At the end of this course you will:
- be able to give an overview of the emergence of modern conceptions of personal identity and the subject;
- be able to explain a number of crucial concepts and theoretical frameworks that define philosophical debates on the self.
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In this course we will study the emergence of the modern notion of the self. Starting with Descartes, we will trace how thinkers such as Locke, Hume, Kant and Husserl thought about personal identity and the subject. We will closely investigate how the various thinkers reacted to each other but also how they responded to the scientific, religious and other challenges of their time. We will end the course by reading parts of Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self. Taylor's book develops a profound critique of the modern notion of the self, developed by the thinkers we deal with in this course. |
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