Philosophy 439: Phenomenology

California State University, Northridge

Department of Philosophy

Fall, 2011

Syllabus

Course Description

(From the catalogue) A study of the phenomenological approach to issues such as the nature of consciousness, the role of intentionality and meaning in experience, and our experiential relations to others and the world around us. The focus will usually be on one or more historically significant phenomenologists, e.g., Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre.

Course Information for Course Number 18676

Meeting Times................................	Mondays from 4:00 to 6:45PM
Meeting Location............................	Jerome Richfield (JR) 221
Website............................................	http://www.christopherlay.com/f11phenomenology.html
Reading and Assignment Schedule.	http://www.christopherlay.com/f11phenomenology.html
Instructor.........................................	Christopher Lay, PhD
Contact............................................	christopher.lay@csun.edu (clay@csun.edu)
Office Location...............................	Sierra Tower (ST) 532
Office Hours...................................	Fridays 4:00 to 6:00PM and by appointment

Role in the General Education Program

This course satisfies the Lifelong Learning section of General Education, which has the following goal: Students will develop cognitive, physical and affective skills which will allow them to become more integrated and well-rounded individuals within various physical, social, cultural and technological environments and communities.

Texts

*	Simone de Beauvoir (2000), The Ethics Of Ambiguity, translated by Bernard Frechtman and published by Citadel.
*	Edmund Husserl (1982), Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, translated by F. Kersten and published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
*	Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2008), The World of Perception, translated by Oliver Davis and published by Routledge.

Course Grade and Assignments

Participation: 10%

First Take-Home Essay: 20%

Second Take-Home Essay: 30%

Final Take-Home Essay: 40%

Participation

Participation in philosophy is essential. You are expected to do the readings on schedule (i.e. before the class period indicated) and come to class prepared to discuss them. Class participation will decide borderline grades, either up or down, and in rare cases, extraordinary class participation can boost your final grade up a third (e.g., from 'B' to "B+"). Class participation will mainly be evaluated by the contribution the student makes toward the learning experience of the class as a whole. Note that discussing the substantive issues of the course in office hours and via email will also count as class participation.

Take-Home Essays

You will be given a prompt for all take-home essays, and approximately a week to write them. The essays for this class must be philosophical. In line with the Course Goals and Objectives (detailed above), you will have to represent some thesis from a text, and then critically engage with it. As such, your own essay must have a thesis and support for that thesis. To succeed in writing an essay in this philosophy course, you will need to constantly and clearly differentiate the point of view expressed in the text in question from your own point of view. And once you have shown that you can critically engage with the philosophical insights found in the texts in question, which requires you to represent the point of view in question, you will be encouraged to express your own philosophical insights. Other, specific expectations for take-home essays will be spelled out in detail in the respective essay prompts. For all essays you will be expected to correct errors in mechanics, usage, grammar, and spelling.

Late Paper Policy, and Extensions

Late take-home assignments will be accepted if you can provide a credible excuse (e.g., doctor's note, jury summons, obituary notice, etc.). Extensions for take-home assignments will be given only when 1) a compelling reason is given and 2) permission is sought at least three days before the normal deadline. Otherwise, late take-home assignments will be graded down one third of a letter grade for each day they are late.

Academic Integrity

If you submit someone else's ideas, words, or phrases, cite those individuals according to the conventions of some mainstream guideline, like those set out in the Chicago Manual of Style or the MLA Handbook. Plagiarism, cheating, or any other form of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. It is your responsibility as a student to know CSUN's academic dishonesty policy, as spelled out in the "Student Conduct" appendix to CSUN's catalogue. Any assignment produced in an academically dishonesty way will receive an "F" grade, and the student submitting it will be reported to the Dean of Student Affairs. Students who engage in academic dishonesty in more than one assignment will receive an "F" grade for the course. There are no exceptions to this policy: "I didn't know that what I turned in constituted plagiarism," "I forgot the quotation marks and citation," "It was only one sentence," or "It was an accident, it'll never happen again" are not valid excuses. Please, if you don't understand what plagiarism or academic integrity is, ask me.

Students with Disabilities

This course will accommodate any disability if you have registered with CSUN's Disability Resources and Educational Services.

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

(with embedded links to Lecture Notes)

Week One	Introductions & Course Overview
Monday, August 29^th	Introductions and Detailed Course Overview
Week Two	Labor Day
Monday, September 5^th	Labor Day
Week Three	Exemplar Contemporary Phenomenological Research Time-Consciousness
Monday, September 12^th	Handout: Dan Zahavi's "Inner Time-Consciousness and Pre-reflective Self-awareness"
Week Four	Exemplar Contemporary Phenomenological Research Gendered Consciousness
Monday, September 19^th	Handout: Sara Heinämaa's "Personality, Anonymity, and Sexual Difference: The Temporal Formation of the Transcendence of the Ego"
Week Five	Husserl's Ideas / "The Positing Which Belongs to the Natural Attitude and Its Exclusion"
Monday, September 26^th	Part Two, Chapter One (§§ 27 through 32)
Sunday, October 2^nd	First Essay Due via email by 11:59PM
Week Six	Husserl's Ideas / "Consciousness and Natural Reality"
Monday, October 3^rd	Part Two, Chapter Two
Week Seven	Husserl's Ideas / "Universal Structures of Pure Consciousness"
Monday, October 10^th	Part Three, Chapter Two (§§ 76-78 & §§ 80-86)
Week Eight	Husserl's Ideas / "Noesis and Noema"
Monday, October 17^th	Part Three, Chapter Three
Week Nine	Husserl's Ideas / "The Noematic Sense and the Relation to the Object"
Monday, October 24^th	Part Four, Chapter One
WEEK TEN	Interpreting Husserl's Intentionality
Monday, October 31^st	Ronal McIntyre and David Woodruff Smith, "Theory of Intentionality" (Handout) & Zahavi's "Husserl's Noema and the Internalism-Externalism Debate" (Excerpts/Handout)
Week ELEVEN	Merleau-Ponty's World of Perception / Science, Space, Sensory Objects, and Animals
Monday, November 7^th	Chapters One, Two, Three, and Four
Wednesday, November 9^th	Second Essay Due
Week TWELVE	Merleau-Ponty's World of Perception / Third-Personal Experiences of Man, Art, and Worlds
Monday, November 14^th	Chapters Five, Six, and Seven
Week THIRTEEN	de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity / Freedom and Ambiguity
Monday, November 21^st	Part One
Week FOurTEEN	de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity / Responses to Freedom
Monday, November 28^th	Part Two
WEEK FIFTEEN	de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity / Ethics
Monday, December 5^th	Part Three
Finals Week
Saturday, December 17^th	Final Essay Due via email by 11:59PM