Teaching Documents by Alexander Jech
Diagram charting out the forms of despair treated in Sickness unto Death, with reference to Fear ... more Diagram charting out the forms of despair treated in Sickness unto Death, with reference to Fear and Trembling. Most useful in an introductory course where one reads only these two works but helpful for charting the territory and organizing discussion in a higher level course as well. The teacher should be careful to note that it (perhaps illicitly) combines both ways of categorizing despair (in terms of the constituents of the synthesis and in terms of consciousness of despair). For this reason it is more useful as a way of organizing discussion of the work than as a guide to the work itself -- a proper teaching aid would factor these together rather than adding them together, but this would quickly become too complex to be useful for students.
The following is a diagram designed by a former student, which breaks down the definition of the ... more The following is a diagram designed by a former student, which breaks down the definition of the self in Sickness unto Death fairly accurately and can be used to clarify the imposing first few paragraphs of the work on the self as "the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation."
A diagram to be used as a teaching aid for Kierkegaard's _The Concept of Anxiety_, focused upon t... more A diagram to be used as a teaching aid for Kierkegaard's _The Concept of Anxiety_, focused upon the idea of "positing the synthesis." Helps explain the relation between freedom and necessity, the role of the "God-relation," the nature of the demonic as the exclusion of a constituent of the self, the role of anxiety in discovering possibility, and the role of positing the synthesis in establishing the self, among other things.
Pascal's Wager is usually treated out of context, in a way that distorts the argument and the way... more Pascal's Wager is usually treated out of context, in a way that distorts the argument and the way that it functions in the larger context of the Pensées. In this outline I try to provide students with the necessary background to make sense of the Wager within its larger context. This may also be useful for others who are researching the Wager and need a place to start.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to philosophical and ethical modes of reflect... more The purpose of this course is to introduce students to philosophical and ethical modes of reflection upon the nature of "work." The philosophical core of the course will be provided by the divergent perspectives of Aristotle, Adam Smith, and Marx, and Hannah Arendt's critique of these, but the majority of the course will focus upon investigating the ethical dimensions of several different kinds of work, or vocations, such as agriculture, manual labor, and business. This examination will have two purposes: to obtain a better understanding regarding what vocations require of those working within them and to better understand how the vocation should be fit within the broader moral, social, and political fabric of society.
Course Description: In 1750, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, "Ancient political thinkers incessantly... more Course Description: In 1750, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, "Ancient political thinkers incessantly talked about morals and virtue, those of our time talk only of business and money." Although this is an exaggeration, it contains a grain of truth about the state of modern political philosophy and political debates to this day. Therefore it is worthwhile for us to raise this question: "What is the relationship between virtue and politics, between the good life and the political life?" Is virtue necessary for those who wish to rule? Is exercising political power the perfection of virtue, or is it a fatal temptation from the good life? In this class we are going to examine the main lines along which Greek ethical thought developed, with special reference to the relationships between their virtue theory and their political theory. The bulk of our time will be spent on the two figures most important to Greek ethical thought, Plato and Aristotle, but we will also examine the two major Hellenistic schools, the Epicureans and the Stoics, with some time spend upon the pre-philosophical morality of Hesiod and the historian Thucydides' thoughts on the nature of virtue and politics.
This course will focus upon the early development of existential thought as it was developed in t... more This course will focus upon the early development of existential thought as it was developed in the writings and thought of such philosophical "outsiders" as the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the Russian philosopher-novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the German philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Toward the conclusion of the course we will survey the "mature" development of existentialism in the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert
This course is an examination of some of the prominent ways in which philosophers have characteri... more This course is an examination of some of the prominent ways in which philosophers have characterized the relationship between freedom and the human good, with particular focus upon the conflicted, orthogonal, or oppositional relationships they possess in much liberal thought, including attempts to either reconcile them to each other in a more satisfactory manner.
Course Description: Modern biotechnology has opened up an amazing array of possibilities: in addi... more Course Description: Modern biotechnology has opened up an amazing array of possibilities: in addition to miracle drugs and wondrous life-saving machines, it has opened up the doors to cloning, genetic engineering, all manner of methods for intervening in human reproduction, and it holds out the promise of even greater things to come, including human enhancement. It has opened up so many doors so quickly, in fact, that when faced by the need to make decisions about what lies behind these doors, we are often at a loss as to what principles we ought to follow in our decision-making and what policies governments ought to adopt. The power that we hold over the human body today, and the even greater power we sense the prospect of tomorrow, is both bewitching and terrifying. This course will provide an opportunity to reflect upon some of these pressing issues and the principles that we can deploy to answer our questions about these areas.
Liberalism in the broad sense emerged as a political orientation with two main components: a comm... more Liberalism in the broad sense emerged as a political orientation with two main components: a commitment to natural rights and to limited government. Thomas Hobbes was the first to set rights at the foundation of politics but John Locke was the first to combine the two emphases and thus found liberalism. The lecture explores the differences between the philosphic anthropologies (i.e., the philosophies of human nature) of these two thinkers in order to lay bare the presuppositions of liberal politics.
Recent arguments for the basic status of economic liberty can be deployed to show that all libert... more Recent arguments for the basic status of economic liberty can be deployed to show that all liberty is basic. John Tomasi's defense of basic economic liberties raises a puzzle about the distinction between basic and non-basic liberties: the same reasons that economic liberties and the traditionally defined list of basic liberties are basic can also
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Teaching Documents by Alexander Jech