PHIL 310(S) Heidegger
Martin Heidegger is the most important and influential continental philosopher of the twentieth century. We begin the semester with a careful reading of his first major work, Being and Time (1927), which both transfigured phenomenology and initiated contemporary existentialism and hermeneutics. In the second half of the semester, we follow the development of Heidegger's thought over the following fifty years of his life, as he moves from the analysis of existence to reflections on language, poetry, and technology, and as his focus shifts from human being to the question of the meaning of being, a question that, he argues, we have been led to forget by the "metaphysics of presence" that has been dominant in the West since the time of Plato. Requirements: two 3- to 5-page precis and one 10- to 15-page term paper. Prerequisite: Philosophy 101 or 102 or 201, or permission of the instructor; Philosophy 201 recommended but not required.