Philosophy, Freedom and Existence –
• Was Heidegger’s critique of technology essentially anti-modern? Explain your answer.
Description
This module explores the ideas of thinkers in the ‘phenomenological’ tradition of western philosophy. Phenomenology sought to ground our thinking in a rigorous examination of ordinary experience and perception, not in abstract metaphysics or scientific determinism.
This approach opened the way to new and often rebellious intellectual currents aimed at putting philosophy in a critical dialogue with life. Their focus was on how our attitudes and emotions, our bodies, desires and feelings, were central to a commitment to freedom and achieving an ‘authentic’ existence.
They often rebelled against bourgeois morals and politics, capitalism and technology, and devoted themselves to radical causes on both the right and the left of the political spectrum. The module requires you to read some dense philosophy and reflect critically on its continuing validity for contemporary social and political experience.
You will submit a critical essay.
The main thinkers of this topic are –
Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and John Paul Sartre
