HFIK00002U Consciousness, Rationality, Identity, and the Human Condition

The first part of the course will focus on the relation between consciousness, self-consciousness, and selfhood. Does consciousness necessarily entail self-consciousness, and should self-consciousness primarily be understood as a consciousness of self or rather as a reflexive relation that consciousness has to itself? We will read texts by both classical phenomenologists and more contemporary authors. The second part of the course will focus on personal identity. What is the nature of personal identity over time, i.e., how do persons persist over time despite the physical and psychological changes they undergo along the way? And what is the prudential and moral significance of personal identity? We will read texts by, among others, Derek Parfit. The third part of the course will examine different views of the relation between subjectivity, meaning, and temporality, specifically focusing on theories that pay attention to the temporal structure of repetition. After an introduction to Heidegger’s use of this notion in Being and Time, we move back to Kierkegaard’s and Nietzsche’s ideas as precedents to Deleuze’s approach in Difference and Repetition.