Syllabus Advice: 19th Century
Next fall semester, I am going to be teaching an upper-division undergraduate course on 19th Century Philosophy. I have a general idea of what areas I want to cover, and some idea of the books I want to use. I would like to pick your brains for some help on both counts, though.
First, here are the four general areas I intend to cover, in the order that I will do them in class:
I am pretty tied to this structure, but am certainly willing to hear arguments that I am overemphasising things or leaving things out. What I am really more interested in, though, is advice on what texts to use. So here is what I am thinking of for each of the four sections:
So there it is. Any and all advice or criticism is welcome.
First, here are the four general areas I intend to cover, in the order that I will do them in class:
1) A background-setting section where we discuss Kant and the development of German Idealism after Kant. I intend this to be a relatively brief introductory portion of the class.
2) A fairly in-depth discussion of Hegel. I imagine this taking up roughly half of the semester.
3) A discussion of Marx. I want this to rest on a sort of "Marx after Marxism" reading, where we focus on Marx as a philosopher in the German Idealist tradition.
4) A discussion of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. I would like to read each of them as being "post-Hegelian," or critics of German Idealism.
I am pretty tied to this structure, but am certainly willing to hear arguments that I am overemphasising things or leaving things out. What I am really more interested in, though, is advice on what texts to use. So here is what I am thinking of for each of the four sections:
1) I think I will use a secondary source for this part of the class, and am leaning toward Terry Pinkard's German Philosophy 1760-1860. I am curious to see if anyone thinks I should A) read some pre-Hegelian primary sources (Fichte's Vocation of Man, possibly?) or B) use some other secondary source.
2) For Hegel, I think I will use the Hegel Reader edited by Houlgate. This is largely because I want to do some of the Phenomenology and some of the Philosophy of Right (and there might be other things to use in this reader as well). Any arguments for doing Hegel differently (for example, possibly using just the Phenomenology)?
3) I am pretty set, I think, for the Marx section, and will probably use parts of the German Ideology and Grundrisse.
4) Here is where I really need help. What Kierkegaard and Nietzsche texts do you think would work best? If I pick the ones I know the best, it would be Fear and Trembling and The Genealogy of Morality. I have the feeling, though, that there are other texts that would work better with the Post-Hegelian theme. Any advice?
So there it is. Any and all advice or criticism is welcome.
Posted by J.C. Berendzen on
Monday March 13, 2006 at 11:47am
i don't think you can go wrong with FT and the GM. you can fruitfully treat the issue of ressentiment in the genealogy as an outgrowth of hegel's work on the m-s dialectic, and if you've read hegel's work on sittlichkeit, etc. in the class, then you have the background for SK's ethical category as it appears in FT. you might check out westphal's article on SK and hegel in the cambridge companion to SK; it's very good and is probably also accesible by undergrads.
if you were going to focus more on the metaphysical and phenomenological themes, you might think of doing selections from the concluding unscientific postscript for SK. you could also do some interesting things with BGE, section 1 (on the prejudices of philosophers), twilight of the idols (such as How the True World Became a Fable) and Ecce Homo, which is all about the body (see particularly Why I am so Clever).
either way, though, i'd recommend the early essay "on truth and lie" as a very nice rejoinder to idealism -- just the parable at the beginning throws things into a completely different ballpark. but N also uses a phenomenological account of concept-formation there that owes a lot to H's sense-certainty.
i'm going to do a nietzsche seminar this fall (among other things), so i have this stuff on the mind, as well...
hope that helps!
jw
Would you advise getting Nietzsche and/or Kierkegaard readers, so that I could read parts of the various things you mention?
I agree with John both that GM will work well and that at least "How The True World Became a Fable" is a must read (as a Heideggerian, I am legally obliged to say this, but I nonetheless believe it to be true). I must say that of these Nietzsche texts, Twilight of the Idols is the one I've had the most fun teaching (although I've never had the chance to teach Ecce Homo). TI is in a different reader than GM, but the Fable section is only like 3 pages long and could be photocopied.
I'll be curious to see how Nietzsche meshes in with the course, particularly, for example Kierkegaard (I recognize that this statement sounds moronic but bear me out) insofar as Kierkegaard avails himself of the lingo of Hegel so much more than Nietzsche --- For myself, I'm not sure that I could understand the way in which Nietzsche is responding to Hegel without getting too much into the twentieth century. To put this in a way that might sound less idiotic, it seems to me that, despite his many idiosyncracies, Kierkegaard "fits" in the German Idealist tradition in a way that Nietzsche doesn't without reading Nietzsche back through his twentieth century interlocutors. Of course, it sounds like from the way you're structuring the course, this is where you're heading anyway. Feel free to call me on the mat for this claim, John.
On a final note, I'm begining to be convinced that we should only study the history of philosophy through the lens of aesthetics (I'm 72% joking).
i haven't looked into SK readers recently, but you might send off to blackwell for an exam copy of their new nietzsche reader. it's quite good, and includes, e.g., the "truth and lie" essay and selections from all the major (and minor) texts. i just went through it myself, and probably would actually have used it this fall in lieu of the Basic Writings and the Portable Nietzsche, but it has one big failing -- almost no complete texts are presented, even the biggies (e.g. there are like 3-4 sections each missing from the first and second essays of the GM). so that won't do for my purposes with a nietzsche seminar, since i want them to really get more of a feel of the complete texts (good and bad). but for your purposes, it might work well. it's also a very good deal: 17.95 list, or 12.21 on amazon.
check it out here.
i think sticking with FT wouldn't be a bad idea, and would give you some variety (reading a whole text for him, and snippets for nietzsche). that's sort of what i tried to do with my 19th-20th century continental class last term.
In his book, Pinkard actually has a brief chapter on Kierkegaard, but the only text it really talks about in depth is one that hasn't been mentioned yet: Either/Or. What would you think about using it?
it's also the topos of perhaps my favorite SK quote: “When sentimental people, who as such are very boring, become peevish, they are often amusing. Teasing in particular is an excellent means of exploration.”
volume II is by B (Judge William), and is all about making the transition from the aesthetic to the ethical realm by way of a definitive choice.
i would probably shy away from E/O for a survey course like this. i think with a course that had only 2 or 3 figures you could do it, but it's doubtful for this one. i did a couple days on selections from the texts in my SK, N, Sartre class at Haverford.