This course will cover the debate over modernity and post-modernity in contemporary continental European philosophy. Both sides in this debate believe that the liberal, secular, humanist Enlightenment philosophy of the 18th century (the dominant Western world-view today) is deeply flawed, especially its core ideas about individualism, freedom, human nature, the benefits of science, and the nature of knowledge. Modernists believe it can be revised and salvaged; post-modernists believe it should be more completely rejected. Both sides also offer innovative analyses of mass culture, the effects of technology on society, the nature of oppression, and the possibilities of progress.

Books required:

1) Richard Kearney and Mara Rainwater, eds., The Continental Philosophy Reader (New York: Routledge, 1996).  ISBN-13: 9780415095266.  $45.00

2) Paul Rabinow and Niklas Rose, eds., The Essential Foucault (New York: New Press, 2003). ISBN-13: 9781565848016.  $20.00

3) Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971). ISBN-13: 9780807005958. $19.00

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). ISBN-10: 0804736332. $25.00.