Philosophy, Freedom and Existence (based in Politics)

This module explores the ideas of thinkers in the ‘phenomenological’ tradition of western philosophy. Phenomenology sought to ground our thinking in a rigorous examination of ordinary experience and perception, not in abstract metaphysics or scientific determinism. This approach opened the way to new and often rebellious intellectual currents aimed at putting philosophy in a critical dialogue with life. Their focus was on how our attitudes and emotions, our bodies, desires and feelings, were central to a commitment to freedom and achieving an ‘authentic’ existence. They often rebelled against bourgeois morals and politics, capitalism and technology, and devoted themselves to radical causes on both the right and the left of the political spectrum. The module requires you to read some dense philosophy and reflect critically on its continuing validity for contemporary social and political experience. You will also submit a short phenomenological analysis of experience in addition to a critical essay.

Radical Philosophy: Discourse, Power and Resistance (based in Politics) 

Much of Western political theory is based on Enlightenment ideas about reason, and especially the notion of an autonomous and rational `individual’ derived from liberalism. In addition, secularism stands as a key concept organizing modern political philosophy and politics, with its dualistic ideas of public and private space, the religious and the political, the rational and the irrational.

However, a number of thinkers in the 20 Century have challenged these assumptions, showing that we have to consider and rethink the role of certain `external’ and `irrational’ forces – such as language, fantasy, emotions, ideology, faith as well as market and power relations that often shape our perception of the world and our place in it. These thinkers in the `Continental’ tradition of political thought hence questioned modern and liberal conceptions of space reconciling the religious with the political and the economic.

In this module, you will learn some of these alternative approaches to politics. You will explore themes such as the concept of power and its relationship to religion; subjectivity, desire and the role of the unconscious; the ambivalent connections between faith and finance; the meaning of resistance and the forces presiding over the construction of political discourses and social relations.

In this theoretical module, you will therefore be dealing with concrete questions and issues such as the role of language in shaping political and gender identities, how power functions in society, the religious underpinnings of the market, and how people can resist domination and the risks of totalitarian politics today.