(in Polish) Philosophy of Culture with Elements of Aesthetics 3800-ISP-PCEA
The aim of the course is to present the basic problems, methods, and trends (e.g. phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory, deconstruction) of philosophy of culture as well as to show possible ways of their application to the analysis of the contemporary cultural phenomena. The first part (based on lectures) will provide an outline of philosophy of culture. The instructor will describe its status and relation to other philosophical sub-disciplines and humanities; as well as different philosophical ways of conceptualizing culture. In the next part, by means of a thorough analysis of philosophical texts, we will reconstruct the basic methods and problems of the contemporary philosophy of culture. The leading motif of the whole course is the conviction that culture can be understood only as intertwined with and inseparable from the human being. The human being, in turn, can be given to him-/herself only as mediated through culturally determined forms of experiencing and understanding his/her being-in-the-world. Therefore, philosophy (of culture) is not some kind of external activity, but an inherent to culture moment of its critical/interpretative turning toward itself. And culture as such is the realm of „mediated presence” and of human actions and creative endeavors realized always within historically determined horizon. In other words, it is seen as at once the condition of possibility and the dynamic effect of human relentless efforts of giving-meaning to what is „simply given”, of humanizing the raw, anonymous “reality”; as the realm of theoretical and practical projects through which humans actualize themselves and, in this way, constitute reality in its plural, multidimensional character, being at the same time determined by that same reality. This entanglement of culture, philosophy and the human being will be shown through a whole series of foundational tensions permeating cultural reality such as: immanence vs. transcendence, essence vs. semblance, arche vs. telos, presence vs. absence, identity vs. otherness, participation vs. alienation, and so forth.
Our reflection will be guided by several, fundamental for philosophy of culture categories such as: symbol, myth, crisis in culture, technology and technological mediation of human self-understanding.
Course coordinators
Type of course
Learning outcomes
Acquired knowledge:
- know and understand, on the basic level, the role philosophical reflection plays in shaping culture;
- review and enrich vocabulary and linguistic skills in English (on level C1);
- have orderly and detailed knowledge in philosophy of culture;
- know general interrelations between formation of philosophical ideas and cultural and social changes;
- are aware of the complex nature of language and of the historical changeability of its meanings;
- have basic knowledge about cultural institutions and basic orientation in contemporary intellectual life;
Acquired skills:
- have ability to find, analyze, evaluate, select and use information from written and electronic sources;
- correctly use acquired philosophical terminology;
- analyze philosophical arguments, identify their crucial theses and premises and reveal their interrelations;
- justify and criticize generalizations in light of available evidence;
- reveal simple interrelations between formation of philosophical ideas and social and cultural processes;
- formulate in speech and in writing (in English) philosophical problems, formulate theses and articulate their own opinions concerning world-views and social issues;
- create and reconstruct different arguments referring to the basic normative premises of a given standpoint, world-view or cultural imaginary;
Acquired social competence:
- are open to new ideas and ready to change his opinion in light of available data and arguments;
- on the basis of creative analysis of new situations and problems create, on their own, new ways of solving them;
- show motivation to the engaged participation in social life;
- are aware of the meaning and value of the European philosophical heritage for understanding social and cultural events; and are aware of the responsibility for maintaining this heritage;
- are aware of the importance of humanistic reflection for shaping social bonds.
Assessment criteria
The final grade will be composed of two parts: active participation in discussions during the course and the oral exam at the end of the course.
In both cases assessed will be: the ability to understand and solve a given philosophical problem by using defensible arguments; to use correctly the acquired terminology; to compare different perspectives on a given problem and assess the arguments of different perspectives; the awareness of interrelations between philosophical language and changeable historical-cultural horizon.
Acceptable number of missed classes without formal explanation: 2
Bibliography
E. Cassirer, „An Essay on Man” (chap. 1-6)
H. Blumenberg, “Work on Myth” – part 1, chapter 1: “After the Absolutism of Reality”; chapter 2 “The Name Breaks into the Chaos of the Unnamed”
E. Husserl, „Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man”
S. Freud, „Civilization and Its Discontents”
H. Arendt, “The Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Its Political Significance”
H.-G. Gadamer, “Truth and Method” – part II, chapter 4: “Elements of a Theory of Hermeneutic Experience”
M. Foucault, “The Order of Discourse”
M. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”
G. Debord, “The Society of the Spectacle” (fragments)
V. Flusser, “Into the Universe of Technical Images” (fragments)
M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno, “Dialectic of Enlightenment” (fragments)
E. Levinas, „Meaning and Sense”