The module will explore the development of Continental Philosophy from the Rationalists and Empiricists through to 20^th and 21^st century philosophers such as Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze.  After outlining the 18^th century origins of Kant's philosophy, the first part of the module will focus on Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche.  The second part of the module will explore key 20^th century philosophers, including phenomenologists, such as Heidegger, the Frankfurt School, and later French philosophers, such as Derrida and Deleuze.   The model will aim to explore what is distinctive about continental approaches to philosophy, in contrast to the more Anglophone analytic approach, and to draw out the key issues, themes and methods that characterise Continental Philosophy.

This double module aims to give students an understanding of the overarching development of Continental Philosophy, while allowing them to focus in more detail upon particular philosophers and issues, according to their personal interests.

• demonstrate an awareness of questions that have been and continue to be characteristic of Continental Philosophy.
• demonstrate an awareness of the intellectual differences that exist between Continental and Analytic philosophy.
• demonstrate an ability to analyse, interpret and evaluate key texts in the Continental tradition, through a detailed and critical understanding of the concepts, arguments and ideas that have been developed by the leading continental philosophers.
• demonstrate an ability to communicate and justify their interpretations and evaluations of philosophical texts in coherently structured and precisely expressed essays.

Teaching will be through a combination of weekly lectures and additional seminars.  Students will be expected to have read brief selected passages from the authors and be able to discuss them critically.

The module will be taught using printed books and journal articles available online or from the library.

Timetabled sessions will be supplemented with written material in the form of a detailed summary of the session content and/or a list of a further reading. This supplementary material will be provided in the form of printed handouts distributed during the session and on Learning Central.  Any supplementary material in a permanent form (e.g. a paper handout or downloadable document) will be made available at the beginning of the session.

Sound, video or other multimedia resources will not be used in this module.

Students will practise and develop the following skills:

Intellectual Skills:

• The ability to interpret texts in both their historical and contemporary contexts
• The ability to appraise and assess arguments
• The ability to reach conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of arguments and to justify these conclusions with sound reasoning and detailed interpretations of source material
• The ability to form a consistent position about questions raised in the module

Discipline Specific Skills:

• The ability to analyse and construct philosophical arguments
• The ability to interpret philosophical texts
• The ability to deploy appropriate philosophical vocabulary

Transferable Skills:

• The ability to analyse arguments
• The ability to read texts in a creative and disciplined manner

·The ability to communicate clearly and accurately in written work

·The ability to present work that has a logical structure

• The ability to form their own views and argue independent positions

Students will develop employability skills which include the ability to synthesise information, operate in group-based discussions which will involve negotiating and debating ideas, and will be able to produce clear, informed arguments in a professional manner.

The formative assessment for this module will take the form of two exercises.  One essay plan of no more than 750 words, selected from a set of titles to be circulated, is to be submitted before the Easter vacation.  A second exercise will be a mock exam, to be completed in the student's own time, prior to the week of guided-study.

The summative assessment for this module will take the form of a portfolio of one essay (of not more than 2,000 words) and a 90 minute (open-book) examination.  The summative essay will focus upon individual philosophers, while the examination questions will ask the candidate to explore themes common to two or more philosopher.

This module is assessed according to the Marking Criteria set out in the Philosophy Course Guide. There are otherwise no academic or competence standards which limit the availability of adjustments or alternative assessments for students with disabilities.

The module will explore the development of Continental Philosophy, from the Rationalists and Empiricists through to 20^th and 21^st century philosophers.  We will look at key passages from a range of philosophers, in order explore how continental philosophy developed a distinctive approach and a distinctive set of philosophical tools (including dialectical argument and phenomenology), and to experience how philosophers in this tradition addressed issues within epistemology, moral and political philosophy and the philosophy of art and beauty.

The following is indicative of the topics to be covered in lectures and seminars during the module:

Week one:  Introduction –rationalism and empiricism (Descartes, Locke, Hume).

Week two:  Kant’s critical philosophy (epistemology in The Critique of Pure Reason).

Week three:  Kant on teleology (philosophy of art and biology in The Critique of Judgement).

Week four:  Hegel and dialectical argument (and the struggles of master and slave).

Week five:  Nietzsche and the revaluation of all values.

Week six:  Heidegger and Phenomenology.

Week seven:  Heidegger’s Being and Time and the question of the meaning of Being.

Week eight:  T.W Adorno and negative dialectics or non-identity thinking.

Week nine:  Gilles Deleuze, rhizomes and contemporary continental philosophy.

Week ten:  Derrida and heliocentrism.

I. Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Aesthetic (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), section B (Self-Consciousness), IV, A (Lordship and Bondage), pp. 111-119.

F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973).

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), pp. 21-64.

T. W. Adorno, The Essay as Form, in his Notes to Literature, vol 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 3-23

(Note that alternative editions and translations of these texts are available.)

Peter Sedgwick, Descartes to Derrida: an Introduction to European Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).

Simon Critchley, William Ralph Schroeder; J. M Bernstein (eds.), A Companion to Continental Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).

T. Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990)

William McNeill and Karen S Feldman (eds.), Continental Philosophy: an anthology, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).

Robert C Solomon; David L Sherman (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).

David West, Introduction to Continental Philosophy (2nd ed.) (Cambridge: Polity 2010).

A full list of secondary reading will be made available to students at the beginning of the semester.