Introduction  (1 class)

PART I:  Self

First take-home

First paper

PART II:  Self (continued)

Second paper

PART III:  Self and other

Third paper

PART IV:  Case studies

Fourth paper (corrected day)

PART V:  Self and other (continued):  object relations theory

PART VI:  For the other

Second take-home

Conclusion  (1 class)

COURSE TOPIC:  philosophic and psychoanalytic approaches to the relation between self and other

COURSE GOALS:  Through readings in philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, students will achieve familiarity with some central ways of conceiving the relation between self and other; in class discussions and papers, students will learn to analyze, explain, compare and evaluate those views.  Students will be able to:

(SLO 1)  State a thesis about the self and its relationship to others, and critically analyze evidence and argument for the thesis drawing from the psychoanalytic and philosophical literatures.
(SLO 2)  Explain some of the principal concepts associated with different psychoanalytic and philosophical accounts of the self.
(SLO 3)  Identify different elements in the concept of the self as understood in more than one cultural or intellectual tradition.
(SLO 4)  Show how psychoanalytic theory is relevant to a philosophical understanding of the self, and indicate how case studies may have philosophical implications.

COURSE TEXTS:   the texts are available from the university bookstore unless otherwise noted; many of the texts also can be purchased on the internet at moderate cost.

PART I:
Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism” (handout)
Freud,  Civilization and Its Discontents (Norton)
Beauvoir, Diary of a Philosophy Student (selection) (handout)

PART II:
Freud, General Psychological Theory (Simon & Schuster)
Sartre, Being and Nothingness (Simon & Schuster)
Beauvoir, The Second Sex (Random House) (the new, improved, translation)

PART III:
Freud, General Psychological Theory (Simon & Schuster)
——–, The Ego and the Id (Norton)
Sartre, Search for a Method (selections) (1960) (online)

PART IV:
Freud, Three Case Histories:  The ‘Wolf Man’, The ‘Rat Man’ and The Psychotic Doctor Schreber
(Simon & Schuster)
Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Richard Philcox translation) (Grove/Atlantic)
Améry, At the Mind’s Limits (Indiana)

PART V:
Hamilton, Self and Others: Object Relations Theory in Practice (1988) (online)
Winnicott (selections) (online)

PART VI:
Levinas, “Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity” (online)
——–, Totality and Infinity (Duquesne)
Derrida, Adieu (Stanford) (online)

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Readings as assigned
Participation in class discussions
Class attendance
Two take-home written assignments
Three papers (5 to 7 pages)

ATTENDANCE:  Much of the important work in this course goes on in class.  Students are expected to be in attendance except in cases of illness, emergency religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity, to be present for the entire seventy-five minute period and not to make appointments that conflict with class sessions.  Graded assignments are based, in part, on class discussion.  As a result, it is to your disadvantage to miss class.

Attendance is required and will be taken at the beginning of each class session.  it is the student’s responsibility to sign the roll sheet in each class.  Students may miss three classes without penalty.  Five points will be subtracted from the final course grade for the fourth class missed and two points for each class missed after that.  Exceptions will be made in the case of illness, emergency, religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity.  A written excuse must be provided in timely fashion for exceptions to be made.

If you miss class, contact one of your fellow students to find out what we did in your absence and to get notes on the class you missed.  Once you have done that, you may wish to talk to the instructor about what you missed.

SPRING BREAK:  March 17 – 25, 2016

TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENTS:  The take-home assignments will be short essays.

PAPERS:  The papers will be essays (not research papers).  They will be five to seven pages long.  Students must complete three of the five assigned papers.  Papers are due as scheduled on the course outline.  You need use no books other than the course texts to write the papers.

In an essay, you state a thesis, explain it and argue for it.  The basic structure of an essay is:  an introduction in which you state your thesis, the body of the essay in which you explain and argue for your thesis, the conclusion in which you summarize or highlight what you have done in the essay.

Essays will be typed or word processed, double-spaced and in ten- or twelve-point type.  They will have a title and a title page.  The pages will be numbered.  There will be no extra spaces between paragraphs.  Long quotations will be block-indented.  They will be in finished form and without errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation.  All quotations will be accompanied by a reference in parentheses.  For example:

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself,” Sartre asserts (271).

Teenaged Beauvoir asks, “Certainly, I am very individualistic, but is this incompatible with the devotion and disinterested love of others?” (63).

According to Freud, in Civilization and Its Discontents, “what we call our civilization is largely responsible for our misery” (38).  Civilization, far from being an unalloyed good according to him, is the source of our neuroses:  “a person becomes neurotic because he cannot tolerate the amount of frustration which society imposes on him in the service of its cultural ideals” (39).

Winnicott thinks the capacity to be alone is a sign of psychological health:  “this capacity is one of the most important signs of maturity in emotional development” (“The Capacity to Be Alone,” 29).  He also thinks that our ability to be with others is crucial:  “Maturity of the human being is a term that implies not only personal growth but also socialization” (“From Dependence Towards Independence,” 83).

Derrida’s memorial piece on Levinas reflects Levinas’s concern with a way of speaking that is about the other, not about the self.  In it, he maintains that “all language that returns to the self, to us, would seem indecent” (2).

Levinas wants to know how we can relate to another person without simply subsuming him or her:  “But how can the same, produced as egoism, enter into relationship with an other without immediately divesting it of its alterity?  What is the nature of this relationship?” (38).

Fanon cries out in response to the objectification of the black man, “I came into this world anxious to uncover the meaning of things, my soul desirous to be at the origin of the world, and here I am an object among other objects” (89).

Améry’s ironic situation is the “necessity and impossibility of being a Jew” (82).

In the concentration camp, Améry says, resistance was the way to dignity:  “I gave concrete form to my dignity by punching a human face” (91).

Freud thinks we are attracted to another person solely for the pleasure he or she can give us:

In “Mourning and Melancholia,” he appears to have changed his mind.  Speaking about the process of mourning, he indicates that we have difficulty accepting the loss of another:

In general, you should have very few ellipses in quotations.  In addition, quotations should include complete sentences.  Here’s an example of what not to do:  Freud says that the testing of reality “requires forthwith that all the libido shall be withdrawn…a struggle…man never willingly abandons” (166).

Do not start your paper with a broad general claim about the paper topic, for example:  “The topic of the self has been discussed by human beings since the beginning of history.”  Such statements do not further your goals in writing an essay, namely, to state, explain and argue for a claim.  Every sentence in an essay, from the beginning to the end, fulfills one of those functions.  So, jump right in at the beginning and start fulfilling those functions and, at the end, make sure every part of your essay clearly fulfills one of those functions.

Essays will be evaluated on the following basis:

1.  Do you have the parts mentioned above (introduction, body, conclusion)?
2.  Do you fulfill the functions mentioned above (state thesis, explain it, argue for it, summarize or highlight)?  Do you argue against objections?
3.  Is the thesis you are writing about an interesting and important one?  Does your explanation of the thesis show that it is an interesting and important one?
4.  Do you explain basic concepts and terms in your essay and make them clear to the reader?  Do you explain text that you have quoted so that the reader can understand it and also can see how you understand it?
5.  Are your arguments clear and convincing to the reader?
6.  Do you use specific examples from the text you are writing about to make your arguments stronger?  Do you use direct quotations from the text you are writing about to make your arguments stronger?
7.  Does your conclusion summarize and highlight what you have done in the essay?
8.  Is the essay typed or word processed, double-spaced and in ten- or twelve-point type?  Does it include a title and a title page?  Are the pages numbered?  Does the essay have no extra space between paragraphs?  Is it in finished form and without errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation?  Are all quotations accompanied by a reference in parentheses?  Do you follow the other instructions regarding format given above?

EXTRA CREDIT:  1.  Any student who visits the instructor’s office during office hours to discuss the instructor’s comments on the first take-home will receive five extra points on that take-home.  To receive the points, the visit must take place before the due date for the second paper.  2.  Any student who visits the instructor’s office during office hours between February 6 and March 15 to discuss his or her progress in the course will receive five extra points on the second take-home.  To receive the points, the student must bring previous written assignments to the meeting.

EVALUATION:  Grades will be based on the first take-home assignment and the papers, weighted equally (1/2 each).  Excellent class participation may raise your grade somewhat over the mathematical average, at the discretion of the instructor.  Any points for non-attendance will be subtracted, and any extra credit points will be added, as described above.

Late papers and take-home assignments will lose a letter grade for each class session they are late.  Papers will be submitted on Canvas by midnight on the due date.  Papers submitted after that will be considered late.

Students will be held responsible for knowing what goes on in class.  Absences will not excuse you from knowing due dates of papers or take-homes.

The grading scale is:  94-100, A; 90-93 A-; 87-89 B+; 84-86 B; 80-83 B-; 77-79 C+; 74-76 C; 70-73 C-; 67-69 D+; 64-66 D; 60-63 D-; below 60, F.

It is the instructor’s policy that cheating, plagiarism or submission of written work for this course which was submitted in another course merits a course grade of ‘F’.

COURSE LINKS:  The course outline and class assignments are posted on the world wide web.  They can be accessed by visiting: <deborahachtenberg.com/courses> or by visiting Canvas.  They will also be distributed in class.

USE OF THE INTERNET:  Use of the internet for research purposes is appropriate.  However, students should use their own ideas in papers they write.  In addition, they should be aware that papers plagiarized from internet sources can easily be detected.

INTERNET RESOURCES:

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (the on-line edition of Routledge’s encyclopedia of philosophy)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (another good on-line encyclopedia of philosophy, this one from Stanford University)

Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper (In addition to suggestions I will make in class, you may find this webpage from Jim Pryor at NYU’s Department of Philosophy helpful.)

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (the electronic version of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, published in 1961, with updates)

Oxford English Dictionary  (the electronic version of the OED with the latest new and revised entries)

Freud:  Conflict and Culture (Library of Congress)

PLAGIARISM:  Plagiarism is a serious offense.  You plagiarize when you use someone else’s words or ideas without attribution.  When you do this, you are putting forward someone else’s work as if it were your own.

Changing a few words in a phrase or sentence is not enough to avoid plagiarism.  (1) Instead, when you utilize someone else’s exact phrases, put them in quotation marks and cite in parentheses the person whose words you have used.  (2) It is fine to paraphrase someone, but when you do, you must say so.  You can make it clear by saying “As Beauvoir says…” or “According to Winnicott…”.  (3) Finally, do not utilize even short phrases from another person’s work without a citation.  If you follow these three guidelines, you will find it is easy to use sources in your own writing without being academically dishonest.

CLASS FORMAT: This class will be a combination of lecture and discussion.  Discussions generally will have a focus rather than being general discussion or debate.  Students will be expected to respond to questions asking them to reflect on the texts and the issues raised, to speculate in a thoughtful way when not sure, and in general to participate in discussion.

Class discussions will refer to the course text.  Students will need to bring the course text to class if they are to benefit from lectures and discussions.

Web surfing and sending or reading e-mail or text messages during class are not allowed.  In addition, please refrain from carrying on extensive side conversations during class discussion, please silence cell phones before class and please do not eat during class.

STUDYING:  Many students will find that they do better work in this course if they study together with other students.

REQUIRED STATEMENT ON DISABILITY POLICY:  “Any student with a disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations is requested to speak with the Disability Resource Center (Thompson Building, Suite 101) as soon as possible to arrange for appropriate accommodations.”

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REQUIRED STATEMENT ON AUDIO AND VIDEO RECORDING:  “Surreptitious or covert video-taping of class or unauthorized audio recording of class is prohibited by law and by Board of Regents policy.  This class may be videotaped or audio recorded only with the written permission of the instructor.   In order to accommodate students with disabilities, some students may be given permission to record class lectures and discussions.  Therefore, students should understand that their comments during class may be recorded.”

REQUIRED STATEMENT ON EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND TITLE IX:  “The University of Nevada, Reno is committed to providing a safe learning and work environment for all. If you believe you have experienced discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, domestic/dating violence, or stalking, whether on or off campus, or need information related to immigration concerns, please contact the University’s Equal Opportunity & Title IX office at 775-784-1547. Resources and interim measures are available to assist you. For more information, please visit: https://www.unr.edu/equal-opportunity-title-ix.

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My office hours are Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon, or by appointment (101A Jones).  Please feel free to come by to discuss the course topics or your progress in the course.  I look forward to meeting with you for such discussions.  Please contact me as much as possible in person or by phone so that I can get to know you better!

Please note that I do advising in person, not by email. Please try to meet with me during my scheduled office hours, if possible.  If you cannot, and wish to make an appointment to see me at another time, call 784-6742 (my office), see me before or after class, or drop by my office and see if I am there, to make an appointment.  If you try to get in touch with me and cannot, leave a voice mail message or a note with your phone number so that I can call you.

Please do not send email messages informing me that you will not be attending class or asking me what we did in class.  Please use email sparingly, primarily in unusual or emergency circumstances:  <achten@unr.edu>.  I want to get to know you, and the best way for that to happen in the short time we have together is for us to meet in person.

course outline (hard copy)