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Summary Great Minds 2 - 20th century philosophy
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Lecture and primary text summary for Great Minds 2. Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Arendt, Deleuze
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Great Minds II – 20th century philosophyInhoud
Lecture 1: Transition to 20th century philosophy...................................................................................2
Lecture 1: Introduction Friedrich Nietzsche...........................................................................................3
Lecture 2: Nietzsche reading.................................................................................................................6
Lecture 3 Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger...............................................................................7
Lecture 4: Heidegger – What is Metaphysics?.....................................................................................10
Lecture 5: Hannah Arendt Introduction...............................................................................................13
Lecture 6: Hannah Arendt – The Human Condition Ch. 1....................................................................15
Lecture 7: Philosophy of Difference.....................................................................................................17
Lecture 8: Deleuze reading..................................................................................................................21
,Lecture 1: Transition to 20th century philosophy
Big steps through the history of philosophy:
Antiquity and Middle-Ages:
o Truth is out there, is universal
o Recognizable principles can be revealed by humans, and in which we participate
o There is no subject yet
Modern philosophy:
o From object to subject centrism
From Descartes to Hegel: turn to the subject. It is human thinking that has
access to truth about reality. The human subject is considered the one who
can arrive at knowledge of reality, and who is the origin and foundation of
science, culture and society.
This subject centrism will be criticized in the 20 th century. Subject has two
meanings:
The person that has self knowledge and conscience
What is subjected to something or someone (important for the 20 th
century philosophy)
Reasons for the changes
1. (External factor) From 18th century onwards, growing independence of human sciences
(psychology, economics, social sciences) and establishment as distinct fields of study. As a
result, the relation between philosophy and human science changes:
a. Philosophy loses its status as integrating discipline
b. Tension between modern subject in philosophy and subject in human science (the
subject begins to be the object in the study.
i. Philosophy: individual autonomy, self-awareness
ii. Human sciences: the subject is seen as constituted by various social
structures, familial influences and external factors.
Foucault’s Empirico-Transcendental Doublet: One is the practical, everyday way (like what
you do and how you live) and the other is a bigger, more abstract way (thinking about what
it means to be you, beyond just your actions)
2. (Internal factor) Break with subject centrism by the masters of suspicion
a. Man’s ability to know the world as it is
b. The transparency of the subject for itself (human’s self-founding capacity) We are
the subject to something else.
i. Marx: Sup/Substructure
ii. Freud: unconscious vs. consciousness (Consciousness is structured by
unconsciousness which we cannot know totally)
c. The unity of man
Main Characteristics 20th Century
1. Decentring of the subject: the subject is composed, instead of being the one who knows and
has access to truth.
2. The linguistic turn: Language mediates between subject and reality and is constitutive for
reality. Language is something that is studied and is a mediator between subject and reality.
Language comes between human beings and the world or reality.
a. Ex: The Inuit have 20 kinds of snow and can describe this in their language, we
cannot.
3. Influence of political and societal developments: WW II, Globalization, internet
, 21th century: Eurocentrism/Western character of philosophy is contested. Emancipation of Asian,
African, Islamic philosophies.
Lecture 1: Introduction Friedrich Nietzsche
Life and works
Born 1844
Study theology, but turns to philology (the study of language in oral and written historical
sources)
Professor in Bonn 1896
Bad health gives up position as professor, travels in hope to find good climate
circumstances for his health. He walks a lot.
1889 collapse in Turin, first to psychiatric institution, but after a year care by sister and
mother.
o Sister edited the book and published it. She was an anti-Semitist. She created her
own ‘Nietzsche’.
o Later two Italian philosophers decided to publish every single sentence by Nietzsche,
this changed the reception of ‘the will to power’.
1900: Nietzsche dies (aged 55)
Relation to Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1818)
Schopenhauer was influenced by Kant’s philosophy about noumenal and phenomenal
worlds. “The world is my representation”. He identifies the underlying force of the
noumenal world as the “will”. So, behind the appearances of the phenomenal world lies a
fundamental, irrational force that drives everything. He identifies it as “the blind, irrational
will”. This will is not driven by reason or purpose but operates blindly and instinctively. It is a
force that seeks to maintains itself without any inherent purpose or meaning.
Pessimistic philosophy and a world of misery
Nietzsche was a fan but distanced himself from 1874.
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