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History of Modern Western Philosophy

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Title: History of Modern Western Philosophy


1
History of Modern Western Philosophy
  • From Descartes to Nietzsche
  • Lecturer Dr. F. Budi Hardiman

2
Introduction
  • Conceptual Clarifications
  • Lecture Program
  • Lecture Method and Evaluation

3
Periods of Western Philosophy
  • Ancient Philosophy Greek, Hellenistic and Roman
    Philosophy
  • Medieval Philosophy Patristic and Scholastic
    Philosophy
  • Modern Philosophy
  • Contemporary Philosophy 20th Century
    Postmodernism

4
Cosmocentrism
Anthropocentrism
Logocentrism?
Theocentrism
5
The Mainstreams of Modern Philosophy
  • Rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz,
    Malebranche, Pascal)
  • Empiricism (Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume)
  • Criticism (Kant)
  • Idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
    Schoppenhauer)
  • Materialism (Feuerbach, Marx)
  • Positivism (Comte, Mach)
  • Existentialism (Kierkegaard and Nietzsche)

6
The Meaning of Modernity
  • Moderna means new and now. Modern is a
    temporal orientation to here and now not
    there and past of the medieval mentality
  • The term relates to the concept of time linear
    progress contrary to cyclical concept of time
  • Key concepts of the modernity technological
    progress, revolution, economic growth

7
Three Characteristics of modern Philosophy
  • 1. Centers on the problem of consciousness or
    subjectivity contrary to theocentrism
  • 2. Radicalization of the epistemological concept
    of critique contrary to dogmatism
  • 3. Teleological Concept of historical progress of
    mankind contrary to status quo

8
Subject as Center of Thought
Modern Philosophy
  • Descartes

Critique as Epistemological Foundation
Progress as Concept of time
G.W.F. Hegel
-I. Kant
9
Modern Philosophy is a philosophy of the subject
  • As a whole we can view the modern western
    philosophy as a research program on the
    epistemological and metaphysical problems of
    consciousness as such the subject or subjectum.
    So Habermas mentions it The philosophy of Subject
    die Subjektphilosophie
  • 1. The origin of consciousness (e.g. Descartes
    and Locke)
  • 2. The Development of consciousness (e.g. Hegel,
    Kierkegaard, Comte)
  • 3. The Collapse of consciousness (e.g.
    Schopenhauer, Nietzsche)

10
Critique as a central concept
  • Critique is a mean of the processes of
    emancipation it functions as
  • 1. Self-reflection of knowledge (critique of
    knowledge or epistemology)
  • 2. Barrier breaker of ideological manipulations
    (critique of ideology or enlightenment)
  • 3. Struggle against political injustice (critique
    of regime or revolution)
  • Note Critique isnt a mere refusal against
    something, but a reasonable negation with a
    complex epistemological conditions. It originates
    during the rise of modern natural sciences those
    are very skeptical against the medieval
    metaphysical thought. Critique is an advocate of
    the factual.

11
History has a teleological structure
  • History isnt arbitrary, but has an end that can
    be anticipated. The German idealists tried to
    discover the rational scheme behind the empirical
    historical events. They believed that the telos
    of history was freedom of man and his society.
    The civilization process was a way to the human
    freedom.

12
Examples
  • Marx believed that the human being (esp. the
    proletariat) was the actor of history that
    drives it to its end through the social
    transformation (revolutions). To him the end of
    history was the classless society
  • Comte proclaimed that its end was the positivist
    society, the scientific civilization of mankind
  • Hegel delineated the end of history as the final
    reconciliation of the idea with its self, i.e.
    the history that knows its self.
  • Note Teleological thought is the source of the
    utopianism in the modern social theories

13
Renaissance and Philosophy
14
The Humanists
  • The spirit of modern philosophy was built in the
    age of Renaissance. The rebirth of the Greek and
    Roman civilization in Italy during 16th Century
    reflected in many cultural aspects such as
    literature, architecture, philosophy, art etc.
    The main agents of renaissances movement were
    the humanist such as Dante, Petrarkha, Rabelais,
    Thomas Morus, etc.
  • The humanists taught eloquence, history, poetry,
    moral (comparable to the sophists in ancient
    Greece)

15
Man as Natural Being
  • Renaissance culture viewed man as natural being.
    He doesnt come from heaven, but grows from earth
    and is provided with natural talents and
    vitality. So, the naked figures in the
    renaissances gallery glorified the natural
    beauty of man.

16
Man as Individual
  • The individual (not the collective) was a central
    theme of art and literature in the culture of
    renaissance. In the western philosophy the
    paradigm-shift occurred during the renaissance,
    i.e. from theocentrism of medieval thought to
    anthropocentrism of modern thought.

17
Machiavelli and the Virtu
  • Machiavellis theory of power was an example of
    this paradigm shift According to him the
    political power is not Gods grace that is
    received through fortune (Italian fortuna), but
    something that can be seized through human effort
    and virtuosity (Italian virtu). Man (in this
    case the prince) not God - is a center of
    power, and from his hand the power grows, and by
    his hand it is stabilized, e.i. through rational
    strategies.

18
Protestant Reformation
  • Renaissance understood the human subjectivity as
    rational capacity. But the reformation stressed
    it as subjective faith. Both of them are the same
    in their revolt against medieval mentality that
    centered on objective reason or objective
    faith.

19
Lecture Program
  • Introduction Renaissance, Reformation and the
    Rise of modern Thought
  • Rene Descartes and Rationalism
  • John Locke and Empiricism
  • Immanuel Kant and Criticism (1)
  • Immanuel Kant and Criticism (2)
  • G.W.F. Hegel and German Idealism (1)
  • G.W.F. Hegel and German Idealism (2)
  • Karl Marx and Materialism
  • Auguste Comte and French Positivism
  • Arthur Schopenhauer and the Metaphysics of the
    Will
  • Soren Kierkegaard and Existentialism
  • Friedrich Nietzsche and the Limit of Modernity
  • Final Test

20
Method
  • Seminar with presentations and the possibility of
    discussions
  • 12 Meetings and 12 presentation on central
    teaching of a modern western philosopher
  • Condition Seminar presences (75)
  • Evaluation Presentation (30) 5 pages Final
    Paper (40) Final test (30)

21
The Structure of Presentation Material
  • 1. Introduction into the biographical Background
    and the masterpieces of the philosopher
  • 2. Only the central concepts of his teaching
  • 3. A Comparison between his teaching and the
    teaching of the other philosophers (E.g. Islamic
    Philosopher)
  • 4. Your critical notes on his thought

22
Final Paper
  • 5 pages
  • Choose one of the following themes
  • 1. Cartesian Doctrine of Ideas
  • 2. Lockes Critique of Cartesian Doctrine of Idea
  • 3. Kants Critique of Metaphysics
  • 4. Existential Dialectics according to
    Kierkegaard
  • 5. Nietzsches Critique of Morality
  • 6. Hegels Concept of Dialectics

23
References
  • 1. F. Budi Hardiman, Sejarah Filsafat Barat
    Modern dari Machiavelli sampai Nietzsche,
    Gramedia, Jakarta, 2004
  • 2. Reading (Please see the Syllabus)
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