Overview

Description

COURSE DETAILS:

New Narratives in the History of Philosophy: Learning to Be a Thinking Thing in the 17th century

[Note: this course is to be taught concurrently with PHIL 451W B100. The course runs from May 10 to June 20, with two 3 hr sessions per week.] 

Important note regarding enrollment: All seats are reserved for Philosophy Graduate students. Enrollments from other departments will be considered only upon submission of the Graduate Course Add Form, and with instructor's permission. All such enrollments will be done in or after the first week of classes.

For over 100 years, the history of European Philosophy has focused on the same seven figures – all white men – and been anchored in a relatively narrow set of philosophical questions. This history of philosophy inaccurately represents the philosophical activity of the past (even in Europe) by both ignoring philosophers (including women) and discounting some of the philosophical questions that drove discussion. This course begins by motivating and asking some historiographical questions of philosophy: What is the purpose of a history of philosophy? Why ought we to retell the history of philosophy? How do we retell the history of philosophy, given the background that we have? We will then proceed to develop one possible new storyline in the narrative of philosophy.

We will start from a familiar philosophical position -- Descartes’s conception of a thinking thing – and then connect it to less familiar discussions by less familiar philosophers who deploy Cartesian philosophy to argue for the equality of men and women and for the education of women. These discussions take the Cartesian conception of thinking as foundational, but they also highlight that we human beings learn to think. Thinking is thus both something we each do as individuals and is fundamentally social. We will be interested in articulating in what this Cartesian social mind consists.

We will look first at François Poulain de la Barre’s introduction of a social metaphysics and correlated social epistemology into a Cartesian conception of mind in his defense of the equality of men and women. We will look at some curricular materials developed by Françoise d’Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon, to examine both how learning to think is a social activity and to raise a question about how values enter into reasoning through this activity. Finally, we will look at Gabrielle Suchon’s arguments to consider the role social institutions shape how we learn to think.

We may have a guest join us for a class meeting to discuss the 19th century Brazilian feminist philosopher Nisia Floresta, whose work seems to have been influenced by at least some of the authors we are discussing.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Successful completion of this course will satisfy the “History of Philosophy” distribution requirement toward the MA degree for Philosophy graduate students.

Students will

• consider the historiography of philosophy
• acquire an understanding of central issues in 17th century philosophy of mind
• learn a new perspective on Descartes’s account of the mind
• learn about philosophers such as François Poulain de la Barre, Madame de Maintenon, and Gabrielle Suchon, with whom they do not have prior familiarity
• learn methods for approaching an unfamiliar philosophical text for which there is not a large secondary literature
• identify and frame philosophical questions contained in the readings
• engage critically with both primary and secondary source materials to develop original analyses and interpretations that address the questions that have been identified
• become aware of and deploy research methods in history of philosophy (and philosophy more generally)
• improve both written and oral presentation skills

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING: