PLEASE NOTE this is a sample reading list for the 2015-16 academic year
– precise seminar content may change from year to year.
Week 1
The Existential-Phenomenological Turn in Continental European Philosophy
Some Relevant Literature:
Camus, Albert, The Myth of Sisyphus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975, orig. publ . 1942)
Cooper, David, Existentialism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), ch. 2.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Twilight of the Idols (Penguin: Harmondsworth ), esp. sect. IV ‘How the “Real
World” Finally Became a Myth’.
Poellner, Peter, ‘Phenomenology and Science in Nietzsche’, in A Companion to Nietzsche, ed. K. J.
Ansell-Pearson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).
On Husserls phenomenology (as background to Sartre’s):
Luft, Sebastian, ‘Introduction’ and ‘Husserl’s Method of Reduction’, in S. Luft and S. Overgaard (eds)
The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology (Routledge, 2012).
More advanced:
Poellner, Peter, ‘Consciousness in the World: Husserlian Phenomenology and Externalism’, in B.
Leiter and M. Rosen (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy (Oxford: OUP, 2007).
Week 2 (we may make a start on these topics at the end of the week 1 lecture)
Some Fundamental Sartrean Theses: In-Itself and For-Itself. Pre-Reflective Consciousness and
‘Nothingness’.
Primary Text:
BN, Introduction; Part 1, ch. 1, sections 1 and 5;
BN, Part 2, ch. 1, sections 1, 2;
‘The Transcendence of the Ego’, esp. section 1.
Seminar Reading: BN, Introduction, pp. 6 - 12.
Some Secondary Literature:
Catalano, Joseph, A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’ (Chicago: Chicago
UP, 1980), Introduction and pt. 1, ch. 1.
Gardner, Sebastian, Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’ (London: Continuum, 2009), chapt. 3(A), pp.
38-79 (interprets Sartre’s position as a novel ontology).
Hatzimoysis, Anthony, ‘A Sartrean Critique of Introspection’, in Jonathan Webber (ed.) Reading
Sartre (Routledge, 2011).
McCulloch, Gregory, Using Sartre (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 33-44.
Morris, Katherine, Sartre (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), ch. 3.
Sprigge, Timothy, Theories of Existence (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), ch. 7, pp. 128-53.
Poellner, Peter, ‘Nonconceptual Content, Experience and the Self’, Journal of Consciousness Studies
vol. 10, no. 2 (2003), esp. pp. 45-56.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness’,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousness-phenomenological/
Williford, Kenneth ‘Pre-reflective Self-consciousness and the Autobiographical Ego’, in Jonathan
Webber (ed.) Reading Sartre (Routledge, 2011)
Zahavi, Dan, Self-Awareness and Alterity (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1999), pp. 127-142.
Week 3
Radical Freedom and Action
Primary Text:
BN, Part 1, ch. 1, section 5;
BN, Part 4, ch. 1, esp. section 1;
Seminar Reading: BN, pp. 503-506.
Secondary Literature:
Compton, John ‘Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Human Freedom’, in Jon Stewart (ed.) The Debate
between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1998) [Henceforth referred to as
DSM].
Cooper, David, Existentialism, ch. 9.
Eshleman, Matthew ‘What is it Like to be Free?’ in Jonathan Webber (ed.) Reading Sartre
(Routledge, 2011).
Gardner, Sebastian, Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’, chapt. 3(D), pp. 148-172.
Jones, Gary ‘Sartre, Consciousness and Responsibility’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
41 (1980).
Morris, Katherine, Sartre, ch. 8.
Poellner, Peter, ‘Early Sartre on Freedom and Ethics’, European Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming).
A copy can be downloaded from the module webpage, course materials.
Stewart, Jon ‘Merleau-Ponty’s Criticisms of Sartre’s Theory of Freedom’, in DSM.
Taylor, Charles, ‘Responsibility for Self’ in Gary Watson (ed.) Free Will (Oxford: OUP, 1982).
Webber, Jonathan, The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre (New York: Routledge, 2009), chapts. 4 & 5.
Week 4
Value, Desire, and the Fundamental Project
Primary Text:
BN, Part 1, ch 1, section 5, pp. 59 –69.
BN, Part 2, ch. 1, section 3.
BN, Part 4, ch. 1, section 1, pp. 483-89.
Seminar Reading: BN, pp. 483-89.
Secondary Literature:
Baldwin, Thomas ‘Sartre, Kant and the Original Choice of Self’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, vol. 80 (1979-80).
Catalano, J., A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’, pt. 4.
Cooper, David, Existentialism, pp. 90-92, 139-145, and ch. 10.
Gardner, Sebastian, Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’, pp. 101-104 (value and lack); 161-167, 177-179
(original choice/fundamental project).
Webber, Jonathan, The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, chapts. 4 & 8.
Week 5
Bad Faith and the Flight from Anguish
Primary Text:
BN, Part 1, ch. 2.
Seminar Reading: BN, pp. 70 -73; pp. 78-79.
Secondary Literature:
Cooper, David, Existentialism, pp. 116-33.
Gardner, Sebastian, Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’, pp. 172-177
Gordon, Jeffrey, ‘Bad Faith: A Dilemma’, Philosophy, vol. 60 (1985), pp. 258-262.
Hymers, Michael, ‘Bad Faith’, Philosophy, vol. 64 (1989), pp. 397-402.
McCulloch, Gregory, Using Sartre, ch. 4.
Poellner, Peter ‘Self-Deception, Consciousness and Value’ Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 11,
no. 10-11 (2004), pp. 44-65.
Stevenson, Leslie, ‘Sartre on Bad Faith’, Philosophy, vol. 58 (1983), pp. 253-258.
Webber, Jonathan, The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, chapts. 6 & 7.
Webber, Jonathan, ‘Motivated Aversion: Non-thetic Awareness in Bad Faith’, Sartre Studies
International vol 8, no. 1 (2002). Also available at:
http://cardiff.ac.uk/encap/resources/MotivatedAversion.pdf
Week 6
Independent Study Week
Week 7
The Structure of Emotions
Primary Text:
Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (London: Routledge, 2002)
Seminar Reading: Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, pp. 39-44.
Secondary Literature:
Dilman, I., ‘An Examination of Sartre’s Theory of the Emotions’, Ratio 5 (1963), pp. 190-212.
Drummond, John, ‘”Cognitive Impenetrability” and the Complex Intentionality of Emotions’, Journal
of Consciousness Studies, vol. 11, no. 10-11 (2004), pp 109-126.
McCulloch, Gregory, Using Sartre, ch. 2
Lyons, William, Emotion (Cambridge: CUP, 1980), ch. 3 and 4.
Poellner, Peter, ‘Affect, Value and Objectivity’, in B. Leiter and N. Sinhababu (eds) Nietzsche and
Morality (Oxford University Press, 2007), esp. pp. 235-248.
Solomon, Robert, Not Passion’s Slave: Emotions and Choice (Oxford: OUP, 2003).
Solomon, Robert, ‘Sartre on Emotions’ in P. A. Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (La
Salle: Open Court, 1981).
Week 8
Encountering Others: Intersubjectivity in Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre
Primary Text:
BN, Part 3, ch. 1, sections 3 and 4.
Seminar Reading: BN, pp. 282-87.
Secondary Literature:
Aquila, R., ‘Sartre’s Other and the Field of Consciousness’ European Journal of Philosophy 6 (1998),
pp. 253-76.
Dreyfus, Hubert, Being-in-the-World (Cambridge/MA: MIT Press, 1991), ch. 8 (on Heidegger’s
position).
Gardner, Sebastian, Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’, chapt. 3(C), pp. 126-148.
Morris, Katherine, Sartre, ch. 7.
Natanson, Maurice, ‘The Problem of Others in Being and Nothingness’ in P. A. Schilpp (ed.) The
Philosophy of Jean-Paul-Sartre.
Lapointe, F. ‘The Existence of Alter Egos: Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau- Ponty’ in DSM.
Smith, A.D. Husserl and the Cartesian Meditations, (London:Routledge, 2003, ch. 5 (on Husserl’s
position).
Theunissen, Michael, The Other (Cambridge MA: MIT Press), ch. 6. (on Sartre’s theory)
Verstraeten, P. ‘Hegel and Sartre’, in C. Howells (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Sartre
(Cambridge University Press, 1992)
Webber, Jonathan, The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, chapt. 9.
Zahavi, Dan, Husserl and Transcendental Intersubjectivity (Athens: Ohio University Press), pp. 137-49
(on Sartre’s view).
Week 9
Concrete Relations to Others: Love, Hatred, Sexuality
Primary Text:
BN, Part 3, ch. 3, esp. sections 1 and 2.
Seminar reading: BN, pp. 384 – 392.
Secondary Literature:
Jones, D. T., ‘Useless Passions? Sartre on Love’, in J. Giles (ed) French Existentialism: Consciousness,
Ethics, and Relations to Others (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999). Also available at: www.dhivan.neta.googlepages.com/uselesspassions.pdf
Mazis, Glen, ‘Touch and Vision: Rethinking with Merleau-Ponty Sartre on the Caress’, in DSM.
Morris, Katherine, Sartre, ch. 7.
Oaklander, N., ‘Sartre on Sex’, in Alan Soble (ed.) The Philosophy of Sex (Oxford: Rowman&Littlefield,
1980).
Wyatt, J., ‘The Impossible Object of Love in Sartre’s BN..’, Sartre Studies International, vol 12 (2006),
pp. 1-16.
Week 10
Sartre’s Ethics
Primary Text:
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism (London: Methuen, 1977). (A lecture delivered in
1946).
Jean-Paul Sartre, Notebooks for an Ethics (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992), pp. 471-554 (The
section entitled ‘Conversion’).
Seminar reading: Existentialism and Humanism, pp. 47-56.
Secondary Literature:
Gardner, Sebastian, Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness’, pp. 190-199.
Poellner, Peter, ‘Early Sartre on Freedom and Ethics’, European Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming).
A copy can be downloaded from the module webpage, course materials.
Simont, Juliette, ‘Sartrean Ethics’ in C. Howells (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Sartre (Cambridge:
CUP, 1992).
Thomas, Alan ‘Alienation, Objectification, and the Primacy of Virtue’ in Jonathan Webber (ed)
Reading Sartre (Routledge, 2011).
Webber, Jonathan, The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, chapts. 10 & 11.