PHIL 518 Nineteenth Century Philosophy

This graduate seminar traces how post-Kantian philosophers wrestled with the consequences of the Critical turn, if the mind structures experience, what becomes of freedom, faith, history, and the will? You'll read Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard closely, producing five short response papers, a longer essay, and a presentation, with much of the grade riding on weekly engagement with primary texts rather than secondary commentary. The century covered here is the hinge between Kant and twentieth-century existentialism and phenomenology, so the moves Hegel and Kierkegaard make will reappear in nearly every later continental course you take.