Philosophy of man

Timetable

Thursday 10:00 AM

Module aim (aims)

A course on the philosophy of man demonstrates the richness and peculiarity of the phenomenon of man along with its varied understandings and interpretations, with particular emphasis on themes featuring worldview references, especially those formulated in the circle of Christian anthropology, as the foundation of pedagogy and theological anthropology. Whilst indicating the perspective formulated on the grounds of natural and cultural anthropology, the course also considers man in a philosophical aspect at the level of human nature ("phenomenology of man") and individual personhood ("metaphysics of man"). Furthermore, the course offers an insight into the history of anthropology and its contemporary tendencies, thus developing students' capacity to recognise, characterise and evaluate individual concepts, their historical conditions, assumptions and consequences for the image of man, especially in terms of the danger of various forms of reductionism. The programme also provides a rationale for ethical analyses and prepares for a Judeo-Christian revelation-based approach to the human being as an object of various theological disciplines.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

General understanding of basic philosophical concepts.

Syllabus

1. Introduction to philosophical anthropology. Subject, methods and aims of philosophical anthropology. Contemporary orientations and trends in anthropology.
2. At the origins of thinking about man (the metaphysics of man): Principia of human being in genetic and structural terms. The interrelation of soul and body
3. At the origins of thinking about man (the metaphysics of man): Human being as a person. Human persons versus non-human persons. The problem of the dignity of the human person in relation to the dignity of non-human persons.
4. At the origins of thinking about man (the metaphysics of man): Cognitive powers and appetites of the soul. Moral qualities and virtues.
5. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, or man on the quest for meaning.
6. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Spiritualism, Christian personalism, neoscholasticism, or man in search of spiritual life.
7. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Existentialism, or man concerned about his being.
8. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Karl Marx, Marxism and the alienated man.
9. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Psychoanalysis and the discovery of the unconscious.
10. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Philosophy of dialogue, or human freedom in relation to divine transcendence.
11. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: The Frankfurt School and the birth of critical theory.
12. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Structuralism and post-structuralism, or man in the fetters of language
13. At the origins of contemporary thinking about man: Modernism and postmodernism, or man in the labyrinth of oppression
14. The future of man: Homo technicus or homo deus? - Technical man on the road to perfection

Reading list

Compulsory readings:

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, in: The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, 1729–1867.

Plato, Apology, in: Plato, Euthyphro. Apology. Crito. Phaedo. Edited and translated by Christopher Emlyn-Jones, William Preddy. Loeb Classical Library 36. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.

Cassirer, Ernst, 1944. An Essay on Man. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Frankl, Viktor E.,  1962. Man's Search for Meaning : an Introduction to Logotherapy. Boston :Beacon Press.

Ingarden, Roman, 1983, Man and Value, translated by Arthur Szylewicz, München: Philosophia Verlag.

Optional reading list:

Adorno, T. W., 1991. Culture Industry Reconsidered. In: J. M. Bernstein (Ed.), The Culture Industry. Selected Essays on Mass Culture. London and New York: Routledge.

Aristotle, Topics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, J. Barnes (ed.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984, Vol. 1, 167–277.

–––, Physics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 1, 315–446.

–––, History of Animals, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 1, 774–993.

–––, Parts of Animals, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 1, 994–1086

–––, Metaphysics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, 1552–1728

–––, Nicomachean Ethics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, 1729–1867

–––, Politics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, 1986–2129.

Augustine, of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Mount Vernon :Peter Pauper Press, 1940/1949.

Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus, On the Consolation of Philosophy (De consolatione philosophiae), Joel Relihan (trans.), Indianapolis, IN/Cambridge: Hackett, 2001.

Buber, M., 1923 [1970]. I and thou, W. Kaufmann (trans.), New York: Touchstone.

–––, 1938 [1965]. “What is man?” in Martin Buber: Between man and man, R. Gregor-Smith (trans.), New York: Routledge

Camus, A., 1951 [1956]. The rebel: An essay on man in revolt, H. Read (trans.), New York: Vintage Books.

Cicero, On Moral Ends, Annas, edited and translated by Julia and Raphael Woolf,  Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001.

–––, On Friendship and the Dream of Scipio, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Powell, J. G. F., Warminster : Aris & Phillips, 1990.

–––, On Fate & Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy, edited and translated with introduction and commentary by Sharples, R. W., Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1991.

–––,  The Nature of the Gods, translated with introduction and notes by Walsh, P. G.,  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

De Libera, Alain, 1993, La philosophie médiévale, Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volumes I and II (Loeb Classical Library), R.D. Hicks (trans.), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Dostoevsky, F., 1879–80 [1957]. The brothers Karamazov, C. Garnett (trans.), New York: Signet Classic.

–––, 1864 [2009]. Notes from the underground, C. Garnett (trans.), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Press.

Dreyfus, H., 1972. What computers can’t do: A critique of artificial reason, New York: Harper and Row.

–––, 1995. Being-in-the-world: A commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Frankl, Viktor E.,  1962. Man's Search for Meaning : an Introduction to Logotherapy. Boston :Beacon Press.

Fromm, Erich, 1969 (1941). Escape From Freedom. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

–––, 1955. The sane society. New York, Rinehart.

–––, 1947. Man for himself: an inquiry into the psychology of ethics. Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications, Inc.

–––, 1997. The art of being. New York, NY, Continuum.

Gilson, Étienne, 1932, L’esprit de la philosophie médiévale, Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin. (See especially ch. 10, “Le personnalisme chrétien”: 195–215.)

Guardini, Romano, 1955, Welt und Person, Versuche zur christlichen Lehre vom Menschen, Würzburg: Werkbund-Verlag.

Habermas, J., 1985 [1990]. The philosophical discourse of modernity: Twelve lectures, F. Lawrence (trans.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Heidegger, M., 1927 [1962]. Being and time, J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (trans.), New York: Harper and Row.

–––, 1950 [1971] Poetry, language, thought, A. Hofstadter (trans.), New York: Harper & Row.

–––, 1927 [1982]. The basic problems of phenomenology, A. Hofstadter (trans.), Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (1927 is the year of the lecture course.)

–––, 1919 [2000]. Towards the definition of philosophy, T. Sadler (trans.), London: Continuum Books. (1919 is the year of the lecture course.)

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno, 1947, Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente, Amsterdam: Querido; translated as Dialectic of Enlightenment, Edmund Jephcott (trans.), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Horkheimer, Max, 1937, “Traditionelle und kritische Theorie”, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 6(2): 245–294; translated as “Traditional and Critical Theory”, Matthew J. O’Connell (trans.), in Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, New York: Continuum, 1972, pp. 188–243.

–––, 1941, “Art and Mass Culture”, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 9(2), 290–304, republished in Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, New York: Continuum, 1972, pp. 273–290.

Hume, David, 1739–40, A Treatise of Human Nature, London: John Noon. Reprinted Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

–––, 1748, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, London: A. Millar. Reprinted in Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1970.

Husserl, E., 1912 [1989]. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book, R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (trans.), Dordrecht: Kluwer. (1912 is the year the second edition was initially drafted.)

Ingarden, R., 2013. The Controversy over the Existence of the World, translated by Arthur Szylewicz. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

–––, 1983, Man and Value, translated by Arthur Szylewicz, München: Philosophia Verlag.

Jaspers, K., 1932 [1956]. Philosophie (Volume 2), Berlin: Springer.

–––, 1913 [1997]. General Psychopathology (Volume 1), J. Hoenig & M. Hamilton (trans.), Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kierkegaard, S., 1844 [1936]. Philosophical fragments, D. Swenson (trans.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

–––, 1846 [1941]. Concluding unscientific postscript, D. Swenson, L. Swenson, & W. Lowrie (trans.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

–––, 1846 [1946]. “The present age,” A. Dru (trans.), in R. Bretall (ed.), A Kierkegaard anthology, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

–––, 1835–1854 [1959]. The journals of Kierkegaard, A. Dru (trans.), New York: Harper Torchbooks. (1835–1854 are the years of the journal entries.)

–––, 1843 [1985]. Fear and trembling, A. Hannay (trans.), New York: Penguin Books.

–––, 1849 [1989]. The sickness unto death, A. Hannay (trans.), New York: Penguin books.

Levinas, Emmanuel, 1930. The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology, André Orianne (trans.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1975; second edition, 1995.

–––,  “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism”, Seán Hand (trans.), Critical Inquiry, 1990, 17(1): 63–71. doi:10.1086/448574

–––,  1935, On Escape / De l’évasion, Bettina Bergo (trans.), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.

–––,  1947, Existence and Existents, Alphonso Lingis (trans.), The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978.

–––,  1947, Time and the Other, Richard A. Cohen (trans.), Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987.

–––,  1949, Discovering Existence with Husserl, Richard A. Cohen and Michael B. Smith (trans.), Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998.

–––,  1961, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, Alphonso Lingis (trans.), Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.

–––,  1963, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, Seán Hand (trans.), London: Athlone, 1991.

–––,  1974, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Alphonso Lingis (trans.), (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1978).

–––,  1982, Of God Who Comes To Mind, Bettina Bergo (trans.), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.

–––,  1982, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, Richard A. Cohen (trans.), Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985.

–––,  1984, [Transcendance et intelligibilité, Geneva: Éditions Labor et Fides.] “Transcendence and Intelligibility”, in col-BPW: 149–160.

–––,  1993, Entre Nous: On Thinking-of-the-Other, Barbara Harshav and Michael B. Smith (trans.), New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

–––,  1995, Alterity and Transcendence, Michael B. Smith (trans.), New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

MacIntyre, Alasdair, 1984. After Virtue, 2^nd edn. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.

–––, 1983. “Are There Any Natural Rights?: The Charles F. Adams Lecture of February 28, 1983.” Published by Bowdoin College, Bowdoin, Maine.

–––, 1999, Dependent Rational Animals. Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, London: Duckworth.

–––, 1990. Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.

–––, 1988. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.

Marcel, Gabriel, 1963, The Existential Background of Human Dignity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Marcus Antoninus, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (2 volumes), A.S.L. Farquharson (ed. and trans.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944.

Marcuse, Herbert, 1964, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society, Boston: Beacon Press.

–––, 1968, “Beyond One-Dimensional Man”, in Douglas Kellner (ed.), Towards a Critical Theory of Society, Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, Volume 2, New York: Routledge, 2001.

Maritain, Jacques, 1947, La personne et le bien commun (The Person and the Common Good), John J. Fitzgerald (trans.), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985.

–––, 1945, The Rights of Man and Natural Law. Glasgow: Robert Maclehose and Co./The University Press.

Merleau-Ponty, M., 1945 [1962]. Phenomenology of perception, C. Smith (trans.), London: Routledge & Keegan Paul.

–––, 1964 [1968]. The visible and the invisible: Followed by working notes, A. Lingis (trans.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Mounier, Emmanuel, 1950, Le personnalisme (Personalism), Philip Mairet (trans.), Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1952.

–––, 1938, A Personalist Manifesto, trans. from the French by the monks of St. John’s Abbey. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.

Nietzsche, F., 1886 [1998]. Beyond good and evil, M. Faber (trans.), New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.

–––, 1887 [1974]. The gay science, W. Kaufmann (trans.), New York: Vintage Books.

–––, 1887 [1996]. On the genealogy of morals, D. Smith (trans.), New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.

–––, 1889a [1990a]. Philosophy and truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the early 1870s, D. Breazeale (trans. and ed.), Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.

–––, 1889b [1990b] Twilight of the idols, R. J. Hollingdale (trans.), New York: Penguin Books.

–––, 1901 [1968]. The will to power, W. Kaufmann (trans.), New York: Vintage Books.

Plato, Plato’s Complete Works, John M. Cooper (ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1997.

Renouvier, Charles B., 1903, Le personnalisme, Paris: F. Alcan.

Sartre, J-P., 1943 [1956]. Being and nothingness, H. Barnes (trans.), New York: Washington Square Press.

–––, 1945 [1988]. “What is literature?” and other essays, S. Ungar (ed.), J. Mehlman (trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

–––, 1944 [1989]. No exit, S. Gilbert (trans.), New York: Vintage Press.

–––, 1948 [1992]. Notes for an ethics, D. Pellauer (trans.), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

–––, 1946 [2001]. “Existentialism is a humanism,” B. Frechtman (trans.), in C. Guignon and D. Pereboom (eds.), Existentialism: Basic writings, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Press.

–––, 1972 [2008]. “The itinerary of thought,” in Jean-Paul Sartre: Between existentialism and Marxism, J. Matthews (trans.), New York: Verso Books.

Scheler, Max, Cognition and Work: A Study Concerning the Value and Limits of the Pragmatic Motifs in the Cognition of the World, 2021 Zachary Davis (tr.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

–––, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, 1973, Manfred S. Frings and Roger L. Funk (trs.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

–––, 1961, Man’s Place in Nature, Hans Meyerhoff (tr.), NY: Noonday.

–––, 2008, Max Scheler: The Constitution of the Human Being, John Cutting (tr.), Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.

–––, 1960, On the Eternal in Man,  Bernard Noble (tr.), London: SCM Press.

–––, 1987, Person and Self-Value. Three Essays, Manfred S. Frings (ed. and partial tr.), Dordrecht, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.

–––, 2008, The Constitution of the Human Being, John Cutting (tr.), Marquette University Press.

–––, 2009, The Human’s Place in the Cosmos,  Manfred S. Frings (tr.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

–––, 1970, The Nature of Sympathy, Peter Heath, Hamden (tr.), CN: Archon Books (first printing, London: Routledge & Kegan Press, 1954).

Sokolowski, Robert, 2008, Phenomenology of the Human Person, New York: Cambridge.

Stein, Edith, 1917, Zum Problem der Einfühlung. Reprinted ESGA, Vol. 5, 2008. Translated as On the Problem of Empathy, Waltraut Stein (trans.), CWES, Vol. 3, 1989.

–––, 1950/2006, Endliches und Ewiges Sein. Versuch eines Aufstiegs zum Sinn des Seins. Anhang: Martin Heideggers Existenz-philosophie & Die Seelenburg. Reprinted ESGA, Vols. 11–12, 2006. Translated as Finite and Eternal Being. An Attempt at an Ascent to the Meaning of Being, Kurt F. Reinhardt (trans.), CWES, Vol. 9, 2002.

–––, 1993, Erkenntnis und Glaube, Freiburg: Herder, 1993. Translated as Knowledge and Faith, Walter Redmond (trans.), CWES, Vol. 8, 2000.

Stern, William, 1906, Person und Sache. System der philosophischen Weltanschauung (Volume I), Ableitung und Grundlehre. Leipzig: J. A. Barth.

–––, 1923/1924, Person und Sache: System des kritischen Personalismus, Leipzig: J. A. Barth.

Szlezák, Thomas A., 1993, Reading Plato, tr. from the German by Graham Zanker, London: Routledge.

Taylor, Charles. 2018. A Secular Age. London, England: Belknap Press.

–––, 1989, Sources of the self: the making of the modern identity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Thomas Aquinas, A Commentary in Aristotle’s De anima, tr. by Robert Pasnau, New Haven 1999: Yale University Press.

–––, [Eth] Sententia Libri Ethicorum (Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics) [1271–2].

–––, [Mal] Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo (Disputed Questions on Evil) [1269–71].

–––, [Reg] De Regno [or De Regimine Principum] ad regem Cyprum (On Government [or Kingship] [orOn the Rule of Princes/Political Leaders] to the King of Cyprus) [c. 1265].

–––, [ScG] Summa contra Gentiles (A Treatise against the Unbelievers) [?1259–65].

–––, [Sent] Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardiensis (A Commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences [Collection of Opinions of the Church Fathers]) [1253–7]. Note that this remains untranslated save in small excerpts.

–––, [STh] Summa theologiæ, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1920. [Summa theologiæ translation available online]

–––, [Ver] Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate (Disputed Questions about Truth) [1256–9].

Tillich, Paul, 1955, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Tischner, Józef, 1982 [1984], Etyka solidarności, Paris: Spotkania. 2nd Ed. Translated as The Spirit of Solidarity, Marek B. Zaleski and Benjamin Fiore (trans.), San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Vlastos, Gregory, 1991, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

–––, 1995, Studies in Greek Philosophy (Volume 2: Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition), Daniel W. Graham (ed.), Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wojtyła, Karol, 1969 [1979], Osoba i czyn (The Acting Person), Andrzej Potocki (trans.), Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

–––, 1960 [1995], Milosc I Odpowiedzialnosc (Love and Responsibility), H. T. Willetts (trans.), New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

–––, 1993a, “The Personal Structure of Self-Determination,” Theresa Sandok (trans.), in Person and Community: Selected Essays (Catholic Thought from Lublin: Volume 4), Andrew N. Woznicki (ed.), New York: Peter Lang, 187–95.

–––, 1993b, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being,” Theresa Sandok (trans.), in Person and Community: Selected Essays (Catholic Thought from Lublin: Volume 4), Andrew N. Woznicki (ed.), New York: Peter Lang, 209–17.

–––, 1993c, “Thomistic Personalism,” Theresa Sandok (trans.), in Person and Community: Selected Essays (Catholic Thought from Lublin: Volume 4), Andrew N. Woznicki (ed.), New York: Peter Lang, 165–75.

Zahavi, D., 2005. Subjectivity and selfhood: Investigating the first-person perspective, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.