Philosophers of the 20th Century

Full course description

The course reconstructs the main ideas of some of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century: Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), Michel Foucault (1926-1984), Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Jürgen Habermas (1929).  Their ideas are partially the result of the practical turn within philosophy initiated in the 19th century by Karl Marx (1818-1883), Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914). So, elaborating on their work during the past century many philosophers took practical issues as the starting point of their philosophy. This course tries to figure out what these practical issues are and how they are related to their theoretical ideas. Moreover, the course addresses the link between the work of these philosophers and the societal context and discusses its heuristic value.