American Philosophy

About this course:

American philosophy has its roots in the experimentalism that was required by a people who faced the task of coming to terms with the uncertainties of a radically new environment. In this course, we begin in the eighteenth century with the American Enlightenment, which was influenced by the European Enlightenment and associated with the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers (e.g., Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin). We then move into the nineteenth and twentieth century and take a look at transcendentalism and pragmatism, as well as personalism and existentialism; taking in William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Josiah Royce, Charles Sanders Pierce, Robert Johann, and D. Pollock. Our discussion culminates with a discussion of contemporary thought.