LFU:online

Introduction to the philosophical-theological discussion of the 21st century and practice in reading challenging texts.

Catherine Pickstock's recent book Aspects of Truth belongs of the most outstanding philosophical-theological texts of the 21st century. And this is, to begin with, a matter of scale: She succeeds in exposing the metaphysical presuppositions of the analytic and continental traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries and, in the light of the most recent secular discussion on a 'new realism' (to be located beyond this division), in unmasking them as the product of preliminary decisions regarding the question of truth, the untenability of which is now openly apparent. Few secular philosophers would be able to approach the level of reflection of this book - simply because only few would able to combine a thorough familiarity with the philosophical discourse of the past two centuries with an equally thorough knowledge of its pre-modern prehistory. That, however, also makes reading this book a challenging task. For this reason, this seminar will also focus on practicing the reading of difficult philosophical-theological texts. Catherine Pickstock is Norris-Hulse Professor for Divinity at the University of Cambridge and a collaborator in the FWF research project Embodied Anthropology by Johannes Hoff and Enrico Grube.

Seminar with presentations and discussion.

Active participation in the class and seminar paper.

Catherine Pickstock, Aspects of Truth. A New Religious Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2020).

None.