INDEX

Topics are arranged alphabetically in the INDEX.

Friday, January 30, 2015

Dreyfus on Metaphysics and Phenomenology


Hubert Dreyfus (age 85)

Hubert Lederer Dreyfus is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include phenomenologyexistentialism and the philosophy of both psychology and literature, as well as the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence.

Dreyfus is well known for making the work of continental philosophers, especially Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Michel Foucault, intelligible to analytically trained philosophers.

Dreyfus is especially known for his exegesis of Martin Heidegger. Dreyfus considers Heidegger's Being and Time (Sein und zeit) to be one of the most important philosophical works of the twentieth century. It is both a systematization of the existential insights of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and a radicalization of Husserl's phenomenological account of intentionality. What results is an original interpretation of the human condition leading to an account of the nature and limitations of philosophical and scientific theory. This account has important implications for psychology, anthropology and sociology.

Here is an interview with Hubert Dreyfus on Metaphysics and Phenomenology.


Related reading: The Story of Ontology; Crash Course on Phenomenology


George Pattison on Martin Heidegger


George Pattison

Watch this excellent presentation on Heidegger by the Glasgow philosophical theologian George Pattison.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

The Meeting of the Great Minds - Spring 2015




This semester my philosophy students will explore ontology, logic, and ethics. It will be a busy semester! We will have between 3-5 meetings of the great minds. You will discuss questions posed to the forum by Socrates. Three questions are asked each meeting.

Select a philosopher for these enactments and become acquainted with the philosopher's main contributions to the philosophical project. Gather quotes and pertinent biographical information.You must remain in the roll of that philosopher during the forums, wearing the hat you select or design to represent that philosopher.

Your final paper for the semester will be about the philosopher you have portrayed in the forums.

Philosophers you may select for the Spring Semester include, but are not limited to:

Jeremy Bentham

George Berkeley

Jacques Derrida (See also "Something Older")

Phillipa Foot

Martin Heidegger (See also "A Closer Look at Martin Heidegger")

David Hume

Immanuel Kant (See also "Modern Trends in Ethical Thought")

Niccoló Machiavelli  (See also "Machiavelli Believed in Fortune")

Charles Sanders Peirce (See also "Pragmatism and American Education")

Ayn Rand

John B. Rawls

Ludwig Wittgenstein