Course Content

In this course, we will read Karl Löwith’s classic study, Meaning in History, along with a selection of original readings tracing the growth of philosophies of history from Kant, Herder, Hegel, and Marx. We will additionally read several brief sources on Jewish and Christian concepts of time, history, and eschatology. We will also read pertinent secondary literature on Kant’s philosophy of history, Hegel’s notion of “world history,” and Marx as a historian of philosophy. The course will conclude with a look at the most important Continental philosopher of the twentieth century: Martin Heidegger. Students will learn to read philosophical texts closely, comprehend specific terminology, and to analyze and reconstruct complex arguments in their own language. We will inquire into different concepts of “history” (Greek, Jewish, Christian, and Enlightenment) and understand how the concept of history as linear and irreversible emerged. We will trace the origin of the modern idea of history as a “progress narrative” and how this idea shapes our thinking about both humanity’s past and its future. We will interrogate the basic unit of history: whether it is the individual in his or her ultimate concern, a sovereign state, a people, a culture, or all of humanity. Students will learn to appreciate why it became urgent to identify meaning in history in the context of Christian eschatology. Here we shall particularly focus on the idea that God cannot be known in himself, but only in and as he reveals himself through history. We will also focus on how these Western conceptions of history contrast with Hindu conceptions of history, and how they affect the academic study of Hinduism.