Readings
How is knowledge possible? Here’s a stock answer: It arises out of experience. Now here’s a serious problem: Experiences are particular (singular, individual), but knowledge must be universal (common, general). Experience, it seems, cannot possibly provide a basis for knowledge. Call this the problem of subjective universaity: how a judgment grounded in individual experience can nonetheless claim universal legitimacy.
This course approaches modern philosophy through the lens of this problem with two particular areas of focus: aesthetics and the colonial experience. Aesthetics emerges as a distinctively philosophical discipline in the modern era, shaped by and articulating the problem of subjective universality, which imperialism and colonialism bring urgently to the surface. Indeed, perhaps nothing heightens the problem of subjective universality more than the sudden (and often violent) confrontation of different cultures and people, and perhaps nothing highlights the gap between experience and universality so much as the question of taste that motivates much of aesthetics.
We follow the course of this set of issues from Montaigne to Hegel with regular attention to confrontations between the familiar and the strange, and attempts to negotiate the difference.
Unit 1
Week 1
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Montaigne, “On Coaches” | all | |
| Montaigne, “On The Cannibals” | all |
Week 2
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| De Las Casas, Apologetic History | all | |
| De las Casas, Destruction of the Indies, excerpt 1 | all | |
| De Las Casas, Destruction of the Indies, excerpt 2 | all | |
| Sepulveda, Democrates Alter | all |
Week 3
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Descartes, Meditation 1 | all | |
| Descartes, Meditation 2 | all | |
| Scudery, Knowledge of Others | all |
Week 4
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Amo | all | |
| Cruz, “The Answer” | all |
Unit 2
Week 5
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Leibniz, Monadology | all | |
| Leibniz, Novissima Sinica (preface) | all | |
| Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace | all |
Week 6
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Baumgarten, Aesthetica | all | |
| Baumgarten, Reflections | all | |
| Gregor, “Baumgarten’s Aesthetica” | optional |
Week 7
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Locke, Essay, bk. I | all | |
| Locke, Essay, bk. II | all | |
| Locke, Essay, bk. III | all | |
| Locke, Essay, bk. IV | all | |
| Locke, Second Treatise | all |
Week 8
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Du Châtelet, Discourse On Happiness | all | |
| Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste” | all | |
| Hume, “Of Tragedy” | all |
Unit 3
Week 9
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste | all | |
| Hume, “Of National Characters” | all |
Week 10
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Burke, Enquiry, prefaces and introduction | all | |
| Burke, Enquiry, pt. 1 | all | |
| Burke, Enquiry, pt. 2 | all | |
| Burke, Enquiry, pt. 3 | all | |
| Burke, Enquiry, pt. 4 | all | |
| Burke, Enquiry, pt. 5 | all |
Week 11
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Gilpin, Observations on the River Wye | all | |
| Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Man | all | |
| Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman | all |
Week 12
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Kant, Critique of Judgment (“Analytic of the Beautiful”) | all | |
| Kant, Critique of Judgment (“Analytic of the Sublime”) | all |
Unit 4
Week 13
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Bernasconi, Critical Philosophy of Race | all | |
| Kant, Physical Geography pt. 2 | all | |
| Kant, Physical Geography, pt. 1 | all |
Week 14
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality | all |
Week 15
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments | all | |
| Equiano, Interesting Narrative | all | |
| Equiano, Letters | all | |
| Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History | optional |
Week 16: Hegel
EXAMPLE
| Reading | Assignment | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Hegel, Aesthetics (“The End of the Romantic Form of Art”) | all | |
| Hegel, Aesthetics (introduction) | all | |
| Hegel, Reason In History | all | |
| Hegel, Aesthetics (“Fantastic Symbolism”) | optional | |
| Hegel, Aesthetics (“Symbolism of the Sublime”) | optional | |
| Hegel, Philosophy Of History (“India”) | optional | |
| Hegel, Philosophy of History (introduction, “Geographical Basis of History”) | optional |