EU432      Half Unit
The Philosophy of Europe

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

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In this course we will read and discuss texts that draw the history of Europe into relation with philosophy. In its most classical form the assertion of this relation belongs to an understanding of Europe’s history as inseparable from the project of a life predicated on reason. Europe, insofar as its cultural identity is caught up with the Greek ideal of scientific rationality, is not simply the place where philosophy was first elaborated and developed. On the contrary, Europe first arises as a place only in and through the elaboration and development of philosophy. Of course, philosophy is, in that name, a European phenomenon - although one which concerns above all the question, in principle open to anyone, of what it means to be a human being as such. Equally, however, Europe is itself a philosophical phenomenon - its identity inseparable from the idea of a project that concerns rational animality as such, and hence humanity as a whole.

The idea that Europe has a world-wide significance in virtue of its relation to philosophical thought is strikingly expressed in Kant’s prediction of “a great political body of the future” emerging in Europe, a kind of league of nations, that will probably “legislate” - that is, at least serve as a guiding example - for all humanity. Indeed, the global “cosmopolitan existence” posited by Kant as the final end of world history is not just a philosopher’s idea of humanity’s collective political destiny: the very idea of a universal human community is essentially philosophical. On this view, the (particular) history of the peoples of “our continent” has a relation to the (universal) destiny - the liberation or emancipation - of humanity world-wide. This is not simply because of the hegemonic political and economic ambitions of imperialist Europeans, but the world-wide movement of a cosmopolitan and humanist culture.

Starting with Kant’s classic essay on “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” we will turn to the way in which Europe is understood and elaborated within the post-Kantian tradition: in Hegel, Marx, Husserl, Valéry, Berlin, Fukuyama, and Derrida.

Although this course focuses on carefully selected philosophical texts, there is no expectation that students taking the course will have a background in philosophy. 

15 hours of seminars and 10 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.
1.5 hours of seminars in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

A review session will be held at the start of the Spring Term to prepare for the online assessment.

The Lecture slot will be in the form of a flipped-lecture, with the lecture itself available on Moodle in pre-recorded form.

Essay (2000 words)

Essay (2000 words)

• Immanuel Kant 'Idea of Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose', in Political Writings;
• Edmund Husserl 'The Vienna Lecture', in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology;
• Paul Valéry, 'The Crisis of Spirit' in History and Politics;
• Jacques Derrida, 'Of the Humanities and the Philosophical Discipline. The right to philosophy from the cosmopolitical point of view (the example of an international institution)' (online).

Written test (100%)

The written test for this course will be administered via Moodle. Questions will be made available at a set date/time and students will be given a set period in the ST to complete the answers to questions and upload their responses back into Moodle.