Category: class

And then, everything changed. We saw the beginnings of Enlightenment criticism the past two weeks in Nietzsche (Gott ist tot) and Rauschenbusch. But here’s where we tip over the edge into a completely different era, a completely different way of thinking that is counter to the universals proposed in the Enlightenment. Of course, none of…

What “counts” as philosophy? This may be a question that plagues you as you read for class this week. Are the thinkers we explore this week–Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, and Du Bois–philosophers? Are they theologians? Public critics? What’s the difference? In some ways, this week will embody our questions about subjugated knowledges. (This is certainly a theme…

Are there universal truths or is all truth subjective? What does it mean to be an authentic person in light of God (or in light of myself)? If Enlightenment thinkers like Immanuel Kant were concerned with knowledge a priori (before or outside of human experience), existentialists like Søren Kierkegaard were concerned with knowledge a posteriori—what…

Rights! Liberty! Justice for all(-ish)! All of the big changes we marked with the Modern Era come to a head in the High Enlightenment. Now that we are rational, autonomous (elite, white, land-owning) men, how do we structure our worlds? What is an ideal government? What rights do all humans (again, elite, white land-owning men)…

And then, the world exploded. First, let’s spend some time with the people. Big shifts were happening among the intelligentsia and nobility, but there were also average people–peasants, witches, enslaved folks–who went about their lives feeling the after effects of the revolutions but maybe not all at once and maybe not in any meaningful way.…

History buff here: I hate that we spend only one week in the Middle Ages, when there was so many weird creatures and (weird-er ideas)! The Middle Ages also accounts for such a broad period of time; even narrowing in on Western thought, and Aristotelian (ah-rist-ah-tale-ian) thought, leaves so much unexplored. This week we will…

OK, I know it says a lot about me that this is my fave week of the course. I will try to reign in my glee, just a little bit. My very non-secret bias for this class is that we can all get over our superficial hatred of Augustine and move toward either an appreciation…

You’ve seen this language of subjugated knowledge a lot on the syllabus and website. Maybe I’ve already said it in class, on the podcast, or put it in an email. This week we are going to spend a lot of time diving into this concept, through French theorist Michel Foucault (FOO-co), its originator, and some…

Welcome to Philosophy & Theological Thought. 👋🏻 I am so glad that you will be joining our learning community this term. I love thinking about this course as a symposium, a place where thinkers gather over good food and wine (or coffee!) and talk about the biggest questions of the world. Below I have a…