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The Worst of All Possible Worlds: an Introduction to Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer is a true oddity in the history of philosophy. Although a great metaphysical systematizer in the tradition of Leibniz and Hegel, Schopenhauer posed a worldview entirely antithetical to the “optimism” characteristic of traditional Western philosophizing. Whereas...

Angela Y. Davis’ 2003 book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, is arguably the foundational text for the intellectual and political work being done by the prison abolitionist movement today. More broadly, Davis’ wide-ranging writing and political activism over the past five decades mark her as one of the most important contemporary intellectuals.In...

Sometime in the early 1930’s, Heidegger’s thought is supposed to have undergone a change. His philosophical project shifted from the “fundamental ontology” of his early work Being and Time—foundational to the development of wartime and post-war “existentialism”—to what he would come to describe as Seinsgeschichte—a “history...

How can we, as finite beings, grasp the concept of infinity? Yet humans have been contemplating infinity for millennia, whether inspired by nature, philosophy, spirituality—or mathematics. This course is a historical and conceptual approach to the latter realm, the mathematics of infinity. Our topics will include the ancient Greeks’ discovery...

What is Deconstruction? The critical term, coined by Jacques Derrida, is notoriously hard to define. Derrida himself insisted  that “deconstruction” is not a method of reading, nor an analytical approach, nor even stable in its own meaning. And yet, deconstruction became the cri de coeur of literary theory in the United States: to its proponents,...

Plato’s Republic: Philosophy, Happiness, and the Beautiful City If Plato is foundational to the history of Western thought, the Republic is foundational to Plato’s philosophy. By way of a twisting, turning conversation, the Republic unlocks the fields of political and moral philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics, offering insight...

The Counter-Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Critique of Reason Was there a counter-enlightenment? If so, when did it take place? In English the idea originated with Isaiah Berlin’s eponymous essay, widely promulgated by his many admiring followers. The usual story casts so-called counter-enlightenment figures—such as Giambattista Vico, Johann...

What does it mean to be a feminist killjoy? Why are some actions and expressions recognized as bold but others stigmatized as willful? For feminist theorist Sara Ahmed, our embodied experiences are foundational to the ways we move through the world. That is, certain marked bodies—be they queer, black, brown, and/or woman—encounter pressure, resistance,...