WORLD VIEWS

philosophical movements of the contemporary era

for  MA in International Relations, MA in Globalisation, MA in Political Communication, MA in Journalism

at  Dublin City University

taught by  Dr Helena Sheehan  in  School of Communications

LECTURES (with multimedia presentations) 
week 1     overview of course
                         the big questions / basic philosophies / root metaphors
                                    idealism v materialism   holism v atomism   essentialism v historicism
                         philosophies of history
                                     grand narratives: past & present
                         integrating intellectual history & autobiography
                                    course diaries
some   questions   to be explored in the course of these lectures

timeline of western philosophy (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

week 2      modernity / modernism
                      the making of the modern mind
                             capitalism, protestantism & the scientific revolution
                             the legacy of the enlightenment
                             rationalism v empiricism
                             anti-enlightenment reaction: romanticism
                             liberalism v conservatism
                             evolutionary ideas
                    multimedia presentation on modern philosophy

week 3      empiricism; anglo-american philosophical traditions
                    positivism / logical positivism / neo-positivism / analytic philosophy
                    pragmatism / radical empiricism

week 4        existentialism / phenomenology / varieties of continental philosophy
                                    Camus "The Myth of Sisyphus"  to read the text, click  here
           slides on existentialism

week 5     marxism: the theoryMarx-Engels-Forum Berlin
multimedia presentation of marxism

week 6    marxism: the practice
 

   marxism in power (1) experiments in the relationship of world view & social order
        politics & philosophy in the USSR, GDR & Yugolslavia

    online reading: October Revolution: early dilemmas and debates
                 Ideas and purges: soviet intellectual life and the 5 year plans
                                                           Lysenko and Lysenkoism
                The comintern and the intellectuals
                The dissolution and disillusion of the Comintern
                                                         Bernal  / Haldane / Caudwell

week 7        marxism in power (2)    case studies 2 & 3: politics & philosophy in the GDR & Yugoslavia
                    marxism after the fall

week 8  postmodernism
slides on postmodernism week 9     end-of-ideology / end-of-history theories
               slides on end-of-history and grand narratives
                        text  grand narratives then & now: can we still conceptualise history ?
                 the future of politics & philosophy
                                             writing grand narratives ?
                                             constructing world views ?

week 10    the western canon and the rise of the repressed: class, race, gender & knowledge
slides on the rise of the repressed
                       Brecht  "questions from a worker who reads"
                        the pc wars, the culture wars, the science wars
                        feminist epistemolgy ?

week 11     eurocentrism and its critics: african alternatives
                        universalism and multiculturalism

week 12     contemporary ideological debates
                   philosophy and international relations theory and practice
                   review of course

course diaries due at end of week 12