Assessment

2 minor essays each worth 25%, 1 final essay 50%

Module Aims

This module offers an overview of major philosophical understandings of the human person in the history of philosophy. Figures treated include Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and C.S. Lewis. It elaborates on the shift from a participatory anthropology rooted in the divine to a modern autonomous conception of the self and anthropology cut away from divine transcendence. It further seeks to show how the autonomous rationalist turn resulted in an irrational “underground” anthropology as seen in Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. Curiously this underground can be either participatory (Dostoevsky) or autonomous (Nietzsche). It seeks to understand this shift on the basis of a Christian interpretation of the self as created gift.

In doing, the module is divided into three groups and/or types of thinkers. The first group represents participatory anthropology as seen in Plato (the self and eros;), Augustine (person and desire), and C.S. Lewis (person and eros/agape). The second, represents an autonomous anthropology as seen in Descartes (self and mind/thinking). The third group represents an underground anthropology as seen in Dostoevsky (person as irrational subterranean desire), and Nietzsche (person as transvaluative tragic finitude).

This module aims to aid learners by:

-rooting learners in a key influences, figures, and challenges to the Catholic intellectual heritage

-aid in the development of, and reflection about, ethical values.

Learning Outcomes

• — -Demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of primary texts under discussion.
• — -Read and explicate primary philosophical texts.
• — -contextualize historical stages in the understanding of personhood.
• — -Conceptually compare and analyse differing philosophical views on personhood.