Origins and Evolution of Modern Thought

This two-semester course immerses students in an exploration of significant exemplars, milestones and developments of human thought from ancient to modern times.

The fall semester (HONR 1015) engages students in an exploration of foundational thought and texts of the ancient world. This fall semester also fulfills university UW 1020 requirements.

The spring semester (HONR 1016) builds on the encounter with foundational ancient thinkers and texts provided in the fall course by engaging students in the exploration of key developments and trajectories in human thought and inquiry to modern times.

First year students take one Origins and Evolution of Modern Thought course each semester.

Revolution

Professor Joseph Trullinger

HONR 1016:MV1 - 3 Credits

CRN: 23629

MW 8:30AM - 9:45AM

Fulfills:

CCAS: GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities

Course Description: Modernity is often understood as an era of innovation and upheaval, of new ideas and ways of life. Modernity seems new by virtue of its idea that what is new is permissible, if not preferable, over against adhering to time-honored order. This section of Origins will attempt to understand modernity as an era of revolution, of radical breaks with all sorts of established order: political, familial, economic, moral, cultural, and everything in between. In addition to those who argue for a sweeping overhaul of society, we will engage important critics of revolution, who make the case that the complaints of revolutionaries are ill-founded, or else can be resolved through gradual reform rather than sudden revolution. Reform versus revolution: the opposition between these views will form the basic framework for our exploration of a wide array of texts, criticizing and calling for bourgeois revolution, anti-colonial revolution, feminist revolution, slave revolts, communist revolution, fascist revolution, moral repentance, spiritual renewal, and revolutions in social values as fundamental as democracy and individualism.

Freedom in the Modern Age

Professor William Winstead

HONR 1016:MV3 - 3 Credits

CRN: 24392

MW 2:30PM - 3:45PM

HONR 1016: MV4 - 3 Credits

CRN: 24393

MW 04:10PM - 05:25PM

Fulfills:

CCAS: GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities

Course Description: The modern age has often been characterized as the epoch of absolute freedom. Its insistence on individual liberty and the right to live one's life as one wishes, free of interference from tradition, church, or state, are symptomatic of modernity's radical commitment to freedom. The scope of its emancipatory impulse may be measured not only by the radical politics of the age—the American, French, and Russian revolutions, among others—but also by the defense of unrestrained expression in the aesthetic sphere (artistic freedom, freedom of speech) and toleration of individual conscience in the moral sphere. Our readings this semester will examine the intellectual revolutions that established freedom as the central value of the modern project and institutionalized it in the liberal state, the market economy, and the self-reflective individual. In the final section of the course, we will consider the subtle and profound forms of personal liberation found in modern Buddhist thought. Readings will include Mill, Nietzsche, Freud, Beauvoir, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, The Combahee River Collective, the Dali Lama, and Zen Buddhism.

The Death of God

Professor Mark Ralkowski

HONR 1016:MV5 - 3 Credits

CRN: 24394

TR 11:00AM - 12:15PM

Fulfills:

CCAS: GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities

Course Description: Is capitalism always dehumanizing, or can it promote human welfare? How do race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social class affect our understanding of ourselves and others? Are our cultural values good for us, or do they undermine our mental health and harm the planet? Do experiences of marginalization and oppression give those who experience them unique knowledge about our society and how it operates? What might the earth and nonhuman animals teach us about how we ought to live? As we explore questions like these in this course, we will discover how philosophy can be what Freire calls the “practice of freedom.” We will begin by studying the rise of the modern worldview and the spread of its political values, but most of our time will be spent on a wide range of cultural critics—e.g., Tolstoy, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Frankl, Baldwin, de Beauvoir, Lorde, the Combahee River Collective, Freire, the Dalai Lama, and Robin Wall Kimmerer—who lay the foundations for a less alienating and more humane world. Our discussions will cover some of their most revolutionary ideas, which have transformed the way we think about the human place in nature, the relationship between culture and economics, our conscious and unconscious minds, colonialism and liberation, gender and racial justice, and the aims of an emancipatory education. The main goal of this course is for us to see how these philosophies are more than abstract theories in books that are hard to read. They are provocations to reexamine our beliefs and values, reckon with our place in history, and reimagine the future of our interconnected world.

Freedom and Liberation

Professor Eyal Aviv

HONR 1016:MV6 - 3 Credits

CRN: 24395

TR 11:30AM - 12:45PM

Fulfills:

CCAS: GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities

Course Description: Our lives are filled with deadlines, dress codes, or laws that limit our personal desires. These constraints are a part of the human (and non-human) condition. But so is our universal desire to be free. Imagine your life with absolute freedom and nothing to limit you. What would it look like? Martin Luther King Jr. ended his powerful “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, declaring that we are “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.” The Buddha famously declared, “Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching and discipline has one taste, the taste of liberation.” But what does it mean to be free or liberated, and from what?

This semester, we’ll explore these questions together. Like the Fall semester, we’ll read and discuss a diverse mix of thinkers, writers, and artists who challenge us to think deeply about freedom and liberation. We’ll examine the multifaceted nature of the constraints that bind us and the various dimensions of freedom. We’ll also investigate the tricky balance between individual freedom and collective well-being.

Through readings, discussions, and critical reflections, we’ll appreciate the rich diversity of perspectives on what it means to be free. The course will encourage you to engage deeply with the material, debate various viewpoints, and develop your own understanding of freedom and liberation.

Authenticity

Professor Michael McCourt

HONR 1016:MV7 - 3 Credits

CRN: 24990

TR 1:00PM - 2:15PM

HONR 1016: MV8 - 3 Credits

CRN: 28231

TR 2:45PM - 4:00PM

Fulfills:

CCAS: GPAC Critical Thinking in the Humanities

Course Description: A modern city often inherits much of its structure from the past, with new buildings grafted onto old foundations and new neighborhoods fit into old grids. This class explores the many ways in which this architectural analogy (borrowed from Descartes 1637) sheds light on political philosophy and human psychology. Our contemporary social and political arrangements are also largely the products of people and events that no longer exist. And many of the beliefs, goals, and values that are in your head right now are there because of something you read or heard from someone else. This raises two parallel challenges: First, how can we be sure that an inherited political arrangement is the right one for the society in which we now live? And, second, how can you be sure that the beliefs, values, and goals that are in your head right now are the beliefs that you genuinely wish to have in there? We will also ask whether or when it is warranted for a people to entirely dismantle their existing political system in order to build a new one from scratch, and also whether it's possible or advisable for an individual person to do something similar with her own belief system. To guide our discussion of these questions, we will read authors from a wide range of intellectual traditions, including anarchism, Buddhism, existentialism, feminism, Freudian psychoanalysis, classical liberalism, and Marxism.