralism, Monads, and the Problem of Evil (20 questions)

Examine the empiricist counter-movement championed by John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. This module investigates their claims that all knowledge derives from sensory experience, leading to profound questions about perception, substance, causality, and the limits of human understanding.

• Locke's Empiricism: The Foundations of Knowledge (26 questions)
• Berkeley's Idealism: To Be Is To Be Perceived (14 questions)
• Hume's Radical Skepticism: Experience and Its Limits (24 questions)

Delve into Immanuel Kant's transformative "critical philosophy," which sought to reconcile rationalism and empiricism. Explore his theory of knowledge, ethics, and aesthetics, and trace his profound influence on subsequent German Idealists like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, who pushed the boundaries of subjectivity and objective spirit.

• The Pre-Critical Context: Rationalism, Empiricism, and Kant's Early Philosophy (20 questions)
• Kant's Copernican Revolution: The Critique of Pure Reason (25 questions)
• The Challenge of the Thing-in-Itself: Fichte and Early German Idealism (22 questions)
• Hegel's Absolute Idealism and the Dialectical Method (26 questions)

Investigate the intellectual precursors to existentialism who challenged systematic philosophy and emphasized individual experience, will, and value. This module explores Søren Kierkegaard's focus on subjective truth and faith, Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy of will, and Friedrich Nietzsche's radical critique of morality and the will to power.

• Kierkegaard: The Subjective Turn and the Leap of Faith (13 questions)
• Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation (25 questions)
• Nietzsche: Revaluation of Values and the Will to Power (23 questions)
• Synthesis and Existential Implications: The Legacy of Unreason (26 questions)

Introduce the philosophical method of phenomenology, essential for understanding 20th-century continental thought. Focus on Edmund Husserl's call to return "to the things themselves" and Martin Heidegger's influential analysis of Dasein and being-in-the-world, laying crucial groundwork for existentialist thought.

• Foundations of Phenomenology: Husserl's Call "To the Things Themselves!" (10 questions)
• The Lived Body: Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (10 questions)
• Existential Phenomenology: Heidegger's Analysis of Dasein and Being-in-the-World (2 questions)

Dive into the heart of classic existentialism with key figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus. This module explores central themes like radical freedom, personal responsibility, the anguish of choice, "bad faith," the concept of the absurd, and the ethics of authenticity.

• Existence Precedes Essence & Radical Freedom (24 questions)
• Responsibility, Anguish, and Bad Faith (21 questions)
• The Absurd and the Quest for Meaning (22 questions)

Examine the broader legacy and diverse expressions of existentialism. This module explores Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body, Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue (I-Thou), and the ongoing relevance of existentialist themes in contemporary thought, literature, psychology, and personal experience.

• Revisiting Existentialism: Core Concepts and Initial Critiques (30 questions)
• Existentialism's Cultural Permeation: Arts, Psychology, and Politics (29 questions)
• Existentialism in the 21st Century: Modern Dilemmas and Relevance (23 questions)
• Facing the Future: Existentialism, Technology, and the Human Condition (20 questions)