PHIL 61.001 – FYS: The Self: Aspiration and Transformation
Instructor: Shanna Slank. This course meets TR 3:30 – 4:45 p.m. in GS 1370 .
Who are you? Who might you be one day? How much do you have control over the answers to these questions? And do the answers even really matter?
In the course, we will consider some recent work in analytic philosophy that contends that aspiration and transformation are central to how we understand ourselves and our lives. We will also consider less contemporary work–moral philosophers who argue for the importance of transcendence of self to living well and with meaning, as well as writings from the Buddhist tradition, which famously advises escape from and the elimination of the self.