Course syllabus

 

Schopenhauer and Religion

Second Semester, 2019
Assoc. Prof. Robert Wicks

 

Well-being always comes first We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - for more information, look at this Canvas page, which has links to various support services in the University and the wider community.

 

General Information and Lecture Schedule: 
We will meet on Fridays, 1pm-3pm, Humanities Building, Room 214

 

Course Content/Lecture Schedule:

Week I:
Friday, July 26 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic: Class Administration and Background to Schopenhauer
Readings: “Arthur Schopenhauer” Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy

                   Online at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/

 

Week II:
Friday, Aug. 2 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic:  Background to Schopenhauer (cont.)
Readings: Book II, Volume I, The World as Will and Representation

Volumes I and II of The World as Will and Representation are online in their entirety at:

http://www.archive.org/details/theworldaswillan01schouoft

Book II of Volume I contains the key arguments and core of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Schopenhauer describes Book II as the “first aspect” of “the world as will” that involves “the objectification of the will.”

 

PART I: PESSIMISTIC RELIGIONS

Week III:
Friday, Aug. 9 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic:  Hinduism
Readings:  [see "Files" section of webpage for all readings, unless otherwise noted]

(1) “On Man’s Need for Metaphysics,” Chapter XVII, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II.

“Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all countries and ages, in their spendour and spaciousness, testify to man’s need for metaphysics…”

(2) “A Few Words on Pantheism,” Chapter V, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II

(3)   "Some Remarks on Sanskrit Literature,” Chapter XVI, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II

Week IV:
Friday, Aug. 16 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic:  Hinduism/Buddhism
Readings:

(1) “On Death and Its Relation to the Indestructibility of Our Inner Nature,” Chapter XLI, The World as Will and Representation, Vol II

(2) “On the Doctrine of the Indestructibility of Our True Nature by Death,” Chapter X of Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II

(3) Moira Nicholls. “The Influences of Eastern Thought on Schopenhauer’s Doctrine of the Thing-in-Itself, in C. Janaway (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 171-212.

Week V:
Friday, Aug. 23 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic: Buddhism
Readings:

(1) Edward Conze, “Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels,” Philosophy East & West, Vol. 13, No. 1 (April 1963), pp. 9-23

(2) Peter Abelsen, “Schopenhauer and Buddhism,” Philosophy East & West, Vol. 43, No. 2 (April 1993), pp. 255-278

(3) Recommended: Heinrich Dumoulin, “Buddhism and Nineteenth-Century German Philosophy,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 42, No. 3 (July-Sept. 1981), pp. 457-470

 

Week VI:
Friday, Aug. 30 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic:  Christianity
Readings:

(1) Patrick Bridgwater, “Schopenhauer and England: Conclusions,” selection from Arthur Schopenhauer’s English Schooling (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), pp. 368-376.

(2) “On the Doctrine of the Denial of the Will-to-Live,” Chapter XLVIII, The World as Will and Representation, Vol II 

 
Friday, September 6 -- Mid-Semester Break, no class
Friday, September 13 -- Mid-Semester Break, no class

   

Week VII:
Friday, September 20 -- 1pm-3pm          [ESSAY PROPOSALS DUE]

Topic: Christianity (cont.)
Readings:

(1) “Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the Suffering of the World,” Chapter XII, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II

(2) “The Road to Salvation,” Chapter XLIX, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II

PART II: OPTIMISTIC RELIGIONS

Week VIII:
Friday, September 27 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic:  Greek Polytheism
Readings:
(1) “On the Aesthetics of Poetry,” Chapter XXXVII, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II

(2) “Some Mythological Observations,” Chapter XVIII, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II

 
Week IX:
Friday, Oct. 4 -- 1pm-3pm

Topic:  Islam and Judaism
Readings:
(1) “On Philosophy and its Method,” Chapter I, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol II

(2) “On Religion” §§177-182, (last part of) Chapter XV, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol II.

(3) Selections from “Fragments for the History of Philosophy,” Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. I

Week X:
Friday, October 11 -- 1pm-3pm                 [ESSAY DRAFTS DUE]

Topic:  Confucianism and Daoism
Readings:

(1) Chapter on “Sinology” in On the Will in Nature

(2) Wing-Tsit Chan, “The Study of Chu Hsi in the West,” Journal of Asian Studies,” Vol. 35, No. 4 (August 1976), pp. 555-577

(3) Recommended: Joey Bonner, “The World as Will: Wang Kuo-Wei and the Philosophy of Metaphysical Pessimism,” Philosophy East & West, Vol. 29, No. 4 (October 1979), pp. 443-466

 

PART III: CLASS PRESENTATIONS

Week XI:
Friday, October 18 -- 1pm-3pm:    Class Presentations

 
Week XII.
Friday, October 25 -- 1pm-3pm:    Class Presentations

 

 

ALL COURSEWORK ESSAYS ARE DUE ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
(This is one week after lectures end)

[The mark on the essay is worth 100% of the course final mark.]

 

 

Administrative Information

I. Contact Information:

Assoc. Prof. Robert Wicks

Office and Telephone:
         Room 439, Humanities Building, Level 4; 373-7599, ext. 8449

Office Hours:    Fridays, 10am-12pm

E-mail:  r.wicks@auckland.ac.nz

(Note:  please use the above e-mail address as opposed to sending messages through Canvas)

 

II. Essay Scheduling Guidelines

Essay PROPOSAL ( 2 or more pages):

This is REQUIRED
-- due no later than Friday, September 20

Essay Draft Submission:

This is encouraged
-- due no later than Friday, October 11

 
Essay Drafts returned to you: within two weeks of submission

 
Essay FINAL DUE DATE:  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, by 3:00 p.m. 
(Essay length, 5000 words)

Essay Weighting:  100% of final mark.

 

 

III. Essay Composition Guidelines: 

Please observe the following guidelines as best as you can.

An essay whose compositional form is profoundly unrefined (e.g., with numerous spelling and grammatical errors) is unlikely to receive a grade in the A-range. 

 

-- 1.5 or Double-spaced throughout

 

-- New paragraphs begin with an indented first sentence; no extra/added empty lines in the spacing between paragraphs; the indentation indicates the paragraph separation

 

-- No right-hand margin justification

(This justification causes the spacing between words to become uneven; the text thereby becomes more jarring for one’s vision)

 

-- Page numbers included, either at bottom or at top of page

 

-- Word Count on first page, with your Name and the Title of the essay on the first page as well

 

Punctuation/Grammar Recall:

(please review these points carefully at some point immediately before writing your essay)

1. Within a sentence, a comma (or more rarely, a colon, as below) introduces quotations; quotations within quotations are single-quoted; periods fall within, rather than outside of, the quotation mark at the end of the sentence:

Nietzsche, in Beyond Good and Evil, said the following about Kant:  “Kant was first and foremost proud of his table of categories; with that in his hand he said:  ‘This is the most difficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics.’”

In response to the Nietzsche passage, the reader murmured, “I don’t recall Kant ever having said that.”

 

2. Longer quotes (more than three or four lines, as a rule) are indented. In this situation, quotation marks are not used; the indentation and separation from the main body of the text indicate the quotation:

Nietzsche writes:

I was the first to take seriously, for the understanding of the older, the still rich and even overflowing Hellenic instinct, that wonderful phenomenon which bears the name of Dionysus: it is explicable only in terms of an excess of force.

 

[note that no quotation marks have been used in the above]

 

3. Comma-splices are ungrammatical. A “comma-splice” is the misuse of a comma to separate full sentences. (e.g., "Georg wrote ungrammatically, he used comma-splices.")  In the immediately preceding example, there should have been a period used instead of a comma, if the structure were to have presented itself as being properly grammatical.  It should have read:  “Georg wrote ungrammatically.  He used comma-splices.” 

 

If the two sentences are closely related in meaning, then a semi-colon can be used to connect them.  (e.g.,  "Friedrich understood grammar well; he used semi-colons where appropriate.")

 

Usage/Grammar/Style:

1. [“Its” vs. “It’s”]

As a general rule, it is best to avoid contractions and colloquial speech in academic writing, unless there is a specific rhetorical reason for this.

The word "it's" is a contraction of "it is," and does not designate a possessive pronoun. If one avoids using the word "it's" altogether, the problem of the misusage of "it's" will be automatically solved.  

Try to avoid using the word “it’s” in your essays, unless you understand exactly how this word is properly used.

 

2. Sentence fragments are ungrammatical. These are pieces of grammatically-correct sentences which are incorrectly set out as full sentences in their own right.

(e.g., "The concepts of the sublime and beautiful from the theory." [no verb]; or "After thinking about it." [no subject])

 

3. Run-on sentences are ungrammatical. These are two or more full sentences which are strung together into a single sentence. (e.g.,  "Nietzsche died in Weimar he was very ill.”)  There should be either a period or a semi-colon after the word “Weimar” in the previous sentence, if the structure is to be properly grammatical.

 

4. [“And” and “But”]

Whenever possible, it is usually in better style to avoid beginning sentences with conjunctions such as "and" and "but."

 

5. [“however”]

As a rule, the word, "however," is used in the most stylistically effective way, when it is placed in the middle of a sentence (as opposed to being placed at the beginning of a sentence).

 

6. [splitting infinitives]

(This is a less pressing guideline, since the authorities at the Oxford English Dictionary have dictated that splitting infinitives is not ungrammatical.)  Unless the result of splitting an infinitive is very awkward, it usually sounds more grammatically sophisticated when the infinitive is not split. 

 

One would prefer: "To understand clearly Nietzsche’s view . . ." 

in contrast to: "To clearly understand Nietzsche’s view. . ." 

 

In the first example above, the infinitive-form of the verb "to understand" is kept intact.

 

General Conventions:

1. When mentioning an author for the first time within the body of the manuscript, both first and last names are stated. Afterwards, only the last name is used. All names should be spelled correctly.  Sometimes it is appropriate to include the birth and death dates of the author in question.

 

2. When a person who has already been referred to in the essay is mentioned within the first sentence of a later paragraph, then the last name is spelled out, as opposed to using the words, "she" or "he."

 

3. Names of books, such as Beyond Good and Evil, and all foreign words, such as “Übermensch” (superhuman), are italicized or underlined.

 

4. Journal titles, such as The Journal of the History of Philosophy, are italicized, similar to book titles. Individual journal articles, such as "Nietzsche’s Conception of Eternal Recurrence," are cited in double-quotation marks ("") within the body of an essay.

 

5. All German nouns are capitalized (and italicized, as foreign words); German adjectives are not capitalized (but are italicized, as foreign words). Note that the accent marks on French words can vary in angle: e.g., either, "è" or "é".

 

Bibliography and Endnotes/Footnotes:  (these reference styles vary; whichever one you decide to use, please use it consistently and precisely)

 

A typical bibliography entry:  [author's last name goes first]

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard.  New York:  Hafner Press, 1951.

 

A typical endnote/footnote entry:  [author's first name goes first; publisher goes in parentheses; articles go in quotation marks, followed by the book in which the article is contained]

Immanuel Kant. Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard. (New York:  Hafner Press, 1951), p. 23.

 

Final Procedures:

1. As the very last thing which you do before printing the final version of the manuscript, run the spell-check for a last time. This will eliminate any typing errors (if any) that occurred during the rewriting/editing process.
   
   
2. Scan the printed document to make sure that printer has printed the essay correctly. (For example, section headings are sometimes left hanging alone at the bottom of a page, due to new spacing arrangements which have occurred in other parts of the manuscript.)
   
   
3. PLEASE KEEP A COPY of your completed essay, and have this on hand in case the submitted copy gets lost. If you submit an essay, and it is ends up missing for some reason, then you will need to have a copy on hand to resubmit immediately.
   
   

Suggestion -- work with the hard copy. Computer screens can be deceiving. Proofreading of your essays is best done on the HARD copy, and not on the computer screen alone.  What looks good and reads well on the computer screen does not usually look as good or read as well in non-electronic reality.  Since your essays will be evaluated in the printed version, and not in the electronic version, it is a good idea to work primarily with the hard copy during the final stages of composition.

Suggestion: S T A R T   E A R L Y in your essay-writing, so that there is time to rewrite, reformulate, and render more precise the original draft.