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2022/2023

Philosophy of the Enlightenment

Code: 100307 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500246 Philosophy OB 2 2

Contact

Name:
Alejandro Mumbrú Mora
Email:
alejandro.mumbru@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

External teachers

Àlex Mumbrú Mora

Prerequisites

None.

Objectives and Contextualisation

During the European eighteenth century, also known as the "Century of Lights", or the Enlightenment, the philosophical consequences of the scientific vision (or reading) of nature, of the Cartesian constitution of the subject of certainty and an ideal of knowledge that is opposed to the darkness of the metaphysical Universe or of pure and simple obscurantism. We will first examine the empiricist development of these premises, which makes intelligence an instrument of mastery of nature and politics, and culminates in the work of David Hume. Then we will study the rationalist path, represented in the 18th century by the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who starts from a possible a priori knowledge of man's being, from the place where he would be in an ideal nature. The two ways come to converge in the work of Immanuel Kant, where the intellectual endeavor of the Enlightenment is culminated and synthesized. After him, still in the eighteenth century, a unifying thought begins with what Kant had separated in his critical work, the law of nature and the imperative of freedom.

The training objective of this subject is to achieve a simultaneous historical and conceptual characterization of the philosophy of the century of the Lights.

Competences

  • Act within one's own area of knowledge, evaluating sex/gender-based inequalities.
  • Analysing and summarising the main arguments of fundamental texts of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Placing the most representative philosophical ideas and arguments of a period in their historical background and relating the most important authors of each period of any philosophical discipline.
  • Recognising and interpreting topics and problems of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
  • Thinking in a critical and independent manner on the basis of the specific topics, debates and problems of philosophy, both historically and conceptually.
  • Using the symbology and procedures of the formal sciences in the analysis and building of arguments.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Accurately using the specific lexicon of the history of philosophy.
  2. Analyse the sex-/gender-based inequalities and gender bias in one's own area of knowledge.
  3. Arguing about several issues and philosophical problems for the purpose of different works and the assessment of the results.
  4. Assess how stereotypes and gender roles impact professional practice.
  5. Carrying out a planning for the development of a subject-related work.
  6. Demonstrating a personal stance over a problem or controversy of philosophical nature, or a work of philosophical research.
  7. Discriminating the features that define the writer's place in the context of a problem and reorganising them in a consistent diagram.
  8. Distinguishing and outlining the fundamental content of a philosophical text.
  9. Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  10. Establishing relationships between science, philosophy, art, religion, politics, etc.
  11. Explaining the specific notions of the History of Philosophy.
  12. Expressing both orally and in written form, the issues and basic problems of the philosophical tradition.
  13. Identifying the main ideas of a related text and drawing a diagram.
  14. Indicating and discussing the main characteristics of the distinctive thought of a period and contextualizing them.
  15. Indicating and summarising the common content of several manifestations of various fields of culture.
  16. Indicating the main issues of the history of philosophy.
  17. Reading basic philosophical text thoroughly.
  18. Reading thoroughly philosophical texts of the History of Philosophy.
  19. Recognising, with a critical eye, philosophical referents of the past and present and assessing its importance.
  20. Relating the various orders of the philosophical ideas of different authors and historical moments.
  21. Rigorously building philosophical arguments.
  22. Submitting works in accordance with both individual and small group demands and personal styles.
  23. Summarising the topics and arguments exposed in a classical philosophical debate.

Content

  1. General remarks on the "Enlightenment"
  2. The Rousseau anomaly: critical reception of Locke and Hobbes' political philosophy
  3. Kant's Transcendental Philosophy
  4. Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment
  5. German Early Romanticism

 

Methodology

Classes are organized around the professor's exhibitions, with space for questions and debates with the participation of students.

Students work from the exhibitions and the recommended bibliography.

In personalized attention, students can make questions, ask for clarifications or extensions of the bibliography.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Classroom sessions 50 2 3, 21, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 1
Type: Supervised      
Supervised Individual Assignments 30 1.2 3, 21, 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 14, 17, 22, 20, 23, 1
Type: Autonomous      
Autonomous Individual Assignments 50 2 10, 11, 9, 17, 19

Assessment

The evaluation of the subject will consist of the delivery of one philosophical paper (45%) and the final exam (55%). The requirement of the paper will be indicated at the beginning of the course.

Students who have not submitted their paper will be non-assessable and must take the resitting exam directly.

Any work that is not submitted on the set date will not be accepted. Any indication of plagiarism will be penalized with a 0 in the activity presented.

In order to take the resitting exam, you must have taken a minimum of 3.5 out of 10 points.

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Final exam 55% of final mark 10 0.4 3, 15, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 1
One assignment to be delivered within the detailed deadline 45% of the final mark 10 0.4 2, 3, 21, 6, 7, 8, 10, 5, 11, 12, 9, 13, 16, 14, 17, 18, 22, 19, 20, 23, 1, 4

Bibliography

Primary sources:

DIDEROT, D. and D’ALEMBERT, “Discurso preliminar” a la Enciclopedia de las artes y las ciencias, ed. Orbis, 1985 (versió online)

FICHTE, J. G., Los caracteres de la edad contemporánea, trad. J. Gaos, Guillermo Escolar ed. 2019. 

FOUCAULT, M., “¿Qué es la Ilustración?”, en Sobre la Ilustración, ed. Tecnos, Madrid, 2006 (versió online)

GADAMER, H-G., Verdad y método, vol. I, ed. Sígueme, 1993. 

HEGEL, Fenomenología del Espíritu, trad. Manuel Jiménez, ed. Pre-textos, 2006. 

---: Filosofia del dret, trad. J. L. Vermal, Edhasa, 1999. 

HÖLDERLIN, F., Hiperión o el eremita en Grecia, trad. J. Munárriz, ed. Hiperión, 2015. 

HORKHEIMER M. i ADORNO, TH., Dialéctica de la Ilustración, trad. J. J. Sánchez, ed. Trotta, 2018. 

KANT, I., Crítica de la razón pura, trad. P. Ribas, ed. Alfaguara, Madrid, 1978.

---: Crítica de la razón práctica, trad. M. García Morente, ed. Sígueme, Salamanca, 1995. 

---: Crítica de la facultad de juzgar, trad. R. R. Aramayo, Madrid, A. Machado Libros, 2003. 

---: “¿Què és la Il·lustració?”, “Idea d’una història universal amb intenció cosmopolita”, “Conjectures sobre el començament de la història humana”, “La pau perpètua. Un projecte filosòfic”, “Replantejament de la pregunta: Si el gènere humà es troba en progrés constant vers el millor”, traduccions disponibles a Història i política, trad. Salvi Turró, ed. 62, 2002. 

---: La religión dentro de los límites de la mera razón, trad. F. M. Marzoa, Alianza ed., 1969. 

LESSING, G., La educación del género humano, ed. Encuentro, 2008. 

LOCKE, J, Segundo tratado sobre el gobierno civil, trad. C. Mellizo, Alianza ed., 2014.  

LYOTARD, J-F., La condición postmoderna, trad. M. Antolín, ed. Cátedra, 2000. 

ROUSSEAU, J-J., El contrato social, trad. E. L. Castellón, Edimat Libros, 1999. 

---: Profesión de fe del vicario savoyano, trad. A. Pintor-Ramos, ed. Trotta, 2007. 

---: Discurso sobre las ciencias y las artes, trad. M. Armiño, Alianza ed., 2012. 

---: Discurso sobre el origen de la desigualdad entre los hombres, trad. M. Armiño, Alianza ed., 2012.

---: Las ensoñaciones del paseante solitario, trad. M. Fiszman, ed. Losada, 2011. 

SCHILLER, F., Cartes sobre l’educació estètica de la humanitat, trad. Jordi Llovet, ed. Adesiara, 2018. 

VOLTAIRE, Càndid, trad. M. Armiño, Ed. Espasa Libros, 2016. 

 

Secondary sources:

ALCOBERRO, R., La filosofia de la Il·lustració, ed. Barcanova, 1992. 

BELAVAL, Y. (dir.), Historia de la filosofía, Siglo XXI, Madrid, 1974. Vol. 6: Racionalismo, empirismo e Ilustración.

BERLIN, I., “The Counter-Enlightenment”, in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, 5 vols., ed. Philip P. Wiener, Charles Schribner’s Sons, NY, 1973, vol. II, pp. 100-112 (on-line available).

BURY, J., La idea del progreso, Alianza ed., Madrid, 1971.

CASSIRER, E., La filosofía de la Ilustración, México, FCE, 1972.

--- : El problema del conocimiento en la filosofía y en la ciencia modernas, México, FCE, 1979 (vol. I y II).

--- : Kant. Vida y doctrina, México, FCE, 1993.

--- : Rousseau, Kant, Goethe. Filosofía y cultura en la Europa del Siglo de las Luces, trad. R. R. Aramayo, FCE, 2014.

---: Le problème Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hachette, 1987. 

---: “L’unité dans l’oeuvre de Rousseau”, a VVAA, Pensée de Rousseau, Ed. du Seuil, 1984, pp. 41-66. 

DUSSEL, ENRIQUE, 1492. El encubrimiento del otro. Hacia el origen del “mito de la modernidad”, Plural editores, La Paz, 1994. 

—: El primer debate filosófico de la Modernidad, Clacso, 2020. 

HAZARD, P., La crisis de la conciencia europea, Madrid, Alianza, 1983.

--- : El pensamiento europeo en el siglo XVIII, Madrid, Alianza, 1985.

MARTÍNEZ MARZOA, F., Historia de la filosofía, Madrid, ed. Istmo, 1973 y 1994, (vol. II).

--- : Releer a Kant, Barcelona, ed. Anthropos, 1992.

MILLS, CH. W., The Racial Contract, Cornell University Press, 1997. 

--- : “Kant’s Untermenschen”, a Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, cap. 6, pp. 91-113.  

PADGEN, ANTHONY, La Ilustración y sus enemigos. Dos ensayos sobre los orígenes de la Modernidad, Península, BCN, 2002

PHILONENKO, A., Essais sur la philosophie de la guerra, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, 1988. 

---:  L'oeuvre de Kant, 2 vol., Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, París, 1972.

SCHMIDT, JAMES, What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, University of California Press, California, 1996. 

SCHOTT, ROBIN MAY, Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.

STAROBINSKI, J., J-J. Rousseau. La transparencia y el obstáculo, Madrid: Taurus, 1983. 

TAVOILLOT, P-H., Le Crépuscule des Lumières. Les documents de la querelle du panthéisme. 1780-1789, Coll. «Passages », 1995.

TURRÓ, S., Lliçons sobre història i dret a Kant, Edicions Universitat de Barcelona, 1997.  

---: "Llei pràctica i esquematització (de Kant a Fichte)", en <<Anuari de la Societat Catalana de Filosofia>> (número IX), Barcelona, IEC, 1997.

--- : Filosofiai Modernitat. La reconstrucció de l’ordre del món, Barcelona, Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2016.

WEIL, E., “Rousseau et sa politique”, a VVAA, Penséede Rousseau, Ed. du Seuil, 1984, pp. 9-40. 

VVAA, La Ilustración olvidada. La polémica de los sexos en el siglo XVIII, ed. Anthropos, 2011.  

 

Films:

  • Arrival (2016), dir. Denis Villeneuve.

  • Into the wild (2007), dir. Sean Penn.

  • Barry Lyndon (1975), dir. Stanley Kubrik. 

 

On-line materials:

- http://www.philosophica.info/

-http://plato.stanford.edu 

-www.leibniz.es

-http://www.davidhume.org

- https://www.rousseauonline.ch/

 

Software

None.