I’m teaching Wittgenstein this semester–for the first time ever–to my Twentieth-Century Philosophy class. My syllabus requires my students to read two long excerpts from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations; bizarrely enough, in my original version of that exalted contract with my students, I had allotted one class meeting to a discussion of the section from the Tractatus. Three classesContinue reading “Teaching Wittgenstein And Making The Familiar Unfamiliar”
Tag Archives: Kant
Schopenhauer on Revealing Our True Feelings
Thus spake Schopenhauer: If you want to know how you really feel about someone take note of the impression an unexpected letter from him makes on you when you first see it on the doormat.¹ Why does Schopenhauer imagine that these kinds of reactions of ours would be particularly revealing of our ‘true’ feelings towardsContinue reading “Schopenhauer on Revealing Our True Feelings”
Reflections on Translations-VI: The Advantages to Philosophy
Over at The New York Times‘ The Stone, Hamid Dabashi writes: Though it is common to lament the shortcomings of reading an important work in any language other than the original and of the “impossibility” of translation, I am convinced that works of philosophy…in fact gain far more than they lose in translation. Consider Heidegger.Continue reading “Reflections on Translations-VI: The Advantages to Philosophy”
Russell on Marx as Excessively Practical Messiah and Schoolman
In his sometimes cranky, often witty, and always erudite History of Western Philosophy Bertrand Russell paints deflationary portraits of many members of the Western philosophical tradition. (Russell is particularly witty when dealing with Kant and Nietzsche; those treatments will soon form the subject of posts here). He also shows a rare talent for the artful digression,Continue reading “Russell on Marx as Excessively Practical Messiah and Schoolman”
Teaching Philosophy By Reading Out Loud
This semester, while teaching my two classes (Freud and Psychoanalysis; Modern Philosophy), I’ve relied at times on reading out loud my assigned texts in class. In particular, I’ve read out, often at great length, Leibniz’s Discourses on Metaphysics and The Mondadology, portions from The Critique of Pure Reason, and in the Freud class, portions ofContinue reading “Teaching Philosophy By Reading Out Loud”
Samir Chopra 