Course level: Graduate
Fall 2024
Johns Hopkins University
Course Description:
In this seminar, we will study the first-person perspective and its implications for both theoretical reasoning (including self-understanding) and practical reasoning (including self-development). Drawing on texts from historical and contemporary sources, we will explore questions such as:
- What does it mean to be a thinker with a first-person perspective? (Can there be a thinker without one?)
- Does the first-person perspective necessarily include a position for the subject?
- What role does the body play in the first-person perspective?
- Are perspectivity and objectivity mutually exclusive?
- Do empathy and morality require us to exit the first-person perspective?
- What is the relation (if any) between the first-person perspective and “the self” as it figures in moral psychology?
Readings may include, but are not limited to, texts by Descartes, Kant, and Husserl, as well as Anscombe, Perry, Lewis, and Bar-On.
This class is co-taught with Professor J. David Velleman in Fall 2024.
Syllabus:
First-Person Perspective – Syllabus – JHU Fall 2024 – Online
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