In this course, students may assess the multi-faceted objections raised to the Enlightenment paradigm.  Challenges will include those raised by historicists, feminists, existentialists, proponents of the sociology of knowledge, and others who hold that claims and the criteria by which they are justified are not derived from objective, universal reason but, rather from distinctive psycho-socio-historical perspectives.  Authors to be considered may include Kierkegaard, Freud, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, representative feminist thinkers, Husserl, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, and others.  In conjunction with The Rise of the Modern Spirit, this course will enable students to appreciate the methodological complexity of the philosophical and theological world in which they wish to pursue their studies.

Francis J. Ambrosio, Ph.D., Fordham University; Associate Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University.