Basic notions of philosophy.

Philosophy has always been modulated by culture and has modulated it. Despite their abstraction, philosophical ideas are, above all, a reflection on time, and as such they intertwine with social issues, politics, literature, and art in general, contributing to the creation and understanding of the historical experience of each moment and place. The course focuses on seven moments and cities where Western culture has been especially significant -when it has not only flourished but has also experienced crucial transformations affecting social and economic life as much as the creativity of human spirit. Notice that for each city and year, we¿ll be studying authors and philosophers who do not strictly belong to that place ¬¿Not every rationalist lived in Amsterdam, Kant was never in Jena, Heidegger was not in Berlin, Marx was, for a while, but not in the 1920s. And the places we study do not follow a chronological order. For reasons we¿ll have to explain, Athens and Ancient Greece are dealt with after Romanticism and the 19th century. This is not strictly a history of philosophy. The aim is to study some relevant cultural contexts in connection with the philosophical ideas that have been created by them and have influenced them. Such cultural contexts correspond to concrete cities in a concrete historical time; they are significant in themselves, but also have been decisive for understanding modernity and for understanding ourselves today. 1. AMSTERDAM 1650 Early Modernity. Descartes, the New Science, and the New Philosophy. The Cogito and the modern subjectivity. Reading: Russell Shorto, Descartes¿ Bones. Preface and First Chapter Consequences of Cartesianism. What the World looks like after Descartes Reading: Russell Shorto, Decartes¿ Bones. Chapters 2 and 3 2. PARIS, 1750 European 18th century. Light and shade of the Enlightenment. Reading: Rousseau, Letter to M. D'Alembert on Spectacles Not only reason, but also sentiment and subjectivity. Reading: Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self, Chapter17, ¿The Culture of Modernity¿ 3. JENA 1800 The late Kant. How Reason and Enlightenment paved the way to Romanticism Reading: Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, parts I and I Romanticism. Dreams, nightmares, and monsters Reading: Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. Parts I-III. 4. ATHENS, 400 B.C.E¿ Modern Europe Tragedy ancient and modern. Why Greece matters. Reading. Sophocles, Antigona. 5. VIENNA 1900 Where our (still) modern culture begins. Vienna at the turn of the century Reading: Janik&Toulmin Wittgenstein¿s Vienna, chapter Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein. How to understand the 20th centu Reading: Freud, Civilizations and its discontents, chapters 1-3. 6. BERLIN 1930 Marxism and the revolutionary perspective Reading: Peter Gay, Weimar Culture, Chapter 4, ¿The Hunger for Wholeness¿ Heidegger. The question for Being and the other side of culture Reading: Heidegger, Time and Being §§ 25-27. Benjamin and Critical Theory Reading: Walter Benjamin, Experience and Poverty 7. NEW YORK 1970 From critical theory to Postmodernism Reading: Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, and the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

AF1. THEORETICAL-PRACTICAL CLASSES. They will present the knowledge that students must acquire. These will receive the class notes and will have basic reference texts to facilitate the monitoring of the classes and the development of the subsequent work. Exercises, practical problems will be solved by the student and workshops and evaluation tests will be carried out to acquire the necessary skills. For subjects of 6 ECTS, 48 hours will be devoted as a general rule with 100% attendance. AF2. TUTORIES. Individualized assistance (individual tutorials) or in groups (collective tutorials) to the students by the teacher. For subjects of 6 credits, 4 hours will be dedicated with 100% attendance. AF3. INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP WORK OF THE STUDENT. For subjects of 6 credits, 98 hours 0% will be dedicated. MD1. THEORY CLASS. Presentations in the teacher's class with computer and audiovisual media support, in which the main concepts of the subject are developed and the materials and bibliography are provided to complement the learning of the students. MD2. PRACTICES. Resolution of practical cases, problems, etc. raised by the teacher individually or in groups. MD3. TUTORIES. Individualized assistance (individual tutorials) or in groups (collective tutorials) to the students by the teacher. For subjects of 6 credits, 4 hours will be dedicated with 100% attendance.