Module description
This module introduces three of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century: G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Beginning with a brief overview of Kant’s philosophy, the course examines how Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche attempt, in various ways, to refine, transform, or destroy the legacy of the Enlightenment. The focus, in particular, will be on the understandings of history, rationality, and the development of norms conveyed in texts such as Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Marx’s The German Ideology, and Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality. All texts will be studied in translation.
Assessment details
Summative assessment: Essay, 3000 words (100%)
Formative assessment: Essay, 2500 words
Educational aims & objectives
- To gain familiarity with classic texts by important 19th-century German philosophers.
- To understand the relationship between Kantian and post-Kantian themes in the history of philosophy.
- To grasp the distinctive philosophical innovations and worldviews of Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.
Learning outcomes
- An understanding of the philosophical content of the most important developments in 19th-century philosophy.
- An ability to ascertain the significance of works within their philosophical, historical, and cultural context.
- Skill in the careful analysis of language and argument as a means of exposition, as a rhetorical tool, and as a dialectical strategy for staking out a place in the philosophical tradition.
Teaching pattern
One one-hour weekly lecture and one one-hour weekly seminar over ten weeks.